Just like most of my students don’t recognize an old-fashioned film strip, they also don’t recognize negative exponents. Exponents are tricky and they don’t work exactly like other numbers do. Once you learn the exponent rules, you also need to learn how to handle fractional exponents. Negative exponents And the fun doesn’t end there. You […]
Math
Summer math brain?
I can tell it’s summer around here because I’m getting blank stares from kids when I ask them what 2+2 equals. (You can imagine the confusion when I ask them about fractional exponents or inverse slopes!) Summer math brain has set in! It’s way too hard to focus when it’s so gorgeous outside. So how do […]
Fractional exponents and flowers
SAT/ACT Math tip: If you have trouble remembering how fractional exponents work, think of flowers!
Bad explanations
Yay – The College Board now posts explanations for all the SAT Practice Tests. (The actually did this for the old test as well, but they didn’t publicize it well it so no one knew about it.) So high five to them for doing it better this time around. However, many of the explanations aren’t […]
SAT strategies: Write everything down!
Two things that I keep telling my kids over and over. It comes up in EVERY session with EVERY kid. Write everything down Draw a picture Write everything down Write EVERYTHING down. EVERYTHING. EVERYTHING. So many kids lose points by solving out the equation and then, at the very last second, losing the point. Today […]
Estimating on the SAT
Estimating continues to be effective on the new SAT. Many problems require you to solve for the exact answer – but not all of them. This question is from the Official SAT Practice Test 7, Section 4, Question 15. First, draw a picture to visualize the problem. Hmm.. 3 7/8 is pretty close to 4. […]