Tutoring For All Ages

Today’s SAT Question of the Day is a double-blank sentence completion:

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

The play, which features —— mix of comedy, pathos, and music, was correctly described by one honest critic as a ——.

A) a seamless . . debacle
B) an ungainly . . hodgepodge
C) an unfortunate . . masterpiece
D) an inappropriate . . success
E) a harmonious . . failure

It’s a question that, in some ways, hinges on one word: honest. A theater critic would have no reason not to be honest if they were reviewing a good play. So it’s likely that it was a bad play, so we should look for answer choices that reflect that.

However, even if you missed that clue word, you could still figure out the right answer from the other clue words (play, mix, correctly, and critic). (more…)

Around this time of year, we start getting a lot of questions about the January SAT, mostly from high-school juniors. Should I take it? Should I wait? My school is making me take it and is that okay?

Quite honestly, it’s a bit of an awkward time to take the test. Some students haven’t been exposed to all the material they’ll need to know for the test by January of their junior year. For those students, it might be better to wait until the spring or even next fall to take the test.

But for those students who have covered the math on the test and are relatively confident in their verbal skills, the idea of getting the test over with in January is quite alluring.

Be careful, though, about over-preparing for this test. Unless you are a very rare person, you will probably end up taking the test again, perhaps more than once. So you will end up preparing for the test several times. And it is possible to overdo it and burn out. The last thing you need is to take the test again and have your score go down because your performance peaked too early.

If you do decide to take the January test as a junior, we generally recommend that you only do some light preparation specific to standardized tests. If you want to do some intense studying over the holidays, we recommend that you do two things: work on your vocab, and read. Reading and improving your vocabulary are the most important things you can do to improve your verbal test scores.

Need some suggestions? Check this list.

We’ve said before that reading is one of the most effective things you can do to improve your verbal skills and increase your test scores. But what should you read?

Here are a few suggestions:

• CNN.com
• Discover
• The London Times
• The Los Angeles Times
• The New York Times
• Scientific American
• Time
• USA Today

If this seems a little overwhelming, just pick one and start off with something that interests you. Even if it’s just the movie reviews!

You’ve still got leftover turkey in the fridge, finals are approaching, and you’re about to start a well-deserved break from school. You may be thinking that studying is the last thing you want to do during your break, but if you’re taking a standardized test in the spring, now is a great time to catch up on all that vocab you know you should have been working on all fall.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: a large and diverse vocabulary is the fastest and easiest route to a great verbal score on your PSAT/SAT/ACT/SSAT/ISEE/take-your-pick.

Improving your vocab doesn’t have to require hours of work per day, and it doesn’t necessarily have to feel like work. (more…)