SAT Changes for March 2009

This story in US News and World Report discusses the fact that students will be able to choose which SAT scores a college sees, beginning in March.

The Most Important Word in an SAT/ACT Essay

Because.

That's it -- the most important word. You are more persuasive if you provide a reason for something. You will earn a better score on your essay if you are more persuasive.

A Harvard behavioural psychologist (Ellen Langer) did a study to determine how important the word "because" is. The gist of it is that when a person asked to cut in line to make five copies, 60% of people said OK.

When the same person asked to cut in line to make five copies because she was in a rush, 94% of people said OK. When that same person asked to cut in line to make five copies because she needed to make copies, 93% of people said OK.

So, even though that second reason isn't compelling, the person was vastly more persuasive when she had a reason than when she didn't. 33% more people said OK, even when the reason was bad. 33%.

I've been telling students for years that the two most crucial elements of thesis writing are to answer the question asked and use the word "because" before giving a reason. Explaining WHY you think what you think is critical to success.

Even Harvard psychologists say so.

I haven't read the whole study yet --and I sure would like to -- but I found the information about the study here, among other places.

Another Easy SAT Math Tip from Your Austin Tutor

Use all the information in a problem.


That's it -- that's the whole tip. In the SAT and the PSAT, there is no extra information in math problems. So if you solve the problem without using the fact that AB is congruent to BC or the fact that ABCD is a square, then you've got the wrong answer. You need to use all the information.

One way to be sure that you are using all the information is to cross out pieces as you use them. As you use each piece of information in your calculations, go back to the problem and softly cross out the information. (You don't want the word to be unreadable, in case you come back to the problem....)

Easy PSAT/SAT Math strategy from your Austin tutor

There are several tips/strategies that everyone agrees help with the math section -- picking real numbers and using them to replace variables in abstract problems, for example.

One strategy that I haven't seen much talk about is using formulas.

It's so easy and basic -- and it's helped all of my students. Essentially, if you are stuck on a problem, you write down the formula and then just substitute information in.

Here's an example. (This is a very hard SAT math problem...)


The average of six numbers is 210. If all the numbers are distinct positive integers and one of the numbers is 24, what is the greatest possible value of one of the remaining five numbers?

This kind of question has freaked out a lot of students, but it's really, really easy to set up -- if you use the formula.

average = sum of terms divided by the number of terms

In this case, that would be

75 = [24+x+y+z+a+b]/6

Cross multiply and you get

450 = x+y+z+a+b+24




OK, this next part requires a little thinking:

In order to simplify, first we subtract 24 from both sides and get

426 =x+y+z+a+b

(This is a step that most students miss if they haven't used the formula).

In order to figure out what the GREATEST possible value of one of those variables is, we have to think for a second. For one number to be really big, the rest would have to be small. And if all the numbers are distinct, positive integers, then the smallest they could be is 1, 2, 3, and 4. (Remember each number has to be distinct -- otherwise, we could just use 1,1,1,1).

So if x =1, y=2, z=3, and a=4,

then

426 =1+2+3+4+b

and b = 416.

There's your answer -- that's the biggest possible number that could make the equation true...