http://sat.collegeboard.org/practice/sat-question-of-the-day?src=R&questionId=20130207 (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 E. The SAT folks do a pretty good job of explaining the right answer. Keep the Wizard’s strategy in mind: the right answer has to be consistent with the topic of the sentence and key words and phrases. In this case, we know right away that viewers were “polarized.” Since like on the planet Earth and on magnets, poles are opposite one another, that is how the viewers felt–opposite one another. That leads us to E. None of the other answers have opposite meanings.
Work on your vocabulary. One of the easiest ways is to keep doing these SAT Question of the Day activities. Are there any words here you don’t know? Extolled and disparaged are good words to know. If you don’t, add them to your vocab list. If you don’t have a list of new words to learn, get a binder and put an alphabetical set of tabbed dividers in it. Make your own little dictionary of new words. Get to work!!
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 great example of something I teach in my SAT and ACT program (refer to DVD #6): when you see a polynomial that looks like it can be factored, factor it and at least one of the factors will be somewhere in the question or the answers. On the SAT, the factors will be in the question. In this case, notice one of the factors is the denominator in the question and the other factors are in the answer. Using this little tidbit of “Wizardly Wiz-dom,” makes this an easy question. Rather than doing the factoring, you can easily use the answers and multiply them times the denominator. Answer C times x+4 gives you the numerator and you’re all done. Shazzam!!
If you are taking the ACT this Saturday, time is running short. I recommend you watch my online Tips and Tricks videos to help you prepare. In addition to the free ones on the home page, it only costs $3 to watch an hour of my best test-taking techniques for taking the SAT and ACT tests.
The Wizard
