Question of the Day (SAT & ACT): Nov. 11, 2013

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=20131111&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 test writer’s explanation is a little simplistic.  The real problem is that as it is written “both” only refers to Morrison!  Who’s the other person?  It would have been fine to have written “Morrison received both popular and critical acclaim.”  However, that’s not a choice.  B has the same problem as the original sentence.  C has an unnecessary comma and is awkward.  E has an unnecessary “also.”  D avoids all those issues and makes the meaning of the sentence clear.  It is also short and to the point.  I like it and so would Ms. Murphy!  (She was my 9th grade English teacher who could teach English to a fencepost if she had that fencepost’s undivided attention!)

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.

Hey, ACT guys didn’t you sell enough tests last year?  You made over $50,000,000 just selling ACT registrations.  Certainly that’s enough to add some new questions to your website.  I don’t even have to read the passages anymore.  This question has shown up way too often; get some new material.  Maybe you’ll get students to come back and check out your QotD.  Right now they quit because they get tired of seeing the same stuff all the time.

The answer is H.  Use the Insertable component of my PICK strategy.  (See Video #3 for a complete explanation or refer to my free website.)  When you insert the answers into the passage F, G, and J don’t fit.  They add to or disagree with the passage.  H fits just fine.  Check out lines 74-6.  You could insert “a private person” into those lines and it would fit perfectly.

Use my strategy to improve your speed when taking the test.  Don’t overthink the answers.  Simply use PICK and you’ll not only get faster but also improve your score.

If you have an extra day off this weekend, enjoy.  You deserve an “atta boy” for spending some of it working on your SAT and/or ACT score.

The SAT & ACT Wizard

About Bob Alexander

Bob has been a professional educator starting with teaching biology, becoming a school administrator, and then working as an education lobbyist in Washington, DC. He got his start in national testing by becoming a consulting test writer, later joining Kaplan as a director, and finally starting his own business in 1995. He has written numerous books, consulted for school districts and colleges, developed his website and been featured on a DVD set. He offers SAT and ACT prep classes and tutors individuals and small groups of students in central Florida.
Category: SAT & ACT Question Of The Day No Comments

Comments are closed.