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=20130924&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. If you watch Video #9 and read the corresponding material in my book, Demystifying the SAT & ACT, or just look at that materials on my website you will see the second grammar error I discuss is “subject/verb” agreement. (If you don’t do that, get a list of SAT/ACT common grammar and composition errors somewhere else. It’s important and will raise your score.) Either way, The subject of the sentence is reading and we need a singular verb. Involve is plural so we would have to change it to involves. That’s not so difficult; 68% of students is getting it right this morning so far. (BTW, don’t ask me why singular nouns don’t have an s but singular verbs do have an s. I’m guessing way back when they had the first grammar rules meeting, the leader of the pack wasn’t exactly sober.)
What can we learn about the test from this question? First, the test writers have a list of common grammar and composition errors that they like to put on the test. Get a good copy of the list and review/study it. Second, the test writers like to put words in a sentence between subjects and predicates to lead you astray! Make sure you are careful about matching subjects with predicates. Don’t get mislead by intervening words like maps in this case. Ms. Murphy taught me to just read the subject and predicate, for example, “reading involves.” That works. Including maps just confuses and distracts us.
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 ACT QotD is the same question that they’ve asked us too many times before.
The answer is F. When you insert the answers in the story, G-J all add to the story or disagree with the passage. Watch Video #3 and you will learn about PICK. It is the best way to identify and eliminate wrong answers. For a quick example, just watch the free reading YouTube clip on the home page of this website. You will learn about add.
I apologize for not putting any new material about the ACT in my blog this morning. I’m bored by today’s question. This is the third time in the last 6 weeks that this question has shown up on the ACT Question of the Day. The test writers’ offices are in Iowa and they must be busy harvesting corn because they sure aren’t attending to their website! The ACT folks need to put some new material on it for us to use.
I hope you have a great day. I’ll be staying indoors and avoiding the rain.
The SAT & ACT Wizard
