Category Archives: SAT

SAT Question of the Day Explained – December 4, 2014 – Sentence Completions

Today’s SAT Question of the Day is a two-blank sentence completion question about William the Conqueror.

The success of the Norman Invasion depended on ——- logistical operation: in planning it, William the Conqueror wisely left no detail ——-.

What is this sentence about? Planning. It was a detailed operation that left no detail unplanned.  Sound silly? Perhaps when you write it out like this, but that is all you need to know in order to get the correct answer – and I even borrowed the words “detail” and  “planning” right from the provided sentence! Continue reading →

SAT Question of the Day Explained – December 3, 2014 – Math

Today’s SAT Question of the Day is a math question about counting.  These simplistic questions often contain more than meets the eye – and this one is testing your knowledge of a simple rule of counting.

On the last day of a one-week sale, customers numbered 149 through 201 were waited on. How many customers were waited on that day?

I bet most of you just subtracted 149 from 201, bubbled in 52, and moved on.  But what if I told you that isn’t the answer? Continue reading →

SAT Question of the Day Explained – December 2, 2014 – Identifying Sentence Errors

Kafka in 1917

Today’s SAT question of the day is an identifying sentence errors question about pronouns and Franz Kafka.

The credit for making Franz Kafka internationally famous as a writer belongs to his friend, novelist Max Brod, which despite Kafka’s dying wishes, edited Kafka’s unpublished manuscripts and then had them published.

Do you hear the error? Continue reading →

Top Five Last-Minute Study Tips for the SAT

Boosting your SAT score significantly takes practice and focus.  Most of my students need at least two months of review before seeing a 150-200 point score increase.  But what if your test is next week?  Here are my top five last-minute SAT tips, in order of priority:

  1. Take care of the basics.  Having these easy details under control will make you feel more prepared and free up your brain to focus on the test content rather than finding an eraser that doesn’t smudge.
  2. Know your strengths. If you’ve taken the SAT or PSAT before, you probably have a pretty good idea of which sections are your strongest.  If not, your grades are a reasonably good predictor of how you will do – in other words, if you’re a straight-A math student who has taken at least Algebra and Geometry, there’s a good chance that you will do well on the math section.  Spend 20 minutes reviewing problems from your strong section(s) to make sure you know what to expect – check out the “Find a Test Topic” link at the top of this page to jump to a specific topic for review – and then leave your strong sections alone.
  3. Know your weaknesses.  Plan to spend about an hour reviewing problems from each of your weaker sections, and pay close attention to the strategies I offer in the explanations.  You won’t see these actual problems again on test day, but the strategies will still apply.  (Use that “Find a Test Topic” menu again to focus in on problems from your not-so-strong sections.)
  4. Try a timed section. Time yourself on one of the free sets of SAT practice questions that the College Board provides on their website.  Since this is a timed test, you’ll want to know that you can finish each section within the allotted time.
  5. Plan for the essay. Your first test section will be the 25-minute essay, and although you don’t know the topic, you can rest assured that you will take a position on an issue that is somewhat abstract (success, happiness, community, convenience…).  Arm yourself with examples that you can use for this essay: what books or movies do you know well?  What activities have you participated in?  Are there any historical eras or figures that resonate with you?  These examples will form the meat of your essay, so save yourself some early-morning heartache on test day by having some ideas for things that you might use to support your argument and remembering your 5-paragraph essay format.

Good luck!  If you need more help or want a last-minute refresher for your test, please feel free to contact me.

SAT Question of the Day Explained – October 27, 2014 – Writing, Identifying Sentence Errors

Today’s SAT question of the day is an identifying sentence error question about one of the most commonly tested subjects in the SAT writing multiple choice sections: verbs!

As you read the sentence, you get some clues about the verbs that relate to Galileo: the telescopes “were”, and we modeled on instruments “built by”…these verbs are in the past and their actions are completed.

Continue reading →

SAT Question of the Day Explained – October 25, 2014 – Math

Today’s SAT question of the day is a fun math question that reviews some geometry basics.  You’ll definitely need those basics for your test, so let’s give this one a try.

8-26-2013-M37909.png

We are told that the radius of circle O is 5 and that the area of the shaded region is 20pi. X is what we are seeking.

Since the area of a circle is pi * the radius squared, we know that the whole circle’s area is 25pi. Let’s also remember that there are 360 degrees in a circle. Continue reading →

SAT Question of the Day Explained – October 19, 2014 – Math, Probability

Today’s SAT question of the day is an excellent review of probability.  You will probably encounter 2-3 probability questions on your SAT, so take advantage of these points if you can.

The question:

Of 5 employees, 3 are to be assigned an office and 2 are to be assigned a cubicle. If  3 of the employees are men and 2 are women, and if those assigned an office are to be chosen at random, what is the probability that the offices will be assigned to 2 of the men and 1 of the women?

Where to start? As with all probability problems, we need to find the number of total possible outcomes and the number of desired outcomes so that we can get our fraction of desired/possible.

At the beginning of our selection process, we have a total of 5 workers.  Imagine that our workers are named A, B, C, D, and E. How many unique three-person combinations can we make out of A, B, C, D, and E?  Let’s check:

ABC
ABD
ABE
ACD
ACE
ADE
BCD
BCE
BDE
CDE

Ten groupings it is. So, we have 10 possible outcomes. Continue reading →

SAT Question of the Day Explained – October 15, 2014 – Writing, Identifying Sentence Errors

Today’s SAT Question of the Day is an identifying sentence errors question with a verb error.  Let’s focus in:

Beluga whales […] are the only animals known mimicking the sounds of human speech spontaneously.

Do you hear the error in this shortened version of the sentence? Continue reading →