An Oldie But Goodie: 5-Paragraph Essay Part I: Introduction Paragraph

Posted by
You know the 5-paragraph essay format you learned way back when? Use it. Or at least use a 4-paragraph essay where you cut out one of the body paragraphs.

Of course there are other formats that can get you a nice score on this essay, but if you don’t already know them, now is not the time to learn or practice unfamiliar writing models…not with this much riding on the line. If you’re already familiar with other formats, then I’m guessing you don’t really need my help. You are probably already an excellent writer, and scoring a 10-12 should be a cakewalk for you.

For the rest of you, stick to the 5-paragraph essay structure, which let me remind you goes like this:

Paragraph 1: Thesis + Introduction
Paragraph 2: Example 1/Analysis
Paragraph 3: Example 2/Analysis
Paragraph 4 (optional): Example 3/Analysis, or alternatively, shoot down objections to your viewpoint
Paragraph 5 (optional): Conclusion

Many 4 or 5 paragraph essays following this template have received perfect 12s, including my own where I followed this exact format. Even if you are an excellent writer who knows other formats, the 5-paragraph format is a tried and true format that can get you a perfect score. Why risk other writing models that may or may not work for you?

I say paragraphs 4 and 5 (conclusion) are optional because I’ve seen so many, and I really mean MANY, essays get perfect 12s with only two examples. I’ve also seen many perfect scores with no conclusion whatsoever. You could be mid-sentence with your last sentence when time is called and still earn a 12 if your holistic impression is that good.

However, I wouldn’t make both paragraphs 4 and 5 optional. Try to write at least one of them. A third example (paragraph 4) is only optional if you can’t come up with another example or are running out of time.

Today, I want to focus on the introduction, a short but crucial little guy that not only sets the tone of your essay but also helps you organize your thoughts. A strong intro forces you to think specifically, which is a good thing.

Paragraph 1: Thesis + Introduction (2-3 sentences)

Sentence 1: make your first sentence your thesis where you pick a clear side. Your thesis must be specific.

Cut out the fluffy intros. Just cut…them…out. And don’t just say, “I believe questioning authority can be a good thing sometimes.” Notice how many weak qualifying words are in that sentence. I believe? Well duh, Sherlock. We know you believe it because you wrote it. Sometimes? Give me a break. Almost nothing in life is 100% absolutely the case all the time.

              “Questioning authority can be a good thing.” ß stronger, but we can
              do better still.

“Although questioning authority may come off as irreverent and rebellious, such an action can actually be beneficial when it allows people to understand the motives and reasons behind the wishes of an authority.” ß much better.

Notice the level of specificity that single sentence contains. THAT’S what a thesis is all about, baby. That’s what a powerhouse statement does – provides an instant and powerful impact straightaway. We don’t need some lousy, generalizing introductory remarks. Just tell us what you think.

This thesis is potent because it accomplishes many things:
Finish reading this post →
Labels: , , ,
0 comments

Spread the pwnge

Posted by
Things have been absolutely bonkers for me lately, a fact which has been deleterious to the frequency of posts on this site. Although I've been keeping up with the Q&A alright, long-form posts on this blog have taken a bit of a back seat. That probably bothers me more than it bothers you, but I've decided to run guest posts every so often to stave off any staleness around here, and to give a voice to some colleagues of mine who I deem to be legit.

Peter Peng is a fellow Brunonian and a tutor based in Los Angeles, although I understand he does the online tutoring thing, so he's a citizen of the world. He's been working on an SAT book of his own, of which I've seen only excerpts. I hunger for more. He'll be posting around here every so often, and I'm sure he'll be so kind as to provide you his contact information should you want to get to know him better.

You'll be hearing from Peter relatively soon. You'll know which posts are his because they'll be clearly marked, and you'll be able to read all his posts, should you desire, by clicking your way to the brand new Peter Peng label.

Ever true,
Mike
Labels: ,
0 comments

Why Vince Vaughn wouldn't be a great SAT tutor

Posted by
I get asked about guessing on the SAT all the time. All the time. And I've written about guessing on this blog often enough that there's a special label for those posts, so that you can always find them. But I wanted to give a quick tip to aspiring tutors who come to my site looking for advice (judging by the number of hits I get from Ivy League schools, there are many of you). Regardless of what the laws of probability say, you should not be dogmatic about forcing your students to guess.

Explain to your students the way the scoring system works (+1 for a correct response, -¼ for an incorrect one). Explain how random guessing, statistically, is a break even. Explain how, if a student can eliminate an answer, the odds say she should guess. But leave it at that. Because if you don't, and she guesses, and it costs her, you'll be Trent from Swingers. You'll be maligned for giving good advice, because you insisted on it too strongly instead of letting your student make the final call.

There are some things you, as a tutor, should insist on. Writing out algebra instead of doing head math, for example, costs the student nothing although he may resist. This is a good fight, because when you win you'll probably make an improvement in his score. You're changing his habits, and causing him to do something that will at worst, make no difference, and at best, drastically reduce his careless errors.

When you have the guessing fight, you'll often find that even if you win, you're not making a huge score difference. That's because guessing has a lot to do with luck. SAT guessing strategy is just a way to make it slightly more likely that a student will get lucky. Once in a while, your student might actually get unlucky and lose points. And then it won't matter that you're right. When you find yourself having to defend your guessing strategy to a student who is looking at a 690 instead of a 700 because of guessing, you're in a bad fight.

I like to run this experiment with students on practice tests. And then, after we've done a few tests that way, I shut up about guessing and let them make their own decisions.

I always double down on 11. But I don't make my friends do the same when the stakes are high.
Labels: , ,
4 comments

It's January SAT Score Day...

Posted by

Here's to hoping Score Day is your day. But if it's not...here's to dusting yourself off, and getting right back on the horse to make sure your next Score Day is much better.

Hopefully, I can help! Take a look around. Here are a few places you might like to start:



4 comments

Blue Book Breakdown - Test 3 Math

Posted by
This breakdown is meant to help you analyze and categorize your mistakes after you've taken Practice Test 3 in the Blue Book. The whole idea is that the best thing you can do to improve your score is to understand your weaknesses, and then drill the hell out of them to make them strengths. Click to see similar breakdowns for Blue Book Tests 1 and 2.


§
p
#
Techniques and concepts
Diff.
2
514
1
I suppose you could backsolve if you wanted to.
1
2
514
2
1
2
515
3
Spatial reasoning is fun!
1
2
515
4
25% is a quarter. A quarter of a circle is a right angle. Which angles are acute?
2
2
515
5
2
2
516
6
2
2
516
7
2
2
516
8
If you're not immediately sure what (–0.5)2 is, just put it in your calculator..
2
2
516
9
3
2
517
10
3
2
517
11
3
2
517
12
Read the Venn diagram carefully. It might help you to darken the boundaries of A and B.
3
2
517
13
Percents, Backsolve 
3
2
518
14
3
2
518
15
Percents
3
2
518
16
4
2
518
17
4
2
519
18
Draw them and count.
4
2
519
19
4
2
519
20
5
5
525
1
1
5
525
2
1
5
526
3
1
5
526
4
Read the question carefully.
1
5
526
5
4
5
527
6
3
5
527
7
Draw it carefully.
4
5
527
8
FOIL it. Corresponding coefficients will be equal, so (–8 – k) = –5k and m = 8k.
5
5
528
9
1
5
528
10
2
5
529
11
2
5
529
12
3
5
529
13
This is a tricky graph. Read it carefully.
2
5
529
14
Write the equation: 5n = n + 5. Solve for n.
3
5
530
15
4
5
530
16
4
5
530
17
For every 4 inches of strip, there are 5 inches of edge. Use ratios.
4
5
530
18
Square's side = 8, so R is (4, 8). Plug into the equation to solve for a. Parabolas.
4
8
543
1
Do the algebra: (3/4)n = 18.
1
8
543
2
2
8
544
3
Read the graph carefully.
1
8
544
4
Read the question carefully.
2
8
544
5
2
8
545
6
2
8
545
7
2
8
545
8
2
8
545
9
3
8
546
10
3
8
546
11
Do the algebra.
3
8
547
12
Reasoning: Can they all be negative? No. All but one? Yes, if the one is big enough.
3
8
547
13
List the combinations methodically.
4
8
547
14
Graph amplification 
3
8
548
15
Follow the pattern remembering that all negative values are less than 100.
4
8
548
16
5
Labels: , , ,
3 comments

Relativism (On the skinning of cats*)

Posted by
* I don't advocate violence towards cats (or other animals). "There's more than one way to skin a cat" is a phrase that I used to hear all the time growing up, but that I now realize (having received some mortified stares at its utterance) that it's not as common as I thought it was. It just means that a problem might have more than one solution. I still say it even though I have to clarify it now because I'm stubborn. 

I chimed in on a thread at College Confidential recently about a probability problem that apparently came from Dr. Chung's book. The first few respondents provided completely legit (but rather technical) explanations of the problem using nCr, and then someone asked whether there was another way. So I jumped in with the way I prefer to solve most counting and probability questions on the SAT: short lists. For the most part, all the solutions offered in the thread were valid.

Why am I posting about that conversation here? Because it underscores an important fact: there are often multiple ways to solve SAT math problems. That's one of the beautiful things about math in general, actually: it's built on itself. That's why you learned addition before multiplication, multiplication before exponents, geometry before trigonometry, etc. My recollection of learning nCr techniques was that they were slowly introduced to us as general solutions to simple combination problems we could solve with simpler counting principles—the kinds of problems you'll see on the SAT.

I get a rush out of breaking a problem down until it's so easy a caveman could do it. That's one reason I'm a pretty good SAT teacher. But you're probably not aspiring to a career in test prep; you're probably just trying to score high enough on the SAT to move on with your life.
Finish reading this post →
Labels: , , ,
0 comments

Blue Book Breakdown: Test 2 Math

Posted by
This is straight out of the PWN the SAT Math Guide, except I've deleted the page number references and inserted links to certain techniques. View the breakdown of Blue Book Test 1 here.

 
§
p
#
Techniques and concepts
Diff.
2
452
1
Patterns
1
2
452
2
1
2
453
3
Read the graph and the question carefully.
1
2
453
4
3
2
453
5
Actually turn the book on your desk and see what the shape looks like when rotated.
2
2
454
6
Do the algebra: 2x + 3 = 10, what is 4x?
2
2
454
7
2
2
454
8
Break it into two rectangles.
2
2
454
9
Do the algebra carefully.
2
2
455
10
3
2
455
11
First, read the graph carefully: the scales on the axes are different! Lines.
2
2
455
12
3
2
455
13
Read the Venn diagram carefully. It might help to darken the boundaries of Y and Z.
3
2
456
14
3
2
456
15
4
2
456
16
3
2
456
17
3
2
457
18
4
2
457
19
This one is a pain, but backsolving works if you don't want to do algebra.
4
2
457
20
5
5
463
1
Well, x must be 0, right?
1
5
463
2
1
5
464
3
Plug in, Sets 
2
5
464
4
2
5
464
5
2
5
464
6
3
5
465
7
Graph amplification, or just plug in and graph if your calculator can.
3
5
465
8
4
5
466
9
Do the algebra: 2x + 5 = 14, solve for x.
2
5
466
10
3
5
467
11
How many times does 0.25 fit into 8?
2
5
467
12
4
5
467
13
3
5
467
14
3
5
468
15
Just walk through each choice keeping the goal in mind (and write everything down).
3
5
468
16
4
5
468
17
Do the algebra: 1 + 0.07(t – 20) = 0.06t, solve for t.
4
5
468
18
Tricky (but fun!): p = 16k (count carefully) and a = 10k2. Set them equal and solve for k.
5
8
481
1
Simplifying fractions?
1
8
481
2
1
8
482
3
1
8
482
4
2
8
482
5
2
8
483
6
2
8
483
7
It might help to plug in, but make sure your numbers make sense on the diagram.
3
8
483
8
3
8
484
9
Graph reflection 
2
8
484
10
3
8
484
11
Inequalities 
3
8
485
12
Picture that circle as a wheel rolling along. Those rectangles could be at any orientation.
4
8
485
13
4
8
485
14
5
8
486
15
Figure out what Tom paid for the room using percents, then multiply that by 4.
5
8
486
16
5
Labels: , , ,
0 comments
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)