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 3, 2011 | Blog, SAT Grammar (Old Test)
I’m convinced that when the College Board tests out its Writing questions, it’s not just checking to see which errors various percentages of test-takers are likely to get right but also which correct constructions test-takers likely to think are incorrect.
Consider the following (College Board) sentence:
The dolls in the collection, all more than two hundred years old, had been carefully carved for children long since gone” (Official Guide, 2nd edition, p. 777)
The answer is “No error,” but nearly all of my students have missed that question because they couldn’t get over how weird the phrase “long since” sounded.
At first I thought that the phrase just happened to be something that the College Board had stuck in that one particular question.
I was wrong.
As I looked through more CB tests, including PSATs, I started to notice it occurring on a semi-regular basis, and I realized that it was being used as a sort of official trick answer.
So if you see “long since” (or even just “long”) pop up in a question, ignore it! And moreover, there’s a good chance that the answer is actually (E).
by Erica L. Meltzer | May 21, 2011 | ACT English/SAT Writing, SAT Grammar (Old Test)
Grammar rule: any pronoun that follows a preposition must be an object pronoun (me, her, him, us, them NOT 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:
Pretty much everyone employs this rule naturally when using singular subject and objects: you just wouldn’t say, “me is going to the store,” or “the cashier gave the change back to he.”
When subject and objects are plural, however, people tend to get confused. But here’s the thing: there’s no difference between using pronouns with singular and plural subjects and objects. In fact: 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.
by Erica L. Meltzer | May 20, 2011 | SAT Grammar (Old Test)
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/It
We
You
They
Object Pronouns
Me
You
Her/Him/It
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 as 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; however, 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).
by Erica L. Meltzer | May 17, 2011 | SAT Grammar (Old Test)
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 always 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, assuming that both are grammatically correct, always go for the latter.
If you cross out all of the gerunds and don’t see anything that works, then you can reassess. Normally, however, 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)
-Parallelism problem on the last question of the section.
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.
