Pwn the sat 4th edition page 36 question 3

Posted:

Pwn the sat 4th edition page 36 question 3

I am tutoring my sophomore on her SAT math and we are going through your book a page at a time.

This problem is under back solving.
Given the amount of time you need to spend multiplying the left hand side of the equation. Wouldn’t it be faster to solve for a than plugging in the values?

How would you approach this differently?
Thanks

Hard questions on the new SAT might look something like this

Posted:

Even though very little information has been released to date—not even a full practice test yet!—I’m hard at work trying to get a head start on the next iteration of the Math Guide for the new SAT (coming about a year from now—March 2016). When I write questions, I have a very hard time keeping (more…)