Time to get started to prepare for the May SAT. If you want to follow my tutoring guidelines, I use the Princeton Review (among other resources). Check my other columns for my credentials. I have certifications as a private tutor. I like to use the standardized tests to organize study habits, vocabulary study, test-taking strategies, and executive style planning. We start with the SAT question for the day each day. Come back to www.coolrocketschool.com or www.coolrocketschool.org each day. Check the college board site for the question. www.collegeboard.com.
Sunday, March 14, 2010 Is this question too easy? Take the point! This counts the same as every other question. 80% got it right, but 20% missed it! Eliminate the wrong answers.
Today’s answer almost seems ‘too easy.’ Remember, every question counts the same no matter how difficult. Do not treat it lightly. Remember to ‘CHECK’ the answers you get quickly by eliminating all the other answers. This is particularly important for questions with short answers or merely label answers. Strategically, you may want to eliminate fewer of the answers (if merely checking the answer you know is correct) when checking them is a longer procedure.
Too, my all time best strategic advice is: Be sure you are answering the correct question.
I think of Joel Osteen’s introduction to one of his sermons. He likes to begin with something funny.
Recently, he began with a little story about a man who walked up to a country store. There was a bench outside the store where a boy was sitting alongside a great big dog.
When the man got close to the boy and the dog, he said, ‘Young man, does your dog bite?’
The boy said, ‘No, sir. My dog doesn’t bite anybody.’
The man reached out to pet the dog on the bench, and the dog bit him hard!
The man screamed, ‘I thought you said your dog doesn’t bite!’
The boy said, ‘That’s not my dog.’
To do well on a test, you are constantly predicting, constantly asking questions,constantly assessing what you know and what you need to know, and constantly making connections.
Be sure to answer the question asked.
Today’s sentence completion has only one blank, so all of the clues are filled in. All indications point to a word with the connotation of discouragement. As ‘despondent’ almost seems too easy, remember to ‘check’ the other answers in the ‘fast’ answers. Judiethcarol&rocketcatmarch2010
The dramatist was ------- over his lack of funds and his inability to sell any of his plays, and his letters to his wife reflected his unhappiness.
Structurally, they all fit. Critically, only one fits.
(A) despondent; (B) supercilious; (C) prudent; (D) encouraged; (E) fortified
‘Supercilious’ is not as well-known as the other words, but ‘despondent’ is still the only word that fits the tone set by the words and phrases: lack of funds, inability to sell, and unhappiness. Hopefully, D & E fell away from consideration right away. Read the entire sentence, but realize that “encouraged over his lack of funds and his inability to sell” or “fortified” in the same place are not going to make much sense. Nothing in the sentence is making a contrast or offsetting this connotation of discouragement and despondency.
