College Board ? of the Day

Read the following SAT test question, then click on a button to select your answer.

The population of Norson, the largest city in Transitania, is 50 percent of the rest of the population of Transitania. The population of Norson is what percent of the entire population of Transitania?

1. 20%


2. 25%


3. 30%


4. 33%


5. 50%

College Board ? of the Day

The following sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence contains no error, select choice E.

Although	it is not a fast runner,	wolves	can maintain
A		B

a loping run for many miles,	running	throughout the
	C

night	if necessary.	No error
	D	E

1. (A)


2. (B)


3. (C)


4. (D)


5. (E)

Preparing for SAT's as a group

March 26, 2008
ON EDUCATION
A Do-It-Yourself SAT Class, With No Whining, or Parents, Allowed

By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
MIAMI SPRINGS, Fla.

At 5:57 p.m., three minutes ahead of schedule, William Scott bent his lanky frame into the single chair at the front of Room 109. He clasped a set of grammar exercises, and he wore a sweatshirt with the M.I.T. logo. It was “Nerd Day” at Miami Springs High School, but he had chosen the attire with ambition in mind rather than irony.

William began to pass out the grammar exercises to the six classmates before him. The hallway outside the door stretched nearly silent and deserted, just the thin hiss of a janitor sweeping tile. In a school of 2,365 students, William and his comrades might have been the only ones left in the place; surely they were the only ones volunteering for 90 more minutes of class.

They had been gathering this way since early January, three nights a week, with the specter of June 7 on the horizon. June 7 is the day they will take the SAT, and they had made a pact to study for it together, to teach one another, to do it for themselves.

When William, a 16-year-old junior, began recruiting kids for the SAT class out of honors courses and the math club, he drafted a pledge for every participant to sign. “Dropping out is NOT an option,” the statement began. “Eternal shame on all quitters!!” The last item on the list specified: “No complainers, whiners, or excuse makers allowed. We have a job to do, so let’s just do it.”

William and his crew had their collective eyes on three prizes: a score of 700 on each part of the test, a scholarship to a major university and a white-collar career. The goals were both admirable and audacious in a blue-collar suburb and in a high school of modest aspirations.

Miami Springs provides its students some SAT preparation in math and English classes, and offers Advanced Placement courses to top students like William. But as a school struggling with chronic overcrowding and strained resources — where half the students qualify for subsidized lunches, 94 percent are nonwhite and dozens every year are newly arrived Cuban refugees — the major academic emphasis has been preparing everyone for Florida’s required basic skills tests. The school itself is rated “C” by the state.

Once every few years, a Miami Springs graduate has reached Harvard or the University of Chicago. More commonly, the immediate future holds community college or a four-year university within driving distance of home. So when Maria Medina, the assistant principal, first learned of William’s class, she had two reactions: relief that the school itself didn’t have to pay for it, and “a feeling beyond pride” about the students.

On a recent Monday night, in a borrowed social studies classroom adorned with a suit of armor and several cardboard models of the Parthenon, the work resolutely proceeded. As William led the lesson, periodically nibbling on his nails, Milagros Rodriguez, Ivette Vallejo, LaDonna Evans, Andrew Gonzalez, Roylan Marquez and Jessica Fadel drilled through page after photocopied page of deliberately flawed sentences.

Each student took a turn unmasking the misplaced modifier, the noun-verb disagreement or the lack of parallel structure. The group had an extended sidebar about the difference between “sit” and “set.” And when Jessica mistook “lay” for “lie” in correcting a particular sentence, the rest of the room groaned, giving everyone a moment of levity.

Some nights, as William and the rest made their way through the grammar and syntax, the reading comprehension and essay practice, the algebra and geometry, they wondered why the material looked so unfamiliar. Did Miami Springs not teach it? Had they themselves forgotten it?

“Have you ever heard of Ernest Hemingway?” Jessica asked on this particular night. “I had this alum from back in the day ask me, and I didn’t know.”

Andrew answered, “Read ‘The Old Man and the Sea.’ ”

Then it was back to examples and practice. Jessica started passing out the night’s vocabulary quiz, two pages of “reprisals,” “cloistered,” “unfettered” and “askance.”

THE whole adventure began when William’s grandmother got Alzheimer’s several years ago, and his father, Steven, gave up his law practice to care for her at home. Craving something to engage his intellect, he helped his eldest child, Laura, study for the SAT. They pulled together a curriculum from newspaper clippings, online grammar tests, used dictionaries and sample test books that he bought for a buck apiece at thrift stores. Lauren earned admission to Wellesley.

William came next. As a sophomore, he took the Preliminary SAT exam and scored at the 67th percentile, which already put him near the top of his Miami Springs classmates. Still, his father insisted on supplying some homemade tutoring before William took the test again. He went up to the 94th percentile.

It was then, late last fall, when William began thinking about sharing his father’s method with other students. “Being a semi-rebellious teen,” Steven Scott recalled, “he wanted to do it himself. And every time I try to intervene, he stares daggers at me. I’m becoming more irrelevant by the day.”

William has always been his own person, playing French horn and water polo, watching the Discovery Channel instead of MTV, using words like “pariah” and “tessellate” in class discussions. Fortunately, he also had the feathery eyelashes that made him the heartthrob for the girls’ water polo team.

“I’m not snooty-smart,” William said of himself. “But I don’t hide it, either.”

He did not seek out straight-A students for the SAT class. His curriculum was built on redundancy and repetition, nothing gimmicky, all of it aimed at building both skills and confidence. “The commitment was that you should be in the class every day we have it,” William said. “It’s not some two-week thing where you can cram.”

Even a few parents found themselves shocked by the intensity.

“My dad constantly asks me, every day, is this worth it?” Jessica Fadel said. “And I tell him, of course. Why else would I put up with this? We have to pitch in. We have to depend on ourselves. We have to figure out how to make the lessons stick. In a way, we learn responsibility in this class.”

E-mail: sgfreedman
@nytimes.com


Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
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College Board ? of the Day

Choose the word or set of words that, when inserted in the sentence, best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.

Designed to resist storms by virtue of their ------- weight, the oil platforms towed into the North Sea were the heaviest objects ever moved by human technology.

1. inconsistent


2. purported


3. unstable


4. random


5. immense

Yesterday's answer %63
Thursday's answer 5
Wednesday's answer 2
Monday's answer D
Sunday's answer's 1
Saturday's answer 5

College Board ? of the Day

Read the following SAT test question, then click on a button to select your answer.

If the length and width of rectangle A are 10 percent less and 30 percent less, respectively, than the length and width of rectangle B, the area of A is equal to what percent of the area of B?

1. 63%


2. 60%


3. 40%


4. 6%


5. 3%

Hint
If L stands for the length of rectangle B, then the length of rectangle A is 10% less, that is, L minus 10% of L, or 0.9L. Similarly, if W stands for B’s width, then A’s width is W minus 30% of W, or 0.7W.

College Board ? of the Day

Part of the following sentence is underlined; beneath the sentence are five ways of phrasing the underlined material. Select the option that produces the best sentence. If you think the original phrasing produces a better sentence than any of the alternatives, select choice A.

With the 1977 publication of Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison both received popular and critical acclaim.

1. both received popular and


2. both received popular and also


3. received popular, along with


4. received popular as well as


5. received both popular and also

College Board ? of the Day

Choose the word or set of words that, when inserted in the sentence, best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.

Milan's friends were confused by the drastic change in his demeanor; usually ------- and calm, Milan had recently become ------- .

1. serene . . unflappable


2. amiable . . irascible


3. kind . . imperturbable


4. reserved . . withdrawn


5. imperious . . surly

College Board ? of the Day

The following sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence contains no error, select choice E.

As	a Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall
A

was known for	his quest to end racial discrimination,
B

his opposition to	the death penalty, and
C

he supported	free speech and civil liberties.	No error
D		E

1. (A)


2. (B)


3. (C)


4. (D)


5. (E)

College Board ? of the Day

Choose the word or set of words that, when inserted in the sentence, best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.

Her vague sense of ------- grew into anxiety and then alarm when she discovered that her initial doubts about the success of the undertaking were well founded.

1. foreboding


2. remorse


3. anticipation


4. intrigue


5. complacency

College Board ? of the Day

Read the following SAT test question, then click on a button to select your answer.

If it is now 4:00 p.m. Saturday, in 253 hours from now, what time and day will it be? (Assume no daylight saving time changes in the period.)

1. 5:00 a.m. Saturday


2. 1:00 a.m. Sunday


3. 5:00 p.m. Tuesday


4. 1:00 a.m. Wednesday


5. 5:00 a.m. Wednesday

College Board ? of the Day

Part of the following sentence is underlined; beneath the sentence are five ways of phrasing the underlined material. Select the option that produces the best sentence. If you think the original phrasing produces a better sentence than any of the alternatives, select choice A.

Lady Day, as Billie Holiday was usually called, was the finest jazz singer of her generation, and it was the opinion of her fans, she was the greatest jazz singer of the twentieth century.

1. it was the opinion of her fans, she was


2. the opinion of her fans was of her as


3. her fans had this opinion, she was


4. for her fans, the opinion was of her as


5. in the opinion of her fans, she was

The College Board ? of the Day

Choose the word or set of words that, when inserted in the sentence, best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.

The ------- of Queen Elizabeth I impressed her contemporaries: she seemed to know what dignitaries and foreign leaders were thinking.

1. symbiosis


2. malevolence


3. punctiliousness


4. consternation


5. perspicacity

College Board ? of the Day

Choose the word or set of words that, when inserted in the sentence, best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.

To some scholars of medieval Britain, the legendary King Arthur is a genuine historical figure, while to others he and his Round Table are nothing more than ------- of myth and romance.

1. harbingers


2. trifles


3. spoilers


4. figments


5. inventors

College Board ? of the Day

Part of the following sentence is underlined; beneath the sentence are five ways of phrasing the underlined material. Select the option that produces the best sentence. If you think the original phrasing produces a better sentence than any of the alternatives, select choice A.

Their part of the reconstruction process that followed the Second World War, the nations of Western Europe took steps toward achieving greater political and economic integration.

1. Their


2. The


3. It was


4. As


5. On

Hint
Try rearranging the sentence, beginning with “The nations of Western Europe” and moving the information about reconstruction to the end.

College Board ? of the Day

Choose the word or set of words that, when inserted in the sentence, best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.

A dictatorship ------- its citizens to be docile and finds it expedient to make outcasts of those who do not ------- .

1. forces . . rebel


2. expects . . disobey


3. requires . . conform


4. allows . . withdraw


5. forbids . . agree

Hint
Think carefully about the standard dictionary definitions of the important words in the sentence. And remember that small words such as not can make a big difference. When you pick your answers, read the entire sentence with the blanks filled in to be sure that it makes sense.

College Board ? of the Day

Read the following SAT test question, then click on a button to select your answer.

If p is an odd integer, which of the following is an even integer?

1. p – 2


2. p²


3. p² > – 2


4. (p – 2)²


5. p² – p

Hint
Anytime you square an odd integer, the result will be odd. (Think of 32 = 9, 52 = 25, and 112 = 121.)

Anytime you add 2 to an odd integer, or subtract 2, the result will be odd. (Think of 51 + 2, 19 – 2, and 101 – 2.)

College Board ? of the Day

The following sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence contains no error, select choice E.

Like (A) areas in and around (B) the Rocky Mountains,
the Western Basins and Plateau Region of the United States offer (C) much for (D) the tourist.
No Error (E)

1. (A)


2. (B)


3. (C)


4. (D)


5. (E)

College Board ? of the Day

Choose the word or set of words that, when inserted in the sentence, best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.

The research is so ------- that it leaves no part of the issue unexamined.

1. comprehensive


2. rewarding


3. sporadic


4. economical


5. problematical

College Board ? of the Day

Read the following SAT test question, then click on a button to select your answer.

A group of workers can harvest all the grapes from 10 square meters of a vineyard in minute. At this rate, how many minutes will the group need to harvest all the grapes from 100 square meters of this vineyard?

1. 5


2. 10


3. 20


4. 50


5. 60

College Board ? of the Day

Part of the following sentence is underlined; beneath the sentence are five ways of phrasing the underlined material. Select the option that produces the best sentence. If you think the original phrasing produces a better sentence than any of the alternatives, select choice A.

The language of the Navajo people, like their Apache cousins, is classified in the Athabascan language family.

1. their


2. for their


3. that of its


4. its


5. that of their

Hint
Make sure that the two things being compared in the sentence are of the same type (don’t compare “language” to “cousins”).

College Board ? of the Day

Read the following SAT test question, then click on a button to select your answer.

If = x², the value of x can be which of the following?

1. –


2. 0


3. 

<

1. I only


2. II only


3. III only


4. II and III only


5. I, II, and III

Hint
This question uses what is referred to as the Roman numeral answer format. This format is used in both math and reading passage questions. The way to approach these is to work on each Roman numeral as a separate true/false question. Once you have decided (and marked) each Roman numeral as true or false, it’s easy to find the correct answer.

To test Roman numeral I, try out – as a value for x. Testing Roman numerals II and III means trying out 0 as a value of x and then as a value of x.

College Board ? of the Day

The following sentence contains either a single error or no error at all. If the sentence contains an error, select the one underlined part that must be changed to make the sentence correct. If the sentence contains no error, select choice E.

Among the earliest (A) telescopes were (B) Galilean

telescopes, modeled after the simple instruments

built by (C) Galileo, the first person having used (D)

telescopes to study the stars and planets. No error (E)

(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
(E)

Hint
Ask yourself, “What was Galileo the first person to do?”

College Board ? of the Day

Part of the following sentence is underlined; beneath the sentence are five ways of phrasing the underlined material. Select the option that produces the best sentence. If you think the original phrasing produces a better sentence than any of the alternatives, select choice A.

Johannes Gutenberg is generally credited to bring together the two main concepts of modern printing: movable pieces of metal type that could be reused, and a printing press for producing sharp impressions on paper over and over.

1. to bring


2. as he brought


3. by bringing


4. with bringing


5. for the fact of bringing

Hint
Pay attention to awkward phrasing.

College Board ? of the Day

Choose the word or set of words that, when inserted in the sentence, best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.

A judgment made before all the facts are known must be called ------- .

1. harsh


2. deliberate


3. sensible


4. premature


5. fair

College Board ? of the Day

Read the following SAT test question, then click on a button to select your answer.

If the diameter of a bicycle wheel is 0.5 meter, how many meters has the center of the wheel traveled when the wheel has made 3 complete revolutions along a straight road?

1. 


2. 3


3. 12


4. 


5. 25

Hint
Use the diameter of the wheel to find its circumference. When the wheel makes 1 complete revolution, the center travels a distance equal to the circumference.