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=20130921&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. The words in the sentence that aren’t underlined are the driving force for the question. All the underlined words and phrases have to be consistent with them. In this case, “replaced” is past tense. Therefore, all the other verbs have to reflect the past tense. B, becomes, is wrong because it doesn’t.
What you need to do to prepare for this part of the test (Writing) is get your hands on a list of popular grammar and composition errors that show up on the test. I cover them on Video #9. You can also find lists in other places but I haven’t critiqued them; so, I can’t tell you if they are any good or not.
This is the easiest question I’ve ever seen on the SAT Question of the Day! Do you ever pay attention to how many students are getting the Question correct? 82% had gotten it right when I wrote this blog (about 4:30 in the morning). I’ve never seen anything nearly that high. What can we learn about the test from this information?
First, yes, there are some easy questions on the test and don’t necessarily be worried that you are missing something and over think the question, make them complicated and consequently make a mistake. Keep in mind that your first impression for the right answer should not be changed unless you see irrefutable proof that it was wrong.
Second, keep in mind that within question format the questions are arranged from easy to hard (except reading passages and the six passage type questions on the Writing test). So, you are going to see some easy questions in the first few for each format. Do them quickly and “bank” time for later in the test when the questions are going to be harder and require more time.
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 answer is F. As always, the information you need to answer the question is right in the passage and Table 1. The passage tells you, “A student performed the following experiments on three clear, sunny days at three- or four-month intervals throughout the course of a year” and “…the shadow cast by the stick were measured one hour after sunrise (Shadow A).” Then the Table tells you that the direction changes with each measurement. That leads to answer F. Answers G and H happen to be true at that time of the day but “never” means never. We don’t know from the experiment if the answers could be true or not at a different time of the day. Answer J is silly because there’s no measure of brightness indicated in the passage or table.
What does this question tell us about the test? First, just like the SAT and ACT Reading tests, base your answer only on the information that is given. Prior knowledge is the enemy! Forget it. When answers add to the passage, even if they are accurate, they are wrong. All three of these wrong answers add to the passage. That is as simple as it gets.
There happens to be a very rare exception to this advice. In over 20 years of keeping track of ACT tests, I’ve seen two questions that weren’t answered by the passage and tables. They required prior knowledge to answer them correctly. However, this is so rare that I recommend you just treat the questions as if these rare exceptions never occur.
Check out more tips and tricks on Video #10.
Enjoy your Saturday. Glad to see you are spending a few minutes of it thinking about improving your SAT and ACT scores! Good for you.
The SAT & ACT Wizard
