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. If you are seeing this in my blog, do the SAT Question of the Day by clicking on this link:
http://sat.collegeboard.org/practice/sat-question-of-the-day?src=R&questionId=20130402 (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 C. As with all SAT Sentence Completion Questions, prior to looking at the answers, identify the topic of the sentence and then use it as well as key words and phrases in the sentence to predict an answer. This sentence is about how food brings a family together. I predicted a word like “gathering,” or “collecting,” or “unifying” before I looked at the answers. Answer C jumped right off the page. The value of predicting the answer is that is keeps you from being distracted by wrong answers because you are focused on finding a synonym for your prediction. Remember that the right answer will always be consistent with the topic of the sentence.
Let’s see what the ACT folks have in store for us this morning.
http://www.act.org/qotd/ (The ACT staff does not put a date on their questions so if you click on an archived blog, you’ll get today’s question and the old explanation. Sorry. The SAT staff has dated their questions; so, the archive is helpful. The ACT folks simply don’t do that.)
The answer is C. This is a pretty simple concept. If you’ve ever looked at shadows, this answer is as simple as it seems. Two people of different heights will cast shadows of different lengths. The shadow for the top of a tree is farther away than the shadow of the trunk of the same tree. The lengths of the shadows will be in proportion to how high the top of the item is above the ground. In this question, the stick’s length is shortened to one-half of its original height. The shadow has to be one-half as long. All done.
What can you learn about the ACT Science Test from this question? Don’t mull over a question trying to make it harder than it is. Some of the questions and their answers will be simple. Use them to pick up some time so that you have extra time to do harder questions.
Enjoy your day and I look forward to seeing you back here tomorrow.
The Wizard
