College Board released a bunch of sample questions this week for the new PSAT and SAT, which will make their debuts in October 2015 and March 2016, respectively. Over the next few days, I’ll be making posts working through each question, a few at a time, and commenting on them when I feel like I have (more…)
How’s everyone else doing on this quiz?
All this talk about the new SAT is interesting and all, but we’ve still got two years to live with the old one, so let’s get back to our regularly scheduled PWNing. Here’s a minorly important circle fact that I find a lot of students don’t know: when a wheel is rolling—without slipping—it makes travels (more…)
I was just noodling around with Geometer’s Sketchpad today, you know—like a totally normal person, and I made this figure, which I thought would make an awesome challenge question. Wasn’t even planning to post a challenge question, and then BAM! Inspiration. In the figure above, equilateral triangle DEF is partially obscured by a semicircle with (more…)
Yesterday I went to a museum and waited in line for a very long time for my turn to spend 5 minutes staring at a piece of art that completely mystified me. I guess it’s good art if I’m still thinking about it a day later, even if the thoughts I’m having mostly revolve around (more…)
This morning I was lying in bed waiting for my alarm to go off, and a question just popped into my head. This happens to me fairly often, but usually I’m too lazy to write it down, then I forget it, then I spend the rest of the day trying to convince myself that it (more…)
My holiday book giveaway is still going strong until January 1, and you can still get your name in there to try to win the daily random drawing, but I figured it was high time for another challenge question. The first person to post a comment on this post with the correct answer will win (more…)
Since you guys tore up my last challenge question so quickly, I figured I’d make this one a tiny bit harder. Let’s see if I can’t stump you for more than 8 minutes. First correct response in the comments gets a free Math Guide. Usual contest rules apply. Ready? Here we go! In the figure (more…)
I’m going to be out of town for a few days, so I won’t be able to post a solution for this until probably Monday, but hopefully I’ll be able to check in and at least congratulate the winner, who will receive a free copy of my Math Guide. A student is drawing concentric circles, (more…)
I’ve been going to the gym lately which is torture and I hate it. I am sore everywhere. I don’t understand why anyone finds it pleasurable to go there, but I do understand not wanting the body of a 70 year old when I’m 35, so I force myself. Anyway, while I was wheezing and (more…)
Robin Hill Park (Jon Forster) / CC BY-SA 2.0 What an annoying weekend I had. It’s all my own poor planning, but the Math Guide went temporarily out of stock this weekend. Hopefully, everything will be back to normal by tomorrow, which means I can get right back to giving books away! This weekend challenge (more…)
I have never seen a school bus like this. Source. I’m going to try to ease myself back into posting math questions fairly regularly on here. No prizes for now, just the satisfaction of knowing you were the first person in the world besides me to figure this particular question out. This probably wouldn’t appear (more…)
First of all, if you’re taking the November test, good luck. If you’re prepared well, you have nothing to fear. Get in there and beast it. Of course, many people aren’t taking the November SAT, and they deserve some love, too. If you’re not taking the test tomorrow, here’s one tough question to noodle on while (more…)
I didn’t do a Weekend Challenge last weekend. It’s not like I didn’t want to, y’all. Things just got totally cray-cray. My use of “cray-cray” in the previous sentence should be enough of an indication to you that things remain squarely thus. I actually wrote two questions for this weekend, but I’m only going to (more…)
So the question writing contest I proposed a few weeks back didn’t exactly explode onto the scene like I thought it would, but I still think it’s a fantastic way for you to improve your skills, so just FYI: it’s still open. I got the question above in an email the other day. The writer (more…)
