This question trips up the majority of my students. If they don’t know how to solve for it directly, they shut down, throw up their hands, randomly guess, waste time worrying and stressing, and lose the point. This problem is from SAT Practice Test 7, Section 3, Question 6. Not only do students not know the […]
SAT Test Prep
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An expert tutor can increase students’ ACT and SAT scores
The SAT and ACT are waiting to mug you in a back alley
The SAT and ACT have a reputation for being really hard tests. They are – but they are hard in a way that most students don’t expect. So it catches them doubly off guard. It’s what you don’t know that you don’t know that can kill you (or get you mugged in a dark alley) […]
When is a triangle question not a triangle question?
This question stumped one of my students today. This is from the SAT Official Practice Test 8, Section 4, Question 5. A triangle problem He correctly transferred the information in the text onto the picture but then he didn’t know what to do next. He saw the triangle and was thinking about the Pythagorean Theorem […]
Further insight into guessing on the ACT and SAT
The theory and practice of guessing I recently had an email exchange with Phil Keller, one of my favorite SAT tutors, and the author of the excellent and highly-recommended book The New Math SAT Game Plan. We were discussing guessing on the ACT and SAT. I’ve excerpted portions of our email conversation with his permission […]
How Oreos can help you solve SAT and ACT math problems
Watch the video How do you eat a double-stuffed Oreo? Everyone eats the stuffing first, then the cookie. You start on the inside and then work your way out. It’s exactly the same thing with nested function problems on the ACT and the SAT. Let’s look at how to solve this problem: Start with […]