If you are reading this in an email you received from me, do not click the link to sat.collegeboard.org below. Use the link to my website that is farther down on the email.
http://sat.collegeboard.org/practice/sat-question-of-the-day?questionId=20140202&oq=1 (This link takes you to today’s question. If you use my archive, you will see the question related to my SAT explanation for that date.)
The answer is B. I guess the SAT staff’s explanation is okay but I’m going along with Ms. Murphy (my ninth grade English teacher). She always said “active is better than passive.” In this sentence, we would want the students to do the studying as the object of the prepositional phrase. That is much better than “studying” to be the object. Bubble in Answer B and move on.
Let’s see what the ACT folks have for us today.
ACT Question of the Day: Use your “back” button to return to my website after reading the ACT Question of the Day.
The answer is G. Another of Ms. Murphy’s favorite rules was, “Shorter is better.” When you write, you don’t get paid for the number of words you write; you get paid for results. If you can get the job done just as effectively in a shorter period of time, you have more time to play! In this sentence, who cares that it was a “two-semester year?” That information is superfluous.
If you’ve seen the following paragraph before, skip it. If you haven’t, you need to read it.
I’ve got to use this sentence to teach you something about the ACT English Test directions. They stink! In the directions, the test writers say, “Read the passage through once before you begin to answer any of the questions that accompany it.” Having just done this question, you can see how foolish it would be to do that on test day. Their “directions” aren’t even directions; they are test-taking advice and it is terrible advice. On a timed test, what sense would it make to do what their “directions” tell you to do? Almost all of the questions can be answered by just doing the question (as we did with this example). For the few questions that require you to use the context of a surrounding sentence or two, just deal with those as you get to them. My advice: Just start reading at the beginning of the passage and deal with the underlined portions as you come to them. That approach will greatly increase your speed and certainly won’t hurt your score. It will raise it. Shame on the test writers for giving you such ridiculous “directions.” Why would they do that?
Now back to something really important. I hope you are cheering for the right team today. Go, Broncos! Enjoy the commercials and the food.
The SAT & ACT Wizard
