by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 15, 2011 | SAT Critical Reading (Old Test)
Although some Critical Reading questions are phrased as inference questions, they are in reality closer to “main point” questions and can be treated as such. I find the following to be an ideal example (from https://satonlinecourse.collegeboard.com/SR/digital_assets/assessment/pdf/0833A611-0A43-10C2-0148-CC8C0087FB06-F.pdf):
The ability of the “I Have a Dream” speech to high- light King’s early career at the expense of his later career accounts for the tone of impatience and betrayal that often appears when modern-day supporters of King’s agenda talk about the speech. Former Georgia state legislator Julian Bond said in 1986 that commemorations of King seemed to “focus almost entirely on Martin Luther King the dreamer, not on Martin King the antiwar activist, not on Martin King the challenger of the economic order, not on Martin King the opponent of apartheid, not on the complete Martin Luther King.”
Question: It can be inferred that, for Julian Bond, a portrait of “the complete Martin Luther King” (lines 10-11) would
(A) celebrate King’s influence both within and outside the United States
(B) acknowledge the logical lapses in some of King’s later work
(C) compare King with other significant figures of his era
(D) achieve a balance between King’s earlier concerns and his later ones
(E) reveal information about King’s personal as well as his public life
The primary mistake most people make when attempting to answer a question such as this is that they only read the lines directly involving Julian Bond. These lines tell us that Bond favors a public image of King that would include his more radical activities (antiwar activism, economic equality, etc.) as well as his less provocative ones (MLK the dreamer). That much is relatively clear.
There is, however, no answer that matches that summary, and so here a lot of people start to get confused. The key to answering a question such as this is to realize that we are being asked not to summarize Bond’s words but rather to understand why they are placed where they are within the argument. In other words: what point is the author using Bond’s words to support?
Where does an author typically place the point in relation to the evidence? Before. So we must back up and look at the preceding sentence, which tells us that King’s modern-day supporters are often upset that people focus on King’s early career rather than his later career.
In other words, they want to “achieve a balance between King’s earlier concerns and his later ones” (D).
What makes this an inference question, however, is the fact that the words “For example” (or “for instance”) never appear in the second sentence. Based on our knowledge of where examples are typically situated in relation to the points they support, we must therefore make the logical jump that Bond is being cited in order to provide evidence for the idea that King’s modern-day supporters are unhappy with the relative lack of focus on his later career.
So it turns out that the right answer is simply a reworded version of an idea explicitly stated in the passage — it’s just not the idea that we were perhaps expecting.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 14, 2011 | ACT Reading, Blog, SAT Critical Reading (Old Test)
One of the reasons that inference questions tend to be so difficult is that most people who take the SAT or ACT have never been exposed to basic formal logic (at least in a non-mathematical context) and consequently have no idea of the rules that the tests are playing by.
While reading is by nature considerably more subjective than math, the basic kinds of reasoning that govern the two sections are far more similar than what most people realize, and nowhere is this more apparent than on inference questions.
It is first of all necessary to distinguish between inference and speculation.
According that all-encompassing source of knowledge, Wikipedia, inference can be defined as “the act of drawing a conclusion by deductive reasoning from given facts.”
Speculation, on the other hand, can be defined as “a conjecture (guess), expressing an opinion based on incomplete evidence.”
Most incorrect answers to inference questions fall into the realm of speculation; that is, they could be true based on the information in the passage, but usually we simply don’t have enough information to judge whether they are actually true. The correct answer is the one that can actually be deduced from the facts presented.
Now, for a given assertion, “If x, then y,” there are two valid inferences: one is the statement itself, and the other is the contrapositive: if not y, then not x.” So, for example, from the statement: “if a creature is a dog, then it is an animal,” we can make the valid inferences that:
1) A creature that is a dog is an animal (rephrasing of the statement)
2) All creatures that are dogs are animals (rephrasing of the statement)
3) if a creature is not an animal, then it is not a dog (contrapositive)
This is the essential basis for inference questions. The tests do not go so far as to deal directly with contrapositives, although using them can help on occasion. Most often, the correct answer to an inference question will quite simply be a rewriting of the of the original statement from a different angle.
For example, if a passage states that the mass of a red dwarf star is smaller than the mass of the sun, the correct answer to an inference question about that fact might be that the mass of a red dwarf star is not larger thanthe mass of the sun. Incorrect answers will simply be outside the bounds of that statement and involve speculation.
They might say things like, “Red dwarves have the smallest mass of any object in the solar system” or “It is more difficult to determine the mass of a red dwarf than it is to determine the mass of the sun.”
The key to dealing with these statements is to make sure that you are absolutely clear about what the statement in question actually says. Take a couple of seconds, make sure you understand it, and write it down in your own words, then look for the answer closest to that statement. It should be correct.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 13, 2011 | Blog, College Admissions, General Tips
I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who actually looked forward to retaking the SAT or the ACT their senior year of high school. You’re sick of studying, sick of standardized testing, want to actually enjoy your vacation, and never want to hear anyone utter the words “College Board” or “ACT” again. Burnout is real, I’m not going to argue. Junior year can be unbelievably hard, and it’s normal to need some time to recover.??That said, however, you may be doing yourself a major disservice by not retaking your senior year.
First, unless you’ve truly aced it the first time around (say 2300+ SAT or 34+ ACT), colleges do want to see what you’re capable of doing around the time you apply. Many people’s scores go up naturally between the spring of their junior year and the fall of their senior year, even without huge amounts of studying, and you don’t want to sell yourself short.
Second, regardless of how sick you are of studying, you need to be realistic about your chances at the colleges you’re seriously considering applying to. If your scores don’t already fall at or above the 50th percentile for those schools, your chances of getting in are significantly reduced; if you’re looking at very competitive schools and are not a recruited athlete, an under-represented minority, or national Intel winner, you should ideally be closer to the 75th percentile.
Admissions officers won’t cut you any slack if they have eight applicants that look very similar to you, and you have the lowest scores of the group.??That doesn’t mean you should drop everything over the summer and spend your entire life trying to pull up your test scores. If you’ve got great scores but nothing else, you won’t get very far at most top schools either.
What it does mean, though, is that even if the thought of even looking at another prep book is enough to push you close to a nervous breakdown, you should take a few weeks or a month off and then reassess. If you do decide to retake, focus on the sections that are most manageable. If you’ve done everything you can with Reading, focus on Writing; if you just need to work on Math, forget everything else (colleges will only take your top scores, even ones that require you to submit everything). Just don’t assume that there’s nothing else you can do.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 12, 2011 | Blog, General Tips
If you’re a junior or the parent of a junior and are just starting to think seriously about SAT/ACT prep, you might be pondering the various options available to you. Here are some thoughts:
Classes I think that there are really only two situations in which it can be worth taking a class: the first is if you’re really anxious about the test and want an introduction to it in a formal setting. Confronting the SAT or the ACT can initially feel overwhelming, and if it helps to have someone else break it down and tell you what to expect, I see nothing wrong with that.
The second is if you’re totally solid on all of the fundamentals going in and just need to learn some basic strategies to help you apply your knowledge to the test. I wouldn’t suggest it as a blanket solution since most classes are geared toward people scoring around 550-600, but it can help in some cases.
I confess that taking a Kaplan class the summer before my senior year helped me jump from a 710 to an 800 on Critical Reading because I learned to slow down and actually analyze the questions rather than just going with my gut feeling. (Admittedly, though, that’s about all it taught me.) I had a French SAT II student a couple of years ago who’d done Princeton Review and scored a 2300, and she certainly thought the class had helped. But again, she was a straight-A student at a very competitive private school and had no problem with any of the actual material.
If you do take a class, though, you need to approach the strategies you learn critically. If something isn’t working for you, don’t stick with it. I’ve had plenty of students who came to me after taking Kaplan/PR classes and having their scores go down, and I the first thing I had to do was get them to stop doing everything that wasn’t working. If at all possible, try not to go with a big chain; find a smaller local company or a tutor willing to put together a group.
Tutoring If you need to do serious work on fundamental English or Math skills OR you really only need help in one area, finding a tutor can be a far better choice than taking a class.
People often discard tutoring as a option because they believe that it’s prohibitively expensive but then don’t hesitate to pay Kaplan $500-$1,000 — an amount that could get you 10-20 hours with an excellent tutor. Never assume that price = quality, however, and many tutoring companies offer financial aid and/or do pro bono work. If you live relatively close to a college or university, try to find a student who scored well and has some tutoring experience; they probably won’t charge you a fortune.
Contrary to what some tutoring companies would lead their clients to believe, tutors do not need to hold advanced degrees or be former Rhodes scholars to tutor the SAT effectively; they must simply understand how the test works and be capable of effectively conveying the necessary material in a way that is easy to grasp. Do make sure, however, that a tutor’s background matches your needs. Even if many tutors can obtain top scores in all sections of a given test, most are somewhat stronger teaching-wise in one area. If Reading is your weakest section and a tutor has a degree in Chemistry, chances are that may not be a good match.
Yes, the SAT is a “reasoning” test (you can interpret that as you wish), but it is also a reading and math test, and if your underlying skills in one of those areas are weak, you need to work with someone who really understands the subject — not just someone who will teach you tricks and strategies. A tutor, however, is usually only helpful insofar as a student is motivated and willing to be an active participant in the tutoring process. Otherwise, hiring one can be a big waste of money.
Self-Study Self-study works best when you’re either already really solid on the fundamentals or willing to put in large amounts of time to solidify them. In order to significantly raise your score on your own, you have to be seriously self-motivated.
While there are plenty of online programs such as Grockit and Prep Me, you do need to be careful. Much of their material, like that of the major test-prep companies, bears little resemblance to what’s on the actual tests, and you risk getting the wrong idea about what you need to study. For a comprehensive review of Grockit, see Mike from PWN the SAT’s analysis. The Official Guides to the SAT/ACT are absolutely indispensable. As much as possible, you need to be working with real material; otherwise you may end up wasting huge amounts of your time.
If you can afford to do so, sign up for the College Board’s online program, and if you really don’t understand why a particular type of question, ask a friend or a parent or a teacher for help. There’s always College Confidential, but you need to be careful with some of the advice. Just because a particular strategy (e.g. jumping right to the questions without reading the passage first) worked for someone doesn’t mean it’ll work for you. You need to be willing to experiment with different techniques and see what makes sense to you. You also need to be willing to go over your work very, very carefully and analyze what you do and don’t know, not just crash through lots of material and expect your score to automatically rise. Familiarity does not equal mastery. Self-study can work, but it’s definitely not the road for everyone.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 10, 2011 | ACT Reading
Here’s a cautionary tale for those of you who don’t have trouble finishing ACT Reading on time.
One of my students who had been doing quite well (around a 30) on ACT Reading suddenly started to see his score drop down into the low 20s. I wasn’t hugely concerned; it was finals week, he was stressed and exhausted, and it was normal for him to be less focused.
Nevertheless, I asked him to do a passage while I watched, just so I could see how he was working through things. I didn’t time him, but after maybe four or five minutes, he got convinced that he was running so far behind that it would be impossible for him to recover.
When I looked at the wrong answers he was choosing, they all seemed to be of the “half-right half-wrong” variety. It occurred to me that he was freaking himself about time, then rushing and missing questions he would have gotten right had he just spent a little bit more time on them.
So I asked him to try an experiment: I would time him on a passage, but I also wanted him to completely forget about time — even go a bit more slowly than normal — and just work carefully. Not only did he did he finish with 45 seconds to spare, but he also got every single question right. He was shocked.
So the moral of the story is: don’t rush. Even if you feel like you’re running out of time, you might not actually be doing so. Perception is not necessarily reality. It’s more important to work carefully and not get through all the questions than to get through all of the questions and get a lot of them wrong.
The ACT Reading curve is huge. Huge. Even if you don’t get to finish the last couple of questions, you can still get a score well above 30. You’re better off leaving a few questions blank and ending up with a 32 than you are trying to answer everything in pursuit of a 36 and ending up with a 28.
