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?questionId=20131107&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 D. The subject of the sentence is “senator.” The sentence tells us that the senator would rather be disliked than do something about her principles. That is the topic of the sentence which is always the key to answering Sentence Completion questions. It makes sense that the senator would stick to her principles even though she may become disliked by some people. So, I predicted “stick to” or “not abandon” for the blank. That led me to the right answer, compromise, which means to she didn’t remain committed to her principles. Because the sentence says “rather,” we know she didn’t compromise her principles.
Have you ever noticed that if a woman is the subject of a sentence that the topic will always be positive? The test is sex-biased. I used that pattern of the test in this case. When I read the sentence, I knew she would be cast in a positive light and wouldn’t betray her principles. Watch for this pattern on the test and use it against your opponents.
Let’s see what the ACT folks have for us this morning.
ACT Question of the Day: Use your “back” button to return to my website after reading the ACT Question of the Day.
Why does the Wizard call the ACT test writers “bad” too? They need to quit being lazy and come up with some new questions. I don’t even need to read the passages because I’ve seen the questions so many times. I understand why students quit doing the ACT Question of the Day. After a month or two, you only see repeated questions. Certainly the ACT folks can fix this problem–they have thousands of archived, released questions they could use on their website.
The answer is H. If you master my Insertable strategy, this and other reading test questions are a snap. Try inserting the answers to see if they fit into the passage without adding or disagreeing with the information you are given. Go ahead; give it a try. Answer F disagrees because Ms. Sennett is “stone deaf” (line 17); that disagrees. Answers G and H add new things to the story. The reading test becomes a much simpler game if you use Insertable and the rest of the Wizard’s Checklist to eliminate answers. It will save you time and increase your score.
Thought for the day: Our actions reveal more about our character than what we say.
The SAT & ACT Wizard
