I know things have seemed quiet around here lately, and for that I’m sorry. The May SAT, as you’re well aware I’m sure, is 8 days away, and I’ve been very much in demand in my real life. It has, regrettably, cut a bit into my blogging time. That said, I have still been busy behind the scenes, and I thought I’d point out a few things that I’ve posted to the site that you might have missed, and let you know what I’m working on.
- PWN the SAT Q&A (qa.pwnthesat.com). I’ve been looking for a way to make this site a bit more interactive, and this is a step in that direction. It’s a tumblr site (I’m completely inspired here by The YUNiversity, AKA Broseidon – god of the broceans, whose tumblr is a must-read for meme-ified grammar tips, and who knocked my socks off when he posted the image at the top of this post) where you can ask me questions about the SAT. Debbie of the amazing Perfect Score Project got things started with a great question, my response to which I’ll reproduce here since it’s very relevant to how you should be spending your time this week if you’re taking the May test:
Remember that in general, you can improve your score 100 points by making one fewer mistake per multiple choice section. Two fewer mistakes per section? You’re looking at about 200 points. So you don’t need to cover everything at once in the next week to have an effect on your score.In fact, you might be better off concentrating on a few of your weakest areas (especially if they’re common question types — right triangles, for example) than trying to study everything.
If you’re looking to identify some common weak areas, try this drill. Note that, although it’s 20 questions, it’s MUCH harder than a typical 20 question section on the SAT, so don’t try to limit yourself to 25 minutes. The answer key will point you in the direction of some tips specific to the kinds of mistakes you’re making. Iron a few of those out, and you’re well on your way! Good luck!
It’s an experiment, and I haven’t even settled on a design yet, but hopefully it’ll be another way for us to have a conversation about this beast of a test. Get at me.
- The Math Section. In an effort to make this site more useful, I’ve organized all my math posts to date in an outline, and posted it at the top of the page so it’s always easy to find. I’m getting a lot of use out of it myself, so hopefully you will too. On a related note, I’ve also been going back through some of the older posts and trying to bring them up to snuff. I began this site on a whim a few months ago, but it has evolved over that time into something I really enjoy and care about. Some of the older posts don’t yet reflect the level of quality I’m going for now, so I’ve been working back through them. I appended a few good practice questions to the circles post this week, for example.
- Coming soon: new math diagnostic drill. I’m about 4 questions away from another difficult math diagnostic drill aimed at helping you to identify deficiencies and transform them into strengths. Look out for that to hit early next week.
- Coming soon: new reading comprehension content. I’m also still working on more reading comp content, but it’s been ponderous, to say the least. I want to put together a really good double passage drill (spoiler alert: it’ll be about violence in video games) but I really don’t want to write it myself because these things are always better if they’re adapted from actual published writing, not produced by a tutor trying to mimic the SAT’s style. If you have any suggestions for content that I might want to consider, send me an email at mike-at-pwnthesat.com.
- Call for help. Do you know javascript? Like, really well? I have some script on this site that finds vocab words and turns them into links, and I want to make it better. I wrote it myself, and it’s janky because I didn’t know what I was doing. I probably can’t pay you in money, but perhaps we can work out some sort of trade. Seriously.