Put your finger on the page when you read (SAT & ACT)

For some reason, every time I offer this little pearl of wisdom to a student, I'm inevitably greeted with looks that range from dubious downright offended.

I can almost hear the person think, "But that's what I did in first grade. Putting your finger on the page is for little kids. Doesn't Erica get that I'm taking this test to get into college? I thought she was smarter than that. Besides, everyone will think that I look stupid!"

Guess what: not a single other test-taker in the room with you cares in the least whether you put your finger on the page or not. Everyone will be so focused on their own work that they won't have space in their brains to worry about what you're doing.

According to speed-reading expert Abby Marks Beale,

“because the eyes naturally follow movement, placing a finger, hand or card on a page and strategically moving it down the text, a reader will keep naturally keep their place, be more focused and read faster. This helps readers concentrate and understand what they read making reading a more satisfying experience.”

While I'm not sure that  most people are seeking"a satisfying reading experience" on the SAT or the ACT, they certainly are looking for increased speed and improved concentration.

This is not just about reading passages, by the way -- it helps on every part of the exam. On SAT Writing/ACT English, for example, your eye has a way of filling in the correct answer without your even realizing it (this is particularly true for adjective vs. adverb questions). Unless you look really, really closely, you often simply won't "see" the error, regardless of how well you understand what's being tested. And on Math, it's so easy to forget to solve for 2x and accidentally solve for x instead...

Putting your finger on the page may seem like a small thing, but if it saves you from overlooking key parts of questions, the pay-off can be massive.

Why it pays to be happy when you take the SAT or the ACT

I understand that for most high school juniors and (especially) seniors, the words "SAT" (or "ACT") and "happy" have absolutely no business appearing in the same sentence. But please hear me out.

I recognize that I'm speaking strictly anecdotally and from limited personal experience, but I seriously think this idea has some merit.

Two quick stories: one of my students who had already taken the SAT twice -- and not scored as well as he could have because of serious anxiety -- took his third test as a last-ditch effort the day after he was accepted early evaluation (non-binding) to his backup school. He was unbelievably relieved that he had actually managed to get into college somewhere, and when he took the test, he was practically walking on air.

With zero studying between that test and the previous one, he went up 130 points.

Another one of my students whose practice-exam scores had been all over the place took the SAT for real the day of a a championship soccer game. He was so excited to go play that he didn't give himself the chance to get nervous about the test -- and ended up with his best score ever.

Those experiences taught me a major lesson about test psychology. The more stressed out you are about a test going into it, the more likely you'll start to panic and second-guess yourself, and the less likely you'll be able to focus and work through things slowly and calmly -- which is what prevents you from making the kinds of careless, panicky mistakes that drag your score down. In retrospect that's seems obvious, but it's very easy to get caught up in "omigod I have to improve my score or I'll never get into xyz college" mentality and lose sight of everything else.

So the day you take the exam, try to plan something fun for afterward. Give yourself something to look forward to so that not everything is about the test. You'll thank yourself later.

How to Work Through Error-ID Questions Part 2: Examples and Strategies

So after yesterday's post about how to work through error-id questions, I'd like to give you some concrete examples.

Example #1:



In 1965, Betty Friedan's publication of The Feminine 
                                                            A
Mystique has marked a turning point that resulted in
                         B                                             C
improved labor rights and working conditions for
       D
women.  No error
                     E

Strategy:

The big "clue" in this question is the date 1965, which tells us that this is probably a tense question. So that means we're going to start  by checking the tenses of any underlined verbs, which in this case means choice B, "has marked."

Now, any finished event or action in the past (e.g. the publication of The Feminine Mystique, which occurred once) must be referred to by a verb in the simple past: "marked," not "has marked" (or, for that matter, "had marked").

So the answer is B. Notice that working from the clue made it unnecessary to even check any of the other answers.



Example #2


The findings of an astronomy team overseen by
                                                                    A
researchers at Stanford University has confirmed many
                                                                      B
of Einstein's strangest predictions about the nature
                            C                                  
of gravity. No error
D                     E

Strategy:

Since there's no obvious clue in this sentence, we're going to start by looking for the option most likely to be incorrect. In this case it's choice B it could either be a subject-verb agreement question (because you can say either "has confirmed" or "have confirmed") OR a tense question. 

Since there's no date or time period, however, we know right away that tense probably isn't the issue. So we're going to check the subject. It's "findings," which is plural; "has" is singular, so right there you have your answer. 

This is a classic subject -- prepositional phrase -- verb question. It's tricky, and so it would probably show up close to the end of a section. 

Example #3

The snakehead fish, a rapidly reproducing predator, has so 

                                          A                                                   B

voracious an appetite that it can wipe out entire schools of 

fish and destroy entire ecosystems when placed outside  

                   C                                                                                 

its native habitat.  No error

D                                  E

Strategy: Again, here, there's no obvious error, so we're going to check in order of what's most likely to be wrong. 

The first thing we notice is the word "its." That's usually a very dangerous word in this section, so we're going to start with it. In this case, it refers to "the snakehead fish," which is also singular, so "it" actually checks out. 

When a word that is commonly wrong turns out to be right, that's a hint the answer might be "No error." But we have to check out everything else just to be sure.

We're going to check choice C next because it's a verb in the present tense and is therefore also a top error candidate.

Choice C: there's nothing to suggest that "destroy" is in the wrong tense; it's also parallel to "wipe out" (it can wipe out...it can destroy), which means there's no issue.

Now we move to the other options.

Choice A: "rapidly" is adverb, so we stick in the adjective: "a rapid reproducing predator." No -- an adverb is necessary to modify "reproducing," which functions as an adjective. 

Choice B: "so" might sound a little funny, but it's half of a word pair, and here is correctly paired with "that." It's fine.

Which means that we've demonstrated the answer must be E. 

How to Work Through Error-Identification Questions

Every time I hear someone advise SAT-takers to "just try to hear the error" on Error-ID questions, I get the overwhelming urge to smack them. This kind of thinking overlooks one exceedingly important fact: many Error-ID sentences are precisely constructed so that you won't hear the error!

Sure, you can use your ear on a lot of the easy questions and some of the medium ones, but on the hard ones...you'll get trampled on. If you want a score above the 500s, you have to know actually know what you're looking for.

If you don't immediately pick up on an error, you must work from the underlined words and phrases themselves. Particular types of underlined words often suggest particular types of errors, and if everything does indeed check out, you can pick option E with something resembling confidence.

While I'm not going to go through the entire list of everything that could possibly be wrong with Error-ID questions (you can find that list here, along with examples), I am going to cover only the  most frequently occurring errors. So here goes. In order of what you should check:

1) Underlined Verbs

An underlined verb can have two possible errors: subject-verb agreement and tense.

If a verb is in the present tense, start by checking the subject. Make sure you cross out any potential distractions such as non-essential clauses and prepositional phrases, and make sure you identify the entire subject.

If the agreement is ok, see if the tense works. Although there could theoretically be a lot of different errors involving tense, there really aren't most of the time. The main thing to remember is that verb tenses and forms should remain consistent (or parallel) throughout a sentence unless there's good reason for them to change.

The inclusion of a date or time period often indicates a tense question, so if you see one, check tenses first. Remember: any finished event that occurred in the past (e.g. the Civil War) must be talked about in the simple past ("it happened," not "it has happened").

Gerunds and infinitives (e.g. "to go" and "going") get switched, and "would" and "will" get switched, so if one of those is underlined, plug in the other one and see if it works better.

2) Pronouns

Next to verb errors, pronoun errors are most likely to occur. If a pronoun is underlined, check to make sure that it "matches" the noun it refers to.

Singular pronouns (like "it" or "its") must refer to singular nouns, and plural pronouns ("they" or "their") must go with plural nouns.

If the word "it" appears, check it first because it's most likely wrong.

"One" goes with "one"
"You" goes with "you"
Any singular person goes with "he or she," never "they"

Keep in mind that about 1/3 of all grammar questions deal with either verbs or pronouns, so if there's no problem with either of these things, there's already a decent chance the answer will be E. 

3) Lists 

All of the items in a list must be the same: noun, noun noun; verb, verb, verb, etc. If a sentence includes a list, there's a good chance there's an error in it.

3) Adjective and Adverbs

Adjectives and adverbs are switched only with one another. If an adjective is underlined, stick in the adverb (e.g. if "calm" is underlined, stick in "calmly"). Adverbs themselves are almost never wrong.

4) Faulty Comparison

Compare people to people and things to things (e.g. The novels of Jane Austen are more widely read than those of Charlotte Bronte, NOT: The novels of Jane Austen are more widely read than Charlotte Bronte)

Always be on the lookout for expressions such as "more less/less than" that indicate things that are being compared, especially toward the ends of sections.

Also look out for a mention of artists and authors. They tend to be included in faulty comparisons.

5) Word Pairs

"Either...or," "Neither...nor," "As...as" and "Not only...but also" are the most common words pairs on Error-IDs. They tend to only be included when there's something wrong with them.

6) Prepositions and Idioms

This is the one place you do have to trust your ear. If a preposition sounds wrong to you (e.g. "She is familiar in the paintings of Marc Chagall), it probably is.

7) More vs. Most

If the word "more" is underlined, see how many things are being compared. If it's two, you're fine; if it's more than two, you need "most." (e.g. "Between the dog and the cat, the dog is more outgoing but the cat is more independent" BUT "the cat is the most independent of all domestic animals.")

8) Noun Agreement

Plural subject = plural noun

Look for the phrase "as a + profession" (writer, director, entomologist...)

Steven Spielberg and James Cameron are recognized as the directors (not: the director) most responsible for producing hit action movies.


So no, this isn't everything that could possibly show up, but if you don't see one of these errors, don't twist yourself into knots looking for something that probably isn't there.

Just study a little bit at a time

I'm the first person to admit that studying for the SAT is exhausting. After even an hour-and-a-half of tutoring, I often find that I need to take a long walk to clear my head. Sometimes spending 90 minutes explaining why choice (A) wrong because it contains a single incorrect word while choice (C) is actually right because it restates the main idea of lines 25-42, only in more abstract terms, is just so intense that it really does take me a while to recover. Given that, I find it amazing anyone could study for a standardized test for a long stretches of time.

My advice is, quite simply, "don't." Studying for the SAT or the ACT can be exhausting. If you treat them like a sort of mind game or logic puzzle, these tests can also be fun, but let's face it, a lot of the time, they're not. Especially if you're sitting down to the Official Guide after doing two hours of AP Calc homework and trying to write that essay on Ulysses.

The most important thing for SAT/ACT prep is that you study consistently, not that you study a lot at a time. If you try to swallow the whole thing at once, you'll get burned out and frustrated, and the test will start to seem totally overwhelming. Instead, spend maybe 15 minutes a day prepping, and only focus on the things you don't know how to do. You won't forget the other stuff.

Studies have shown that the people at the top of their fields spend most of the practice time strengthening their weakest skills rather than simply doing rushing through everything they're already good at. The same applies to the SAT and the ACT. Quantity of studying does not equal quality of studying.

You will need to spend some time figuring out which kinds of questions give you the most trouble, but once you've determined that, make a list of the rules/concepts you don't know, and work through them one at a time. Fifteen minutes a day every day is better than doing nothing for two months and then trying to cram in two or three hours a day. You'll be be calmer, retain more information, and your score will most likely improve more than it would have otherwise.

Not Everything is a Trick (SAT Reading & Writing)

Because the "trickiness" of the SAT gets so much discussion, it's fairly common for people to develop a minor hang-up about picking answers they think are too obviously correct.

I've had students who, after working carefully through problems, repeatedly talked themselves out of right answers because they believed that those answers were too obviously correct and therefore had to be some kind of trap. This kind of thinking is very dangerous because it goes back to the idea that SAT answers somehow exist independently of the questions themselves and are only correct because the College Board deems them to be so.

Now, if you just rush through a question without really bothering to analyze it or work through it carefully, then yes, there's a pretty good chance you might not come up with the right answer -- but that's because you didn't work carefully, not because the test is somehow unfair.

"Trick answers" are based on the fact that most people do not work carefully and are inclined to make particular mistakes in particular situations. Given the constraints of the multiple-choice format, they're one of the ways in which the test distinguishes between the people who really know what they're doing and the ones who are just trying to slide by on tricks of their own.

I think that a lot of the time when people complain about the supposed "trickiness" of the SAT, they're actually complaining about the fact that they have to work really meticulously. I don't deny it: it's hard, it's boring, and it just plain sucks a lot of the time. But that doesn't make wrong answers any less wrong.

The truth is that if you employ any careful process of logic to arrive at an answer, and that answer appears among the choices, there's a good chance it'll be correct. There are no "double tricks" (as some of my students have thought) in which the College Board anticipates the whole logical process you use to get the answer and then makes it something else just for fun.

They're not actually that mean. Seriously.

Consider a Counter-Example (SAT & ACT Essay)

One of the most effective elements you can add to your essay on either the SAT or the ACT is the counter-example. When used properly (i.e. in a way that does not confuse the reader about the argument you're making), it can be the difference between an ok (8-9) score and a high one (10-12). Why? Because it shows that you're capable of considering potential weaknesses in or objections to your argument, and of addressing those objections.

Where to put the counter-example: there are a couple of places. In the simplest version, you don't even need to use a full-fledged example but simply acknowledge the opposing argument briefly in your introduction using an "while many people believe x, in fact y" structure.

So, for example, if the prompt is: "Should people take more responsibility for solving problems that affect their communities or the nation in general?" you could say something like: "While a common American myth asserts that individuals are responsible exclusively for their own actions, in reality no individual exists in isolation, and people should therefore attempt to take a more active role in improving both their individual communities and their societies at large."

The second option is to devote the last body paragraph (typically the third) to the counter-example.  Note: this is far easier to do on the ACT essay than on the SAT essay; the extra five minutes can make a big difference in terms of having a fully developed third paragraph. If you only have time for two bodies paragraphs, each of which argues a different side of the prompt, there's a good chance your essay will end up a mess.

The third option is simply to stick it in as a sentence or two at the beginning of your conclusion; in this case it's simply a shortened version of option #2.

Regardless of whether you do #2 or #3, you must use a clear transition that indicates a counter-argument (e.g. "On the other hand, people often argue that..." or "A common objection to this argument is that...") and make sure to refute it! (e.g. "While this is indeed true in the case of..., the reality is that far more often..."). Otherwise you risking losing the thread of your argument and leaving your reader without a clear idea of what you're trying to say.

Be careful with familiar subjects (SAT & ACT Reading)

Thanks to Mike from PWN the SAT for pointing this out to me after my post about why prep books aren't enough if you want to kick butt on Reading. While it does come in handy to have a context for what you're reading, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Even if you've heard this before, you can stand to hear it again: when it comes to Reading, the correct answer can always be determined based on the information in the passage and the passage alone. Do not ever pick an answer unless it is directly supported by the passage itself; it doesn't matter how much it appeals to you otherwise. If it's not in the passage, it's wrong, end of story.

That said, I'm also going to suggest something mildly heretical in the land of test-prep: if you do have prior knowledge of a topic and an answer happens to fit both with that knowledge and with the general point of the passage itself (that second one is really key), I'd suggest you check that answer first. In my experience, it often will be correct. The SAT and the ACT reward smart guessing, and making a logical conjecture often pays off. But I emphasize that this is just a strategy for potentially getting to the correct answer faster. You should never pick an answer based strictly on your knowledge of a subject.

The *only* time I would ever even maybe suggest you try this without going back to the passage would be if you had five seconds left to finish the section, thought the answer could work based on your knowledge of the passage, and felt like taking a walk on the wild side (relatively speaking). But even then, you might want to play it safe.

Why prep books aren't enough if you want to kick butt on Reading

One of the biggest dangers of relying exclusively on prep books for Reading practice is that you start to think doing well on that section is all about short snippets of perplexing information totally removed from anything else in the universe.

In fact, the exact opposite is true. Many SAT and ACT passages deal with recent topics and controversies in the sciences and humanities. That doesn't necessarily make them interesting, but it does make them more about just the SAT. The more you read, the more you get a sense of the circumstances surrounding them, the better your comprehension will be and the more easily you'll answer questions.

An anecdote*: while browsing in a bookstore during my junior year of high school, I happened to pick up a book called The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. It's the story of a Hmong refugee family and their struggles to navigate the American healthcare system for their severely epileptic daughter. It was well-written and an interesting read, if somewhat sad, so I stood there in the bookstore perusing it for maybe 45 minutes. I assure you that the SAT was the furthest thing from my mind.

But guess what:

An excerpt from it showed up when I took the SAT. (The same one also resurfaced in 2005, so who knows, they might reuse it again...) Guess how much trouble I had figuring out what that passage was talking about.

Now, was I actively trying to study for the SAT when I walked into the bookstore? Absolutely not. But that's what I mean when I say that studying for the SAT isn't just about prep books.

I'm never know quite how to respond when a student tells me that he or she doesn't enjoy reading and rarely does it for pleasure but will settle for nothing less than a perfect score. The truth is that the people at the College Board know exactly what sorts of words and phrases will throw off the people who don't read sophisticated material on a regular basis, and they make sure to include just enough of them (10 questions, to be precise) to make getting above a 700 in Reading a real challenge.

So if you really, really want that fantastic Reading score, put down your Kaplan guide, get yourself to the bookstore or the library, and pick up an actual book. What a shocking idea.

*bold denotes a common SAT word 

When to Start Studying for the SAT or the ACT

The short answer: the summer before junior year. In the meantime, take the hardest classes you can reasonably handle, read lots of challenging material, and work on expanding your vocabulary. Then worry about the SAT. If you've got the skills covered, the actual test won't be that overwhelming. If you're weak on the fundamentals, strategy won't get you very far. 

The long answer: I think that most people recognize that the SAT and the ACT are not tests you can really cram for. Sure, you can memorize a couple of last-minute strategies and rules, but how far they'll actually get you is debatable. Unless your underlying comprehension of the concepts that these tests actually cover is truly rock-solid and you just need to know about some quirks of the test (e.g. that the College Board considers collective nouns such as "city" or "organization" to be singular), it can be very hard to apply rules you've just learned to unfamiliar questions. 

On the other hand, it can be just as harmful to start studying for the SAT or the ACT too early. I always hesitate when someone asks me to do serious SAT prep with a student before the second semester of their sophomore year, and I get really concerned whenever I hear about someone who started prepping as soon as they entered high school. 

I've worked with a couple of SAT students who fell into the latter category, and inevitably they were stuck somewhere in the mid-600's. They had taken dozens of practice exams and knew the test inside and out, but they couldn't seem to connect the material to anything outside the test itself. They thought that everything was about strategy and memorization, and they lacked (and resisted developing) the flexibility to change their approach based on the particularities of a given question -- deadly if you're trying to crack 700 because this ability is a big part of what the SAT tests.

People who start prepping too early also burn out early; by the time they hit junior year, they've had it with test-prep and simply don't care anymore. Even if they do have the skills to get their score higher, they're too exhausted to make use of them.

The bottom line is that you shouldn't make the SAT out to be more than it's worth. It's a test -- a very important test to be sure, but you shouldn't let it dictate your life. At least not for more than a couple of months;) 

Shortcut: I vs. Me (SAT Writing)

As I discussed in yesterday's post (http://ultimatesatverbal.blogspot.com/2011/05/between-you-and-me-right-between-you.html), any pronoun that follows a preposition must be an object pronoun (me, her, him, us, them rather than I, she, he, we, they).

I realize, however, that most people do not want to think about prepositions and subject and object pronouns, especially while they're taking the SAT, so now I'm going to give you the shortcut:

Whatever goes for singular also goes for plural  

The SAT almost always pairs pronouns with a proper names (e.g. Jesse and I; she and Maria), so if you cross out the proper name, you'll virtually always be able to hear whether there's an error.

Let's look at a couple of examples 

Incorrect: After nearly a month, the teacher finally returned the report to Sarah and I.

The first thing that we can notice is that we have a name (Sarah) paired with a pronoun (I). If we cross  out the words "Sarah and," we are left with:

Incorrect: After nearly a month, the teacher finally returned the report to I.

Would you say that? Of course not. You'd say, "The teacher finally returned the report to me." So you'd also say:

Correct: After nearly a month, the teacher finally returned the report to Sarah and me.

Or:

Incorrect: Tom and me went to the baseball game yesterday after school.

Cross out:

Tom and me went to the baseball game yesterday after school.

If you wouldn't say "Me went to the baseball game," you wouldn't say, "Tom and me went to the baseball game" either. The sentence should therefore read:

Correct: Tom and I went to the baseball game yesterday after school.

Between you and me = RIght; Between you and I = Wrong (SAT Writing)

This is another one of those lovely "true 100% of the time" rules -- they pop up so infrequently on the SAT that you really do appreciate them when they appear. Even better, this is a rule that the College Board tests pretty often, so there's a decent chance you'll come across it in any given Error-ID section.

And if you do happen to encounter it, it's an easy point. You don't even have to think about the other options.

Here's why:

"Between" is a preposition, and prepositions are always followed by object (rather than subject) pronouns.

Subject Pronouns

I
You
She/He
We
You
They

Object Pronouns

Me
You
Her/Him
Us
You
Them

Since the "You" forms are identical in subject and object form, SAT does not test them. Most often, it tests the first person singular (I vs. Me) or third person singular (He vs. Him).

Subject Pronouns are used subjects, while Object pronouns can be used as objects (I know, big shock there).

To give an obvious example, you would say, "I went to the store," not "Me went to the store" because "I" is a subject pronoun; but you would say "I see her," not "I see she" because "her" is an object pronoun.

Likewise, you'd say "This book is for her," not "This book is for she."

Thus, you would always say "between you and me" (preposition + object pronoun + object) pronoun, NOT "between you and I" (preposition + object pronoun + subject pronoun)

Do the Grammar Questions First (ACT English)

This tip goes along with yesterday's theme of "first do all the questions you can answer quickly, then worry about the stuff that requires you to actually think."

If you find yourself in the habit of slowing down on the rhetoric questions and then having to race at the end of the English sections, please consider trying this out. (On the other hand, if you're fine on time and have no issues with rhetoric questions, you can ignore this post.)

On ACT English, you have 45 minutes for 75 questions, divided into five passages with 15 questions each. That breaks down into 9 minutes per passage, or a little over 30 seconds per question.

As you may already know, however, some ACT English questions take far more time to finish than others. Grammar questions are often fairly straightforward and can often be done in a matter of seconds. However, rhetoric questions, especially ones that require you to reread substantial portions of the passage, can take much longer.

Now, rhetoric questions are usually located at the end of each passage -- but not always. Sometimes they come right at the beginning. Sometimes they're mixed in with grammar questions. When that's the case, forget them for a little bit. Mark the ones you skip so you won't forget to come back to them later, then do all the grammar questions.

If you get done with the grammar questions before the 9 minutes are up, go back to the rhetoric questions you skipped; if not, move on and do the same thing for the next passage (but don't forget to guess on the ones you skipped; it can't hurt you).

Your goal should be to get as many questions right as fast as you can. No question counts more than any other question, so it's in your interest to first do all the questions you're sure of, then worry about the ones you're shaky on.

So the bottom line is:  don't waste time working on a question you might not get right at the expense of working on a question you'll definitely get right.

Save Time-Consuming Questions for Last (SAT & ACT Reading)

If you are not, under any circumstances, willing to jump around within sections, then please skip this post.

If you are willing to do so, however, this is a strategy you might want to try. It's based on the principle that since (1) you have a limited amount of time, and that (2) every reading question, easy or hard, is worth exactly the same number of points, your goal should be to obtain as many points as quickly as possible.

However: since reading questions are presented in no particular order of difficulty, you need to do a little bit of work upfront to identify questions likely to take you a while to answer before you get caught up in them and waste a couple of minutes better spent answering two or three other questions quickly.

While I do understand that different questions are hard for different people, the following types of questions generally tend to be more time-consuming than others because it is very difficult to answer them based on a general knowledge of the passage; you must almost always go back and read carefully:

-Which of the following? I, II, and III

These tend to take the most time, so they should be the last questions you do. Especially on the ACT, where you can go crazy trying to locate the necessary information.

-Analogy questions

The SAT only pretended to get rid of analogies. A question that asks, "Which of the following is most analogous to the situation described in lines x...y?)" involves several steps of logic and usually takes a little while to figure out.

-Passage 1/Passage 2 relationship questions 

Usually these appear after the questions asking about the passages individually, but sometimes they're mixed in with them.

-ACT questions that ask about dates or years. 

Although these questions may seem straightforward, the exact information rarely appears directly in the passage, and it is often necessary to perform some basic calculations in order to determine the answer.

-"Which of the following would most undermine/refute the argument in lines x...y" questions

These also usually require a couple of steps of logic

-All of the following EXCEPT 

While you can often eliminate a couple of answers based on your memory of the passage, there's often no way to be certain unless you go back and hunt for the others.

To learn something new...

you need time and freedom to experiment. You need to fail before you succeed. 


I came across this snippet of wisdom in, of all places, the comments section of a New York Times article about the recent explosion of Kumon tutoring centers throughout New York City. In case you're interested, it's at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/15/fashion/with-kumon-fast-tracking-to-kindergarten.html?ref=education. 


The article, which details the latest fad that over-anxious NYC parents have seized on in order to give their precious darlings a leg up on the competition, is predictable Times fare; the comments, however, contain a good deal of common sense from people who realize that rote drilling and cramming from the age of three is not the guaranteed path to Harvard that some people seem to think it is.  I didn't become a "fluent" reader until the age of seven (horror of horrors, I wasn't even in the highest reading group in first grade!), but that didn't stop me from devouring every book I could get my hands on once I did figure it out. 


But enough about that. I do actually have a point.


Learning to take the SAT or the ACT is like learning to do anything. If you really want to improve, you have to be willing to take risks and fall flat on your face a bunch of times before things start to get better. You need to be willing to experiment, to struggle, and to accept that sometimes things get worse before they get better. Call it the zen of standardized testing.


The only people I have ever worked with who did not improve significantly were the ones who steadfastly refused to try anything new and then got frustrated when nothing changed. Sticking to your comfort zone might make you feel better, but it won't do much to change your score. If you're not comfortable skipping around within a section, for example, that's fine, but you need to be ok with the fact that it might cost you a lot of points.


Believe me when I say there's no magic formula; you can't just memorize a bunch of tricks and expect your score to skyrocket instantly. The people at the College Board and the ACT throw in just enough exceptions that tricks alone won't work. They make sure of it. 

Fixing Sentences: Rules for Picking Answers (SAT Writing)

Beyond the fact that Fixing Sentences comprises about half of the SAT multiple-choice Writing questions (25/49), it is significant for another reason: it's alway Section 10, the last section of the test.

The good news is that at 10 minutes, it's the shortest section. The bad news is that when you get to it, you'll have already sat through 4.5 hours of testing.

Unfortunately, Writing has the steepest curve of the three sections. While missing five questions will cost you about 50 points on Critical Reading, it will cost you 100 on Writing.

You must therefore be absolutely systematic in attacking each question. And given that you won't have a brain cell to spare when you deal with the last of Fixing Sentences, you need to know what you're looking for.

The following rules provide general guidelines for selecting answer choices. They won't get you the answer for every question, but for the vast majority, they will allow you to eliminate incorrect options faster and with less chance of second-guessing yourself.

1) Shorter is better

Since the SAT prizes conciseness, shorter answers are more likely to be correct. To save yourself time, look at answer choices from shortest to longest.

Particularly at the beginnings of sections, it is highly unlikely that one of the longer answers will be correct, and by checking the shorter ones first, you can save huge amounts of time.

Furthermore, whenever you are stuck between two answers, both of which are grammatically correct and express the same essential information, the shorter one will always be correct.

2) Gerunds (-ING), especially "Being" = BAD

Gerunds create sentence fragments and make things unnecessarily awkward. When given the the choice between a gerund a conjugated verb, go for the latter.

If you cross out all of the gerunds and don't see anything that works, then you can reassess, but normally if you start out by assuming that answers containing gerunds are incorrect, you'll be right.

3) Passive Voice = BAD

Active: The politician gave the speech.
Passive: The speech was given by the politician.

Like gerunds, passive voice can make things unnecessarily wordy and long (and shorter is better, remember?) If you have to choose between an active and a passive version of the same sentence, go for the active one.

In addition, make sure you look out for the following:

-Comma Splices (always wrong)
-Non-Essential Clauses (answer is always right when it contains a correctly used NEC)
-Semicolon + however, therefore, moreover, or consequently (probably right)
-Semicolon + FANBOYS conjunction (always wrong)
-Answers that include the following words: plus, whereby, this, it, and that (usually wrong)


Let's see how that applies to a real question:


A poetic form congenial to Robert Browning was the 
dramatic monologue, it let him explore a character’s 
mind without the simplifications demanded by stage 
productions.


(A) monologue, it lets him explore
(B) monologue, which let him explore 
(C) monologue that lets him explore 
(D) monologue; letting him explore 
(E) monologue by letting him do exploration of

Strategy: if you recognize that (A), the original version of the sentence, is a comma splice, so it can be eliminated immediately. (D) and (E) contain gerunds, so they can also be eliminated, leaving us with (B) and (C). Choice (C) is shorter, but the verb ("lets") is in the present, whereas the rest of the sentence is in the past, so (B) is the answer.

The "Other" Kind of Parallel Structure (SAT Writing)

If you've already spent a reasonable amount of time studying for SAT Writing, there's a pretty good chance you've seen parallelism questions that look like this:

Incorrect: Susan likes running, playing soccer, and to hike.

Correct: Susan likes running, playing soccer, and hiking.

In case you're unfamiliar with the rule, it's that all of the items in a list (typically three) must be in the same format: either verb, verb, verb; noun, noun, noun; or gerund, gerund, gerund. No mixing and matching!

But "lists" involving three items aren't the only of parallelism that gets tested on the SAT. In fact, there's another kind that only deals with two items.

Two-part parallelism, while based on the same principle, is a little bit trickier. Instead of dealing with words, it deals with entire phrases. Furthermore, because most prep books don't even cover it, many people get caught off guard when they encounter it on the actual test.

Here's the rule:

The construction of a phrase on one side of a given conjunction must match the construction of the phrase on the other side of that conjunction as closely as possible.

I realize that's very abstract, so let me give you an example:

Incorrect: The researchers called for enforcement of tobacco regulations as well as investigating motivations for smoking.

The first thing we can notice about this sentence is that it contains a conjunction, "as well as," and that there is a phrase on either side of it.

So what were the two things researchers called for?

1) Enforcement of tobacco regulations (noun + of + adjective + noun)

2) Investigating motivations for smoking (gerund + noun + preposition + noun)

Clearly, the two sides do not match. The SAT will virtually always ask you to correct the second side, and so we need to rewrite the second side in accordance with the structure "noun + of + noun," which is the absolute classic structure that the SAT loves to use.

Correct: The researchers called for the enforcement of tobacco regulations as well as an investigation of motivations for smoking.

If it helps, think of it as the English equivalent of balancing an equation.

Now here's why it's really important that you be able to both recognize and correct this type of error with little to no effort:

it usually shows up at the end of Fixing Sentences -- typically as either the last or the second-to-last question of the section (#10 or 11 on the first section; #13 or 14 on the second), so there's a very good chance you'll see it after sitting through four-and-a-half hours or more of testing. You won't have the energy to think about it. The good news is that if you can recognize what the question is testing, you can usually jump right to the answer choice.

For example, let's consider the following real question (October '06 test, section 10, #14):

Acquaintances of Alexei have commented that he is at once annoying because of his unpredictability but his imagination is still a delight.

(A) but his imagination is still a delight
(B) although he is delightfully imaginative
(C) and he is delightful in his imagination too
(D) while being imaginative and they are delighted
(E) and delightful because of his imagination

If you can spot that the essential structure before the conjunction is "adjective + because of + noun," you know that the other side must contain that same construction as well. If you just look for the words "because of," that leads you right to E, which is indeed the answer.

ACT With or Without Writing?

If you're planning to take the ACT and aren't a big fan of writing timed essays, you're probably tempted to sign up for the ACT without writing.

Please don't do it.

An increasing number of colleges, including many large state universities (e.g. the University of Illinois), do require the ACT with Writing, and you risk seriously limiting your options if you take it without.

Furthermore, most colleges will not let you mix and match scores: if you take the ACT twice, once with writing and once without, you cannot simply tack your writing score onto the non-Writing test; that entire test will be considered, not just the essay portion.

The good news is that the essay score does not get factored into your overall score; a 32 composite with an 8 essay stays a 32 composite.

But without that essay score, your ACT won't count at all.

Rhetorical Strategy Shortcuts (SAT Critical Reading)

One of my favorite things to say about the SAT is that it's a moderately difficult test dressed up to appear much harder than it actually is. The skills that the SAT covers are not terribly advanced -- it's just that it tests those skills indirectly. The hard part is figuring out which piece of knowledge to apply, not the actual piece of knowledge itself

As I've mentioned before, a lot of SAT questions have "back doors" that can lead you to the answer almost instantaneously. The people who do the best on the SAT are generally the ones who can spot those back doors immediately and who, as a result don't get lost in the details or waste a lot of mental energy playing trial and error.

Rhetorical strategy questions almost always contain these back doors, and learning to recognize them can help you to find the answer in a matter of seconds.

Let's assume you encounter the following (real) question on a Passage 1/Passage 2 set: 

Both passages make use of which of the following: 

(A) Political allusion

(B) Direct quotation

(C) Rhetorical questioning

(D) Personal anecdote

(E) Extended metaphor 

When most people see a question like this, they scramble frantically to remember just what their English teacher said about metaphors and allusions... And right about the time they realize that they're not 100% sure what an anecdote is, panic inevitably starts to set in.

They race back to the passages and start to skim through them, not really sure what they're looking for but thinking that just maybe the answer will leap out at them. And when it doesn't, they decide to just pick C because hey, that sounds like it could be correct, and it's more likely to be C than any other answer, right? (It's not, and it isn't.) 

Sound familiar? 

If not, you're lucky, but for the rest of you, keep reading. 

The most important things to know about tackling these kinds of questions is that some answers are much easier to check out than others, and that you should always start by working from the most concrete to the most abstract answer. More often than not, the answer will be the most straightforward option. 

In this case, "direct quotation," choice B, is the easiest answer to look for. It'll be an option on many rhetorical strategy questions, and you should always start with it. In this case, you can just skim through the passages to check for phrases in quotation marks. If you see them, there's your answer. (It is actually the answer to this question). Over in about five seconds, and you didn't need to really reread anything. 

If that weren't the answer, however, you'd move to the next easiest answers to check: C and D. 

(C) Just look for question marks. If you don't find them in both passages, get rid of the answer. It's highly unlikely that there will be questions in both passages, one of which is rhetorical and the other not. The SAT doesn't generally employ that level of trickiness.

(D) Even if you don't know what an "anecdote" is (it's a story), the word "personal" tells you to look for the words "I" or "my." If it's there, it's the answer; if not, cross it off. 

So that would leave you with A and E. Which is easier to check? Well, even if you don't know what an "allusion" is (it's a reference), you can certainly check for stuff about politics. If you find it, pick A. If not, pick E.

As a side note, however, it is exceedingly unlikely that you'd get two passages with extended metaphors. P1/P2 passages tend to contain significant stylistic differences, and if one is based around a metaphor, the other is likely to be very straightforward. 

High-Scoring SAT Essay Examples

For an extremely enlightening view of what some juniors and seniors are capable of coming up with in 25 minutes, I highly suggest you consult College Confidential thread of 11 and 12 essays (http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/409070-sample-sat-12-essays.html).

The thread does a pretty great job of dispelling the notion that there's some sort of magic formula guaranteed to result in a high score: some of the essay are quite conventional, but others are wildly out of the box and include things that most SAT tutors in their right minds would never dare to suggest.

Thanks to Michelle Cronin for originally posting this link on her blog.

Look Out for Words with Multiple Meanings (SAT Vocabulary)

Sometimes the most difficult vocabulary questions on the SAT don't deal with words you've never seen before. Instead, they deal with common, everyday words -- they're just used in ways most people don't expect. And not realizing that the SAT is testing their second or third meaning, most people don't hesitate to cross them off, even when they're correct.

The list below contains a number of very common words, along with their less common definitions. Ones that have shown up on recent SATs are marked with an asterisk. You shouldn't go crazy over these because the SAT is far more likely to test words like trite, paradigm, multifarious, and esoteric, but you should keep them in mind.

Affect/Affected (n., adj.) - Artificial or pretentious behavior

*Alien (adj.) - Unfamiliar, foreign

Badger (v.) - To bother, question repeatedly

*Bent (n.) - A liking or talent for (syn: predilection, proclivity, penchant). The SAT really likes this one!

*Bridge (v.) - To join two things together

*Buffet (v.) - To toss around (e.g. the ship was buffeted by high winds)

*Carp (v.) - To complain

Cave (v.) - To give in, acquiesce

Constitution (n.) - The physical character, health of a body

Crop  (v.) - To cut short

*Elliptical (adj.) - Indirect, vague

*Embroider (v.) - To elaborate or exaggerate

Flag (v.) - To diminish

Floor (v) - To shock or stun

Grate (v.) - To have an irritating effect

*Grave/Gravity (adj.) - Serious

Grill (v.) - To question intensively

*Hail (v.) - To proclaim enthusiastically

Lumber (v.) - To move heavily or clumsily, especially with great bulk

*Mint (n., v.) - A factory where money is produced / To produce money

Milk (v.) - To attempt to get recognition or applause (e.g. to milk an audience)

*Modest (adj.) - Simple, unadorned

*Pedestrian (adj.) - Dull, unoriginal

*Police (v.) - To regulate, control

*Pore (n.) - To read over or study with great attention

*Qualify (v.) - To modify or soften the severity of a statement

Rail (v.) - To complain about or denounce bitterly

Rank (adj.) - Having an offensively strong or unclean odor

Rake (n.) - A dissolute man, womanizer

Root (v.) - To rummage around, search

*Severe (adj.) - Austere, rigid

Slight (v.) - To insult, put down

Spare (adj.) - Simple, undecorated

Staple (n.) - A fundamental (e.g. staple crop)

Stem (v.) - To put a stop to

*Subscribe (v.) - To believe in

Sustain (v.) - To withstand

Forget About Diction Questions (SAT Writing)

Diction (aka usage or "wrong-word") issues are frequently cited as one of the top errors that the SAT Writing section tests, but the reality is that they only show up occasionally. In all the College Board tests I've ever looked at -- and that's quite a few -- I've seen a grand total of two. It doesn't matter if the other prep books include it all over the place; the College Board doesn't.

So yes, while you should learn the difference between affect and effect so that you can use the words properly in your own writing, in terms of the SAT, I would not suggest that you spend your time memorizing long lists of commonly confused words. When usage errors do appear, they tend to be highly unexpected and often involve switching two words (e.g. convince and evince) that you'd never necessarily expect to be switched from looking at a "commonly switched words" list. You'll either spot the error or you won't. Besides reading a lot and developing a good ear for usage, there's no real way to prepare.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, my philosophy is that you should spend your time worrying about the things that are pretty much guaranteed to be on the test (subject- verb agreement, pronoun agreement, tense consistency, dangling modifiers, FANBOYS, etc.) and that are well within your control. As for the rest, it's not worth your time to worry about. You can hit 750+ just focusing on the other, and once you're in that range, it's no longer about your scores.

P.S. In case you were wondering about the whole affect vs. effect thing, the former is a typically used as a verb and the latter as a noun: "I was strongly affected by the movie," BUT "the movie had a strong effect on me."

Why You Should Only Use the Official Guides for SAT & ACT Reading

If you've read some of my other posts, you probably know that I'm not a big fan of the big-name test-prep guides (e.g. Kaplan, Princeton Review, Barron's, etc.). But while I admit that they might have some merit for Math or even occasionally for Writing, the one section that you should absolutely and incontrovertibly not compromise on, at least in terms of taking practice tests, is Reading.

There are a couple of reasons for this:

1) The answer choices are problematic 

The answers are either 1) improperly reasoned, 2) go outside the bounds of the passage -- that is, they actually require you to have some outside knowledge of a subject in order to infer the answer to a question -- or  3) force you to make irrelevant distinctions.

What ultimately happens is that people walk away with the impression that the answers to questions are arbitrary, that they don't necessarily have anything to do with the readings themselves. It also makes it impossible to apply any sort of rigorous reasoning process to the test, when in fact it is precisely the refinement of that reasoning process that often leads to higher scores.

SAT and ACT questions may be tricky at times, but the right answer is still the only right answer, not something completely arbitrary cooked up by the test-makers.


2) The passages themselves are wrong 

This comes down to one issue: copyright.

Most of the passages that show up on the SAT and ACT are taken from books published in the last couple of decades, i.e. books still under copyright. In order to accurately mimic the test, therefore, it is necessary to use texts from recent works.

The College Board and the ACT are able to gain permission for the works from the publishers; for whatever reason, the major test-prep companies usually are not. (I'm pretty sure there's a Michael Pollan passage in one of Princeton Review's books, but that's the exception rather than the rule). As a result, those companies are forced to use either texts no longer under copyright (from books more than 70 years old) or have passages written specifically for them. Both of these have major issues.

First, texts more than 70 years old, while difficult, are not difficult in the precise way that real SAT/ACT texts are difficult. Their language, style, and subject matter are often old-fashioned, and they give the impression that the Reading portions of both tests loftier and more overtly literary than they are.

On the other hand, passages written specifically for test-prep guides tend to be overly straightforward and factual, whereas real test passages are usually somewhat more complex structurally and contain a particular point of view.

So please, do yourself a favor: if you haven't been using the College Board book or the ACT Official Guide for Reading, go out and get it. And if you've finished all the tests in it and want to study some more, sign up for the online program. And if you're done with that, well, go read something by Michael Pollan (or Oliver Sacks or Temple Grandin or Henry Louis Gates or Anna Deveare Smith) for real.

Being = Wrong (SAT & ACT)

Although I mentioned "being" in passing in my post about gerunds a couple of days ago (see: (http://ultimatesatverbal.blogspot.com/2011/05/gerund-are-usually-wrong.html), I'm actually going to devote a separate post to it.

Why?

Because the word "being" is hands-down the most dangerous word on both the Fixing Sentences portion of the SAT (not Error-Identification!) and on ACT English.

In fact, the appearance of the word "being" in an answer choice is virtually guaranteed (99% percent) to make that answer incorrect.

This is the case for a couple of reasons. First, as I discussed in my previous post, "being" is a gerund (verb + -ING), and gerunds cannot be used to replace verbs. "Rome being a beautiful and historical city" is not a sentence. "Rome is a beautiful and historical" is.

Any phrase that contains only a gerund is a fragment and is never correct in formal written English. Not on the SAT, not on the ACT, not in real life.

Even when "being" is grammatically acceptable, it still has a tendency to make things kind of clunky and awkward.

On the SAT, the phrase "being that" should be replaced by "because:"

Awkward: Being that Marco has studied Italian for five years, he can converse with his relatives in Rome.

Clear: Because Marco has studied Italian for five years, he can converse with his relatives in Rome.


And the phrase "because of being" should be replaced by the subject and the conjugated verb:

Awkward: Because of being fluent in Italian, Marco can converse with his relatives in Rome.

Clear: Because he is fluent in Italian, Marco can converse with his relatives in Rome.

Now Available: Preview of "The Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar"

I am happy to announce that after much tussling with Blogger, Word, and Adobe (did I ever mention that I hate technology?), I have at long last succeeded in putting up a presentable preview of of my book, The Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar.

If you'd like to check it out, please see: http://ultimatesatverbal.blogspot.com/p/preview-ultimate-guide-to-sat-grammar.html or just click on the tab at the top of this page.

The book is alas not yet available for direct purchase via Amazon, although it hopefully will be within the next month or so. Publishing a book, as I've discovered, is a really long process. If you'd like to obtain a PDF copy now, however, please email me directly at satverbaltutor@gmail.com for details.

-EM

Most Common Passage 1/Passage 2 Relationships (SAT Reading)

Passage 1/Passage 2 questions have a reputation for being some of the most headache-inducing questions on the SAT. And while I agree that they're not exactly fun, the relationships between the two passages do tend to fall into a small number of predictable categories used over and over again (you know, that whole standardized test thing). If you approach the two passages with these "templates" in mind, you can probably save yourself some frustration.

• Passage 1 and Passage 2 present opposing views of the same topic (P1 = Positive, P2 = Negative or vice-versa)

• Passage 1 and Passage 2 agree but have different focuses or stylistic differences (e.g. P1 is written in the third person and P2 is written in the first person) 

• Passage 1 and Passage 2 discuss completely different aspects of the same event (e.g. P1 focuses on how an event was perceived by the press, P2 focuses on how it impacted women) 

• Passage 2 provides an example of an idea that Passage 1 describes

Gerunds Are (Usually) Wrong

Rule: whenever you are given the choice between a gerund and a conjugated verb on either SAT Writing (Fixing Sentences) or ACT English, pick the conjugated verb.

If you're scanning through ACT English or Fixing Sentences answers, you should automatically cross out any options that contain gerunds. If nothing that remains works, then you can go back and reassess, but this strategy will usually get you to the right answer a whole lot faster.

Here's why:

Gerunds can be nasty little critters. They look like verbs. They sound like verbs. They *ought* to be verbs. But they're not.


Although they are created from verbs, for all practical purposes they are in fact nouns. 

If you're unfamiliar with the term, gerunds are built by adding -ING onto verbs

Be     -----   Being

Have -----   Having

Run   -----    Running

You get the picture.

Gerunds are frequently used with the possessive (e.g. "The teacher was annoyed by his incessant talking during class").

Since gerunds are not verbs, they cannot replace verbs. A sentence that contains only a gerund is actually missing a main verbs. Any sentence on the SAT or the ACT that includes only a gerund is automatically incorrect.

Much of the time, this error will be pretty obvious:

Incorrect: The senator giving a press conference about her decision not to run for re-election.

And the easiest way to fix it is simply to stick in a conjugated verb

Correct: The senator gave a press conference about her decision not to run for re-election.


But sometimes they'll try to confuse you with multiple clauses or false parallelisms:

Incorrect: The senator, who earlier in the week had publicized her intention to run for re-election, calling a press conference to announce her decision to pursue other political goals.

Correct: The senator, who earlier in the week had publicized her intention to run for re-election, called a press conference to announce her decision to pursue other political goals.

Or

Incorrect: The senator publicizing her intention to run for re-election but later calling a press conference to announce her decision to pursue other political goals.

It may be parallel, but it's not correct!

Correct: The senator publicized her intention to run for re-election but later called a press conference to announce her decision to pursue other political goals.

If you're taking the SAT tomorrow...

I just wanted to say good luck. Now stop trying to cram and go to sleep.

Use examples you can write about in detail (SAT Essay)

This may sound obvious, but please bear with me: unless you are desperate, do not attempt to use SAT essay examples that concern people, events, books, etc. that you are not truly familiar with. If you see the prompt and think up the perfect example...which you maybe sort of kind of know something about, please think twice before using it.

Do not be tempted to use a more "sophisticated" example (like The Oedipus Cycle) that you don't know cold at the expense of a "casual" one (like your championship baseball team from last season). If you can write a stronger essay about the latter, use it instead.

If you have a stellar first example but really don't know much about your second example, nix it and just have one very detailed example; you'll end up with a stronger essay.

But, you may be saying, it's fine if I don't know a lot about an example; I'll just make up the details. After all, the College Board won't penalize me for saying that George Washington led an intergalactic force to stop a Martian invasion. While technically that's true, I've also read enough essays gone wrong to know that most people aren't nearly as gifted at making things up as they'd like to believe, and when they try to write about unfamiliar topics, their essays tend to have some things in common:

They're vague.

They're repetitive.

They lack detail.

They make unsupported claims

They're short.

This last one is really the important part; there are studies that show a correlation between essay length and score. The College Board explains this phenomenon by claiming longer essays tend to score higher because they include more detail and thus generally contain more convincing arguments. Now, whether or not you buy the College Board's reasoning, the bottom line is that you're better off producing a longer essay.

So, to put it as a syllogism that befits a reasoning test:

Detailed Knowledge of Examples = You Write More

You Write More = Higher Score

Thus: Detailed Knowledge of Examples = Higher Score

Which means, practically speaking, try to use books that you've actually read rather than just looked up on SparkNotes. The difference will show.

It also means that if you read Hamlet in 9th grade English class and are planning to use it, make sure you remember what happens, who the characters are, what their relationships are, when things happen, etc. Sit down and spend twenty minutes going over it to make sure you have everything straight.

So no, you won't be penalized if you get some of the details a little wrong, but you've got to be specific and convincing regardless. And that's a whole lot harder to do when you don't really know what you're talking about.

Some Last-Minute SAT Tips

If you're taking the SAT on Saturday, here are some last minute tips:

1. Go to bed early, say by 10pm, and do your best to fall asleep. You do not want to take the take test when you're not really awake.

Last year, one of my students was half-asleep until the third section, and from looking at her score sheet, I could actually pinpoint the exact moment she'd woken up. (As a matter of fact, when I saw her score sheet, the first thing I said was, "You were asleep, weren't you?"). She did very well regardless, but had she been awake from the beginning, she would have had a fighting chance at a 2400.

2. Don't study -- or at least don't study a lot -- the night before the test. It'll just stress you out, and you probably won't learn anything you don't already know. Hang out, watch a stupid movie, whatever. Just relax.

3. Eat beforehand, bring snacks, and avoid anything that'll give you a quick sugar rush and then make you crash halfway through (no soda or candy bars!). Try peanut butter toast, bananas, or protein bars.

If you normally drink coffee, have some, but otherwise I wouldn't recommend it. It might make you excessively jittery.

4. Remember your watch and your calculator. Put them somewhere where you absolutely cannot fail to miss them.

5. Don't forget to set your alarm.

6. On Saturday morning, do a couple of practice problems from each section before you go to the test. You need to be in testing mode before you start the test.

7. Allow yourself a second of panic if you see a question you don't know how to do, but then get over it and try to figure out what it's really asking. The SAT rewards those who approach things logically, and you might actually get the question right if you think it through.

 On the other hand, if you truly have no idea, just skip the question and move on.

8. When you write the essay: make sure your intro, body paragraphs, and conclusion are clearly defined; don't use words whose meanings you're not 100% sure of; and leave yourself enough time to actually finish.

9. On the Error-Identification section: if you really don't see an error pick "No error." It actually is the answer sometimes.

10. On Critical Reading: do your best to sum up the main point and the tone (at least in terms of negative/positive) of each passage before you look at the questions. Just knowing those two pieces of information can get you right to the answer on many questions.

But if you have any doubts whatsoever, take the extra thirty seconds, go back to the passage and read from the sentence before to the sentence after the lines you're given. You'll be glad you did.

Oh, and remember to keep breathing. If you have to stop and close your eyes halfway for a ten-second mental break halfway through, go for it. And if you feel yourself flagging, go into the bathroom during a break and do some jumping jacks. That should wake you right back up!

Worry About Time Last (SAT & ACT)

Myth: the best way to study for a timed standardized test is to always time yourself rigidly and focus on getting your speed up.

Reality: sometimes it's better to first focus on learning the test material along with strategies for handling it, then deal with time issue. 

Let me put it this way: suppose you had a Math test that would last exactly the length of one period (let's assume 50 minutes). You knew that it would cover all the material you had learned during the semester, and that it  would require you to apply your knowledge in new ways so that your teacher could see if you really understood what you'd learned. 

What would you do? 

Would you spend all of your time worrying about the fact that you only had 50 minutes to finish the test and study mainly by trying to answer practice problems faster, or would you go back to your notes and work on mastering understanding the fundamentals of what you'd covered so that you could in fact apply your knowledge to a kind of problem you'd never seen before? 

I'm guessing you picked the latter (if you didn't, well... you might want to rethink some of your study habits). So why would you treat the SAT or the ACT any differently? 

I know that everyone says studying for these tests is totally, completely, utterly different from studying for a test in school, but actually that's not quite true. 

As I wrote about in another post, time issues are usually knowledge issues in disguise. If you work on solving the knowledge component, the time issue usually goes away on its own. Spending an hour deconstructing four or five questions to the point at which you understand the rules they're testing cold is infinitely more productive than taking a full test and missing the same old things you usually miss. Then when you feel like you understand things, move up to a full section, and finally start to time yourself. 

If you're planning to take the SAT in three days, as some of you may be, then obviously this isn't going to work. But if you have some time, even a month, then try it.  

The other reason why working slowly at first is so important is that most SAT questions -- and some ACT questions -- have a sort of "back door" that allows you to solve them very quickly without wasting time pondering the answers. For example:

• Word Pair questions on the SAT Writing section: if you know all the word pairs cold (see the grammar rules page for the complete list), you can spot many correct answers without even reading through all of the choices. By the way, that applies to today's Question of the Day -- try it and see if you can pick out the shortcut.  

• "The point of lines xxx..." on Critical Reading. Usually reading the sentence before the given lines will get you the answer. If you can match the idea of that sentence to an answer choice, you're done.

• On  ACT English, you can automatically eliminate grammatically equivalent answer choices such as Comma + FANBOYS, Semicolon, and Period.

More than anything else, teaching yourself to recognize those back doors will help you get your time down. But, paradoxically, you might have to go very, very slowly at first in order to achieve that. 

Soliciting Questions for Posts

Hi Everyone,

If you have any questions you've been burning to ask about SAT or ACT Verbal, here's your chance. As much as possible, I'd like to try to tailor my posts to the specific areas that people find difficult, so please let me know if there's anything you've been struggling with or want to know more about. Feel free to either email at satverbaltutor@gmail.com me or post a comment, and I'll do my best to answer.

-EM

Do It = Wrong, Do So = Right (SAT Writing)

If "it" is the most dangerous word on the Writing section of the SAT, then "do it" is the most dangerous phrase. While I'm hesitant to say that any particular word or phrase will be wrong 100% of the time -- the College Board can always figure out a new way to test a particular rule -- "do it" comes pretty close.

The reason this phrase is so often incorrect is based on the fact that pronouns such as "it" can only refer to nouns or gerunds (essentially the -ING form a verb), never to any other part of speech such as verbs or adjectives. For example:

Incorrect: People who become vegetarians often do it because they believe strongly in animal rights.

What does the word "it" refer to?

Becoming vegetarians.

But the gerund "becoming" doesn't actually show up in the sentence, only the verb "become." The pronoun "it" therefore doesn't actually refer to anything (in grammatical terms, we can say that it lacks an antecedent), and the sentence cannot be correct. To fix it, we must instead say:

Correct: People who become vegetarians often do so because they believe strongly in animal rights.

On the flipside, anytime you see the phrase "do so" underlined, it is almost certainly correct, and there's a pretty good chance that the answer to the question will be "No error."

The Official List of Things to Circle on SAT & ACT Reading Passages

To give credit where it's due, this basis for this list was given to me by Laura Wilson at WilsonPrep in Chappaqua, NY. Without her guidance, I would probably still be petrified of teaching SAT and ACT Reading!

Warning: while this may look like an awfully long long list of things to circle, chances are that only a handful of these words/phrases will show up on any given passage. This is also not intended to be a exercise in memorization; rather, it is to get you thinking about the kinds of ways in which authors indicate to their readers the most important aspects of what they're trying to say.

Furthermore, the point of looking out for these things is not to turn your reading into a transition hunt at the expense of actually absorbing what you're reading. Just circling transitions mechanically and not thinking about what role they play in the passage at large will not get you very far and may in fact make things harder for you. However, if you actively consider them in relation to the point of the passage once you've established it, they will help you establish a general "map" of the key places in the argument.

Major Transitions:

Supporting:

And
So
For
In fact
Indeed
Of course
Therefore/Thus
Consequently
As a result
In addition
Also
Furthermore
Moreover
Likewise
Similarly

Contradicting: 

But
Yet
However
(Al)though/Even though
Even if
Despite
While
Whereas
Nevertheless
Rather

Comparison/Contrast:

In comparison
In contrast
Just as...so

Explanations: 

Because
Since
Explains

Giving you the point:

The point is

The goal/aim is

To sum up

In other words

After all

Important Information:

Important
Crucial
Essential
Fundamental
Rooted In
It is true/not true
It is clear/unclear

Strong Language:

Absolutely
Unequivocally
Exceptionally
Extraordinarily
Unquestionably
Definitely
Always
Never
Nothing
Inevitably

"Unusual" Punctuation:

Question Marks - Questions are prime targets for inference questions because information is often implied but not stated

Colons - Indicate explanations

Dashes - Indicate explanations or supplementary information

Semicolons - Imply a relationship between two thoughts that is not necessarily spelled out -- likely spot for inference questions to deal with

Words in quotes - Used figuratively. The answer to at least one question will depend on your understanding of how a word in quotes is being used, even if the question doesn't ask about it directly.

Italicized words - Used for emphasis

How to Study More Effectively for the SAT & ACT

One of the things I dread most is having students tell me is that they "just need to get familiar with the test." Usually their idea of studying involves taking test after test, timing themselves assiduously, correcting themselves as soon as they finish, and then never looking at the tests again. Sometimes they'll go a bit further and review the questions they missed, but they virtually never go beyond studying the test itself.

They assume that if they see the same kinds of questions over and over again, they'll eventually deduce the rules for answering those questions and start getting them right. In other words, familiarity alone is enough to breed competence.

Unfortunately, unless your skills are already rock solid and all you truly do need is to get comfortable with the test, it doesn't usually work that way. From what I've observed, most people don't get questions wrong repeatedly because they're not sufficiently comfortable with them -- they get questions wrong because they don't know how to answer them! And usually it's nowhere near enough to simply keep trying to answer those questions and hoping that eventually something will click; to really improve, you have to learn the underlying rules that those questions test. That actually means forgetting about the test itself and going back to the basics.

If you think that everything that could possibly show up on the SAT or the ACT is covered in the official guides, I have some bad news for you. Those publications include enough information to give you most of the concepts you need to know, but the tests themselves may include unexpected variations on them. Just learning why a particular answer is right or wrong on a given test will get you nowhere if you can't understand the underlying rule it's testing and how it can be applied to a wide range of situations.

So what to do about this?

First, stop it with the full tests. You can take a couple before the real thing, but that's all you need. Go back through what you've done, figure out what section is giving you the most trouble, and focus on it. Spend 15-30 minutes a day reviewing material for it, but don't go overboard. Better to build your base knowledge slowly and see real results than try to cram and get nothing.

If you keep missing vocabulary questions but are ok on the passage-based reading, stop doing the passages and learn vocab and roots. You won't forget how to do the other in the meantime.

If the issue is the passage-based questions, just focus on those. Make sure you spend at least 15 minutes day not just reading challenging non-fiction but also practicing summarizing main points and outlining argument structures (introduction, supporting evidence, counter-example, etc.). Circle major transitions, and play the "what if this were a test passage?" game. Look for spots where ideas are being implied rather than stated or where words are being used in unexpected ways, and try to imagine what the SAT or the ACT would ask about them.

If the problem is grammar, start by working on identifying things like parts of speech, subjects, antecedents, and prepositional phrases. If you're having issues with those things, it will be incredibly hard for you to raise your score no matter how much you study. If you have particular trouble with verbs, get a grammar workbook and learn how verb tenses work; if you have problems with commas, just focus on commas, etc.

I'll say this with the caveat that I am beyond unqualified to talk about math, but if your major issue on that section is geometry, then just focus on that; same if it's algebra. Or Venn diagrams (which I loathed).

Now at this point you might be thinking, "but how am I supposed to work on the timing" if I'm just studying in little bits? The answer is that once you're more solid on the material, you no longer have to waste time puzzling endlessly over certain kinds of answers, and the time issue usually clears up pretty much on its own.