by Erica L. Meltzer | Apr 19, 2018 | Blog
Every year around this time, posts inevitably appear on College Confidential that go something like this:
I applied to every Ivy, Stanford, MIT, Duke, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Nebraska, and I got rejected everywhere except my safety school. I have a 4.5 GPA, 35 ACT, and good activities. wasn’t sure about HYPSM, but I thought I was totally set for Northwestern and Hopkins. What do I do???? Help!!!!
This year, there’s a whole long thread on the Parents Forum entitled “Why applicants overreach and are disappointed in April,” and I would strongly encourage anyone just beginning the college search to read through it, before the madness sets in and you fall in love (or your child falls in love) with a school that accepts only 5% of its applicants.
That is, 5% overall — the RD admission rate might in reality be closer to 2%. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Apr 15, 2018 | Blog
The Critical Reader: AP® English Language and Composition Edition is now available for purchase on Amazon. The book is carefully aligned with the revised (post-2014) version of the AP Lang/Comp exam provides a comprehensive review of all the reading and writing skills tested.
Includes:
- A complete chapter dedicated to each type of multiple-choice reading question and essay type.
- Numerous multiple-choice practice questions covering literal comprehension, purpose, tone/attitude, rhetorical strategies, and footnotes.
- Common essay pitfalls, with detailed examples of what to do and what not to do.
- Sample student essays with in-depth scoring analyses.
I’ve also posted a preview so that you can see for yourself.
Now, a couple of notes: (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Mar 24, 2018 | Blog, College Admissions, SAT Essay
Harvard University has announced that it will be dropping the SAT/ACT Essay requirement, beginning with the class of 2023. Along with Princeton, Yale, and Stanford, Harvard was one of the last holdouts to require that students submit this component.
I wrote a series of critiques of the redesigned essay when the new test was first rolled out, and I still believe that it is deeply problematic – I think colleges are justified in viewing it with suspicion. At the same time, however, I believe that there are very compelling reasons for schools to continue requiring some sort of writing sample completed under proctored conditions.
Although some of my initial concerns about the SAT essay were unfounded, the principal issue remains that it is fundamentally a nonsense assignment, one presented in muddled language that says one thing and means something else. It asks students to analyze how an author uses “evidence” to build an argument, but seeks to remove outside knowledge from the equation. In reality, this is an absurd proposition: any even slightly substantive analysis of “evidence” is impossible without actual knowledge of a topic. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Feb 3, 2018 | Blog, GMAT
If you look at many lists of GMAT® idioms, you’ll likely find dozens upon dozens of preposition-based constructions, e.g. insist on, characteristic of, correlate with. Although the GMAT does sometimes test these types of idioms, it is important to understand that they are not the primary focus of the test. Because of an increase in the number of international students taking the exam, the GMAC has elected to shift the focus away from idiomatic American usage and toward more issues involving overall sentence logic.
That said, there are still a handful of fixed constructions that the GMAT does regularly test. Many, but not all, of these fall into the category of word pairs (aka correlative conjunctions). Particularly if you are not a native English speaker, you are best served by focusing on these constructions, which stand a high chance of appearing, as opposed to memorizing dozens of preposition-based idioms that have only a minuscule chance of being tested on any given exam. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jan 12, 2018 | Blog, GRE, Vocabulary
If you’re studying for the GRE® and want to learn some words for which ETS has, shall we say, traditionally shown a strong predilection (i.e., proclivity, penchant, propensity, bent), the Critical Reader is now offering a Word of the Day email program.
One email with a top word, a GRE-level example sentence, and a list of must-know synonyms/antonyms, every day, direct to your inbox, plus periodic quizzes, every day for 100 days.
Click here to sign up.
(more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jan 6, 2018 | ACT English/SAT Writing, Blog
Note: this exception is addressed in the 4th edition of The Ultimate Guide to SAT® Grammar and the 3rd edition of The Complete Guide to ACT® English, but it is not covered in earlier versions.
Both SAT Writing and ACT English focus test two specific aspects of the who vs. whom rule.
1) Who, not whom, should be placed before a verb.
Incorrect: Alexander Fleming was the scientist whom discovered penicillin.
Correct: Alexander Fleming was the scientist who discovered penicillin. (more…)
