by Erica L. Meltzer | May 10, 2011 | Blog, Reading (SAT & ACT)
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, 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 feel 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 are wrong
This usually 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 — that is, 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 (money?), the major test-prep companies usually are not. 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 both in terms of topic and organization.
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 on the Scientific American or Smithsonian magazine website and, and start reading.
by Erica L. Meltzer | May 9, 2011 | Blog, Grammar (SAT & ACT)
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 to make that answer incorrect.
This is the case for a couple of reasons. First, “being” is a gerund (verb + -ING). Gerunds are not verbs, and they cannot be used to replace verbs.
Not a sentence: Rome being a beautiful and historical city.
Sentnece: Rome is a beautiful and historical city.
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.
by Erica L. Meltzer | May 8, 2011 | SAT Critical Reading (Old Test)
Paired passage questions have a reputation for being some of the most headache-inducing questions on the SAT. 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. If you approach the two passages with these “templates” in mind, you can probably save yourself some frustration.
1) Passage 1 and Passage 2 present opposing views of the same topic (P1 = Positive, P2 = Negative or vice-versa). This is the most common relationship.
2) 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)
3) 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 affected women)
4) Passage 2 provides an example of a phenomenon discussed in Passage 1
by Erica L. Meltzer | May 7, 2011 | Blog, Grammar (SAT & ACT)
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”), although they can also be used with object pronouns (The teacher was annoyed by him talking incessantly during class). The second one has a slightly different emphasis, but it is acceptable.
The possessive vs. object distinction (his vs. him) before a gerund is NOT tested on either the SAT or the ACT.
Since gerunds are not verbs, they cannot replace verbs. A sentence that contains only a gerund is actually missing a main verb. 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.
On the other hand, gerunds can be used as subjects because they are actually nouns. When they are used this way, they always take singular verbs.
Correct: Distributing copies of her new book was the mayor’s primary strategy for publicizing her campaign.
Incorrect: Distributing copies of her new book were the mayor’s primary strategy for publicizing her campaign.
by Erica L. Meltzer | May 4, 2011 | Blog, General Tips, Time Management
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 final that would last 90 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 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’ve written about before, 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.
“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.
