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.
http://sat.collegeboard.org/practice/sat-question-of-the-day?questionId=20140430&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.)
Reading this blog is 10% about learning how to answer today’s questions and 90% learning how to apply strategies and analyze questions you may see on test day.
Sorry about not posting yesterday. I’m staying in someone’s home that doesn’t have the Internet. Can you imagine that? It is 2014! I had to drive to IHOP to find a Wi-Fi connection this morning.
The answer is E. “Comparing it…” is a problem. What does “it” refer to? “It” is close to “Florida” and “it” sure doesn’t refer to the state. Just get rid of “it” and you see that “percentage” is being compared between Florida and Brazil. Therefore, “compared with” is clearer. The other possible answers introduce words that are not consistent with the comparison that is being made by the sentence.
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.
What they have for us is a question that has been used so many times that I’m surprised the ink hasn’t faded on the page!
The answer is F. As always, the answer is in the passage because they tell us that the stick is stuck in the ground with 1 meter exposed in Experiment 1. Then we are told “the experiment was repeated.” So, the length of the stick is the same. You can see in the description of the experiments and the data tables that the three items listed in the other answers were not constant.
What I want you to remember is Pillar V that I wrote about in my last blog: The Answer Is on the Page. You don’t need to worry about prior knowledge for the ACT Science Test. Simply find the answer on the page; it is in your test booklet. Keep in mind that the Science Passage is like having a “cheat sheet”: It will have the answer. In fact, whenever multiple-choice questions appear on the test in any section, the answer is on the page!
QotD Words of “Wiz-dom”:
This is the last in a series about the Pillars of Test-Taking “Wiz-dom.”
Pillar VI: Don’t Be Intimidated By the Seemingly Difficult:
Perhaps the test writers get paid to make material look as complicated as they can. Then they may get a bonus for being able to make wrong answers as attractive as possible. Finally, I think the people who write the explanations for some of the Questions of the Day get really nice presents for writing explanations that are more difficult to follow than the questions themselves (especially for math).
The Pillars are here for you to use to simplify the whole test-taking experience. All of my strategies relate to them. For example, the MOPP, FRaS, and PICK strategies (Video Series #300 and in my free on-line course) should be applied to every reading passage you’ll see on the tests. No matter what the passage topic is, you always read it by using FRaS to find MOPP. No matter what the reading test questions ask, you can always answer every one of them using PICK.
The math questions are always attacked by using my mantra: What did they tell me and what do I know because they told me that?
Have a great day. Keep using the Haiku worksheets and Demystifying the SAT & ACT manual to review for Saturday’s test.
Bob Alexander, the “SAT and ACT Wizard”
