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What is an example of an easy question on the SAT that many people tend to get wrong?
I can give you an example from my own PSAT (which I took in the late 1980s, when I was in high school). The very first math question, which generally is the easiest, since the SAT and PSAT like to put the easy questions in the front, and the hard ones in the back, was simply “2^3 = ?” (imagine that shows as 2 with a superscript of 3; sorry, I can’t put that here). The very first answer choice was 6, and I picked it. It’s certainly not that I didn’t know 2 to the third power is not the same as 2 times 3; I was a 16-year-old kid honor student who was in special advanced math classes, who would go on to be class valedictorian (and be a Finalist for the National Merit Scholarship, so I did pretty well on the rest of the PSAT). If I’d taken literally a few more seconds to check the answers or think a bit longer about the question without even checking the answers, I’d have gotten it right. Tempting wrong “distractor” answers can make students get easy questions wrong, especially when they’re at the beginning of math sections where students expect ridiculously easy questions, can make students choose wrong answers when they’d otherwise certainly get the right answer. TL;DR for the Math section: Read the whole problem and check all the answers, especially if the problem looks ridiculously easy. I believe “Vocabulary-in-Context” questions are the easy questions for the passage reading section. Students who are overconfident or pressed for time, may simply choose the most common meaning of a word that most English speakers understand. For example, a “plane” could mean an airplane, a woodworking tool, a endless two-dimensional geometric space defined by three points, or a level of existence or consciousness (e.g., “The mystic told his audience of the existence of a higher plane of consciousness, outside of the reach of human existence”). Most likely, the correct answer would be the last, since that would be the most “literary” use of the word, but it’s not necessarily the right answer. If you read an English reading passage on the SAT, it should be clear which one is relevant. Most likely, the most common meaning in American English, “plane” as short for “airplane” would be a distractor for people who didn’t bother to read the passage because of time pressures (“Oh no! I’ll never get this test done - better start guessing!”) or overconfidence (“What kind of idiot doesn’t know what a “plane” is? Most people don’t write books about carpenter’s tools or geometry, so…”). But the “literary” usage may not be the right answer, since “smart kid” answers are also very popular distractor answers in SAT-land. See, the people who write SAT questions are familiar with the English class student’s technique of writing vague, glib, answers that manage to sound “smart” while being practically substance-free. So the idea of “plane” referring to a level of spiritual existence could be wrong; even if the passage were about mysticism, the passage might make note of a carpenter's tools as part of analogy or description of a scene. Similarly, the passage could use “plane” in one sense, but in another sense in a different part of the passage. Make sure you’re giving the meaning of the word in the line they’re referencing. The SAT is not above giving the meaning of the same word in another part of the passage as a wrong answer. TL;DR for English - read the Vocabulary-in-Context questions and make sure you’ve checked the right line numbers. Hope this helps! Can I choose to take the SAT or ACT or is it random?
You can choose. You can take both. There’s really no preference between the SAT and ACT, as far as I know, so I don’t know where Sara Matthews got the information that led her to write that “elite universities quietly favor the SAT.” (23) John Linneball's answer to Do Ivy League, Big Ten, SEC, or Pac-12 schools have more poor students than rich ones? - Quora Define “poor.” If you define “poor” as anyone who qualifies for financial aid, then 54% of Ivy League students are “poor,” according to the following site: Ivy League Members Financial Aid Comparison View and Compare the 8 Ivy League Members with Number of Financial Aid Received and the Average Financial Aid Amounts. https://www.collegeevaluator.com/ncaa-conferences/ivy-league/financial-aidFor the Big 10, the percentage is fairly close - 58.77% overall. So almost 3/5ths of Big 10 students are “poor.” The Big Ten Conference (B1G) Financial Aid Comparison This Page Lists and Compares Financial Aid Statistics Between The Big Ten Conference (B1G) Colleges for beginning students and all undergraduate students. https://www.univstats.com/comparison/ncaa/big-ten-conference/financial-aid/By the same metric, 83% of students in SEC colleges are “poor.” Southeastern Conference (SEC) Members Financial Aid Comparison View and Compare the 14 Southeastern Conference (SEC) Members with Number of Financial Aid Received and the Average Financial Aid Amounts. https://www.collegeevaluator.com/ncaa-conferences/southeastern-conference/financial-aid/#:~:text=Southeastern%20Conference%20%28SEC%29%20Financial%20Aid%20Comparison%20For%20full-time,awarded%20federal%2C%20state%2C%20local%20and%2For%20institutional%20grant%20aid.For the PAC 12, the percentage of “poor” students is 69% Pacific-12 Conference (Pac-12) Members Financial Aid Comparison View and Compare the 12 Pacific-12 Conference (Pac-12) Members with Number of Financial Aid Received and the Average Financial Aid Amounts. https://www.collegeevaluator.com/ncaa-conferences/pacific-12-conference/financial-aid/#:~:text=Pacific-12%20Conference%20%28Pac-12%29%20Financial%20Aid%20Comparison%20For%20full-time,awarded%20federal%2C%20state%2C%20local%20and%2For%20institutional%20grant%20aid.Hope this helps! (22) John Linneball's answer to How do colleges tell students they have been denied admission before the decision letters are sent out? - Quora Generally speaking, they don’t. I don’t know if colleges will give students admission decisions by phone or by Internet, but my opinion is it would be awfully rude and pushy to do so. That might even be a good way to turn a “Waitlist” decision into a flat rejection. Perhaps even a student who accepted might be denied if he/she/[nonbinary pronoun] demanded faster action than the typical letter, and were also rude about it. The only way I’d call a college to find out my application status would be if it were already a week or more past the time admissions decisions come out (sometime in April, if I recall correctly). I would figure most colleges wouldn’t send out rejection letters any other way than mail - there’s no need to subject admissions office staff to hear disappointed (and possibly abusive) voices on the other end of each phone call; phone calls and email can be faked by pranksters, etc. And let’s face it - from an admissions officer’s point of view, the important students, in descending order, are the ones who get accepted, then the wait-listed, and finally the rejected. Wait-listed students who are eventually accepted are actually contacted by phone (I was one such student, but I chose to attend a different college). But I digress. I hope this helps! (22) John Linneball's answer to Why would a teacher write questions on the board, then have students rewrite the questions themselves on paper before writing their answers? - Quora
So students can keep their papers as notes for studying? Or so the students know what problems they’re answering, as Elizabeth Henderson put it. Or if the papers are going to be collected as graded assignments, it makes it easier for the teacher to know what problems the students are attempting to solve. Click here for my answer on Quora:
Be happy that your actual test score was higher than you thought it would be. Great job! Here's the link to my Quora answer.
Hopefully that person has a good GPA. History is a very common “pre law” major. “LSAT experience” can be obtained by practicing with an LSAT prep book, using online LSAT materials, or practicing with a tutor. Other than that, that student should look for professors and others who know them well, will give them good recommendations. It is a much better idea for a person to get recommendations from people who that person well, than to get recommendations from a famous or influential person who that aspiring law student doesn’t know well. The law school applicant should also work on writing great personal statements and other essay questions. It’s a good idea for the applicant to have a friend who writes well review his or her writing. The applicant should bee prepared to discuss how the great ideas he or she have learned have affected his or her life - he or she will be asked to address this issue in one way or another. Additionally, any applicant to virtually any graduate program at any university should discuss what he or she does with his or her free time, whether it’s volunteer work, arts and crafts, athletics, etc. Any school is interested in what you do to relax, be a more interesting person, learn things that aren’t in your field of endeavor, etc. The applicant should be prepared to discuss in detail, his or her plans for the future - what he or she plans to do in law school and as a practicing lawyer and why. Hope this helps! Can cramming lead to good results in standardized tests like SATs or ACTs?
There are SAT and ACT guides that have schedules or syllabi for studying when you have limited time (e.g., instead of three months, you only have one month, or a week, or three days, or even one day). Even test guides like that, however, emphasize that these abbreviated study schedules are unlikely to get you results as good as you would obtain from working, say, between a half hour and an hour and a half each day. Here’s a blog entry I wrote on this topic, about 9 years ago: Why start now? I'm the proprietor and only tutor for this business; that's why I named it after me. http://www.johnlinneball.com/blog---answers-to-frequently-asked-questions-and-more/why-start-nowIn case you can’t read that: Why start now? You may think “Why should I start preparing for the test now? It’s not for months, or even until next year. I’m sure I’ll do fine if I start to study a month or so before the test, or even just a few days before it.” 1. Cramming Doesn’t Work. Not only has your experience shown you that trying to learn at the last minute doesn’t help, but neuroscience has also confirmed this repeatedly. Your brain can produce only so much of the proteins and neurotransmitters necessary for you learn and remember at one time. Rest between learning periods is essential to learn effectively[i]. 2. Tutor Availabliity: The Early Bird Really Does Get the Worm. The best tutors are the hardest to get at the last minute. Let’s face it; tutors, like anyone else, can only work a certain number of hours per week. Tutors with good reputations get hired and booked very quickly in high test-prep season, roughly August through November, when high-school seniors are coming up on application deadlines, and the only slightly less-busy December through June season. If you come late, not only are you faced with more “cram studying,” you’re stuck with three unattractive choices (also see my “Why Should I Hire an Independent Private Tutor?” post): (A) Book whatever tutor is available after the ones with the best reputations are booked solid. This tutor might be wonderful, in which case you win! Woohoo! But more likely, you’re going to get an inexperienced tutor from a service, a tutor who’s good but overbooked and stressed out, or a tutor who just can’t do the job quite right (some very smart, knowledgeable people are very bad teachers- they know the material inside and out, but can’t explain it to you in a way YOU understand). (B) Go with a test prep service like Kaplan or Princeton Review. Don’t get me wrong; I have a great deal of respect for Kaplan, Princeton Review, and (most) other services. I received much of my SAT tutoring training from Think Tank Learning, an excellent test prep and tutoring service; I was good before working for Think Tank, but I’m even better now. The problem is, these services give you a good, basic one-size-fits-all course, where you’ll sit in a class and not receive much individual attention. You may spend too much time focusing on your strengths and not enough time on fixing your weaknesses. Even if a service offers in-home tutoring, you could be the first student of a freshly-trained tutor, which is all right unless you run into an unusual question or problem. A tutor with proven experience is a better bet for your individual test preparation. Finally, some services focus mostly test taking “tricks” instead of focusing on actually teaching the material. While test tricks and tips are essential to getting a high score on the SAT, they are NOT the only things, or even the most important things, to learn. The math, writing, and reading skills tested on the SAT are tested for a reason – you really need to learn them to succeed in college and in life. Being able to guess the correct answer to an algebra problem on the SAT won’t help you when you need to solve the same equation for your college physics class. Why not hire a real tutor and learn the real way to solve a problem as well as the “SAT Trick” way? (C) Study by sitting down with a test prep book – i.e. “Do It Yourself.” I am a big fan of test preparation books. All I had available to study for the SAT and most standardized tests I’ve taken in my life were test prep books. I highly recommend Barron’s books for most test prep (I generally use Barron’s SAT for SAT prep, and supplement it with other materials as necessary, unless the customer requests that I used other materials). I use them as integral parts of my test preparation program. The problem with using a test prep book alone is : What if you don’t understand the answer explanations in the books? In the case with the Official SAT Guide published by the College Board, there ARE no answer explanations – just the answer key that doesn’t explain why the right answer is right. [That must make most students think “Great job, College Board – if I didn’t need explanations, I wouldn’t need your review book, since I’d get all the questions right in the first place!” But I digress.] A test prep book can’t guide you, can’t rephrase explanations and answers until you understand them. Most don’t answer questions like “Will I ever have to know this stuff once I’m done with the test?” “What do I need to do to get into college besides do well on the SAT?” and many other questions that probably wouldn’t even come up while studying by yourself, that do come up when you’re working with a tutor (Really – it happens all the time when I’m tutoring students). 3. You Can Actually Learn the Material Well Enough to Use it in Real Life, Not Just on the Test. The reason the SAT and other standardized tests ask questions about certain subjects, and that colleges, universities and graduate schools require those standardized tests for admissions, is that these subjects are actually important things to know. For example, algebra and arithmetic are important in any physical or social science (including economics and psychology) and English vocabulary, composition, and grammar are important in practically every aspect of life (at least in an English-speaking country.) Many colleges, such as the one I attended – Williams College, give all incoming first-year students a math test. Those that don’t do well have to take a boring math course covering the parts of high school math that most students, especially those who aren’t math fans, would just as soon never see again. (It was called “Quantitative Studies” at Williams). Many colleges also have a basic English composition course that students who didn’t do well on the SAT I, the English SAT subject test, or the English AP test, have to take. I can’t imagine that’s much fun, either, especially with all the other great courses that could be taken in the same time it takes to take a first-year composition course. As we all know and science confirms (see above), the best way to learn any subject is to learn a little bit at a time, with breaks between learning sessions. That can’t happen if you start reviewing too close to the test date, and it makes it very unlikely that you’ll remember the material well after the test. That means your first year of college is likely to have “Quantitative Studies” or “English 100” on the schedule. 4. Junior and Senior Year of High School and College Don’t Leave Much Time for Studying. While you’re preparing for college or grad school, you still have high school or college to finish. That means you can’t study for standardized tests as completely or efficiently as you can during summer break. So starting during or before the summer break preceding the test is a really smart idea. It lets you learn a little at a time, taking breaks and having some fun between lessons. Why wait, stress, and learn less? It won’t help you. So definitely start studying early! Whether you hire a tutor, go to a prep course, or even just use a test prep book, start early! You’ll thank yourself when you get the “fat envelope” admitting you to the college of your choice. [i] See, for example: Stix, G. Forget Ritalin and Cramming: Molecular Pathways in the Brain May Reveal the Best Learning Strategies Scientific American. (January 5, 2012), Last retrieved on October 13, 2014 from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/molecular-learning1/ Klemm, W. To Cram or Not to Cram? That is the Question. Psychology Today. (January 14, 2012) Last retrieved on October 13, 2014 from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/memory-medic/201201/cram-or-not-cram-is-the-question Stafford, T. Memory: Why Cramming for Tests Often Fails. (September 18, 2014) British Broadcasting Corp. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140917-the-worst-way-to-learn How can someone enter West Point without taking the SAT or ACT? What is required for this process both in the United States and internationally? (Click the link to see my original Quora post.)
According to PrepScholar: How to Get Into West Point: 3 Key Tips Concerned about the West Point admissions requirements? We walk you through everything you need to know about how to get into West Point, to help you start your application on the right foot. https://blog.prepscholar.com/how-to-get-into-west-pointYou have to take the SAT or ACT to get into West Point. There are many other requirements. I’ve paraphrased them from the PrepScholar page linked above, in case you have trouble reading it. All West Point applicants are required to be:
https://www.westpoint.edu/admissions/prospective-cadets/international-cadets
West Point applicants are also must send in the following:
Check it out! --> youtu.be/1ka3pchzYZM
Abraham Lincoln and the US Civil War. • Notes for AP US History Video 57: APUSH 57: Lincoln and the Civil War. • What We’re Covering Here : • Introduction: 0:16 • Introduction – E Pluribus Unum: 0:50 • The Gettysburg Address Ushers in a New Age: 1:20 • One Nation, Undivided: 5:26 • Why the Union Won the Civil War: 6:53 • Union & CSA Had Strengths & Weaknesses: 9:21 • How the War was Fought: 13:16 • How the War Was Fought: Southern Victories: 14:32 • How the War Was Fought: The Tide Turns: 15:23 • How the War Was Fought: Iron-Clad Ships: 16:30 • How the War Was Fought: Blockade: 17:16 • Other Important Victories: 20:31 • Note on Military History: 23:15 • Did You Find This Video Useful?: 24:52 • Contact Me! Facebook, Instagram, Email, Phone: 26:40 Notice: This is Not a Substitute for Classes, Text, Etc.: 27:39 If you like this video, please don’t forget to give this a “thumbs up,” subscribe to my channel, and click on the little bell in the top right corner (of my YouTube channel) for notifications. Who’d Like This: Students taking Advanced Placement U.S. History. Anyone else with an interest in U.S. history. Source Material For this Video: • This video is based on my general knowledge of US history, and what I could access/verify using Bing/Google. • While this should help you do well on the AP US History test, I can’t be responsible for what your teacher asks you about on tests, in homework, etc. Please read your class text(s) and pay attention to what your teacher says in class. • Any webpages / resources referenced below. Links for References/Links to Relevant Topics: The History of the Pledge of Allegiance: https://www.ushistory.org/documents/p... I’m also now on LBRY- a cool new video archive – at lbry.tv@JohnLinneballTutoring A Few More Notes/Requests: Please "like" this video on, and subscribe to my YouTube channel if you liked it! This is the best way to help me, and it costs you NOTHING. I get ad money if I get 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch time in a year. If you found this video helpful, why not consider helping me make more videos (each one of these takes hours to make!) by donating a couple of dollars or more through my PayPal at https://paypal.me/johnlinneball ? I'd appreciate your support. Thanks in advance! Fair Use Notice/Disclaimer: All non-licensed clips used for fair use commentary, criticism, and educational purposes. See Hosseinzadeh v. Klein, 276 F.Supp.3d 34 (S.D.N.Y. 2017); Equals Three, LLC v. Jukin Media, Inc., 139 F. Supp. 3d 1094 (C.D. Cal. 2015). Any use of copyrighted material falls under the “Fair use” exceptions to the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. §107; see also Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music (1994), 510 U.S. 569. SPECIAL NEW CUSTOMER OFFER: Free 30-minute diagnostic session. Limited spots. 415-623-4251. |
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