Up Your Score: The Underground Guide to the Sat : 2001-2002

by Berger, Larry; Berger, Larry; Colton, Michael; Mistry, Manek

• ISBN13: 9780761119883
• ISBN10: 0761119884
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-07-01
• Publisher: Workman Pub Co

Summary

The strategy guide with attitude, Up Your Score is the only test-preparation book written for students by students. Smart, savvy, and serious-but funny, too-Up Your Score proves itself as the guide that tackles the SAT in terms of students will immediately relate to. br>For the 2001-2002 edition, the book has been revised and updated by Joe Jewell, a new guest editor with a perfect 1600 under his belt. Presenting solid, practical information in a voice that's hip and knowing, the book covers 600 key vocabulary words, teaches important insider math tricks, shows how to improve memory and concentration, and demonstrates how test-taking is itself a skill, including how to think like the SAT and why it's always better to guess than leave a question unanswered. And there are the side issues-what to do if you have a nasty proctor and how best to fill in the answer circles and save nearly six minutes. With Joe Jewell's updated cultural references and his own special strategy tips, here is the latest on everything kids need to psyche out-and not be psyched out by-the Test.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A Brief History of This Book	1	(1)
One Afternoon in the Ithaca High School Cafeteria Way Back in the Late '80s	2	(1)
Years Later	3	(1)
Months Later	4	(1)
About the SAT	5	(26)
Before We Begin, Any Questions?	6	(7)
An Authors' Note Intended to Build Confidence	13	(5)
The Story of the Evil Testing Serpent	18	(2)
SAT Scoring	20	(2)
SAT Mistakes	22	(1)
SAT Services	23	(3)
How to Practice	26	(2)
Getting in Gear	28	(1)
Up Your Score Cheat Sheet	29	(2)
The Verbal Section	31	(130)
Four Key Rules and a Tip	32	(2)
Sentence Completions	34	(5)
Analogies	39	(7)
Critical Reading Passages	46	(15)
About SAT Words	61	(2)
Memorizing SAT Words	63	(3)
The Word List	66	(92)
Useful Synonyms	158	(1)
Similar-Looking Words	159	(2)
The Math Section	161	(52)
Theory of Study	162	(1)
Calculators	163	(4)
Fractions/Units	167	(9)
Word Problems	176	(9)
Equations	185	(4)
Geometry	189	(13)
Coordinate Geometry	202	(3)
Quantitative Comparisons	205	(1)
The Funny Symbol Question	206	(3)
Grid-in Problems	209	(4)
Guessing, or The ETS Strikes Back: Impostors From Hell	213	(12)
Impostors From Hell	214	(3)
Guessing, the SAT, and the Specter of World Destruction	217	(2)
The Six Rules of Guessing	219	(4)
A Final Word on Guessing	223	(2)
SAT II Writing Test	225	(34)
The Story of Little-Read Writing Serpent	226	(1)
The Three Question Types	227	(5)
The 13 Rules of the Writing Test	232	(14)
Practice Questions	246	(3)
The Essay	249	(10)
But Wait! You Also Get	259	(1)
Concentration	260	(5)
Proctors: Mindless Slaves of the ETS	265	(2)
Relaxation	267	(2)
Yoga and the SAT	269	(3)
Cheating	272	(2)
Little Circles	274	(5)
Is the SAT Biased?	279	(2)
SATing for Dollars	281	(1)
Don't Let Your Parents Read This!	282	(1)
SATitis	283	(1)
Canceling Counseling	284	(1)
The SSS and the SDQ	284	(1)
The SAT and the Internet	285	(2)
Food Smuggling	287	(2)
Fashion and Beauty Tips	289	(2)
Stick It in Your Ear	291	(1)
Some Other Thoughts on Getting Into College	291	(2)
Parting Words of Advice	293	(2)
Who Are These People, Anyway?	295

Excerpts

Chapter 2: THE VERBAL SECTION The verbal section of the SAT supposedly tests how skilled you are with words. It tests your vocabulary, your ability to understand the relationships between words, and your ability to read and comprehend. Basically, though, it's just a glorified vocabulary test. If you read the following strategies for answering analogy, sentence completion, and critical reading questions and have fun with our vocabulary section, you'll be able to bury the serpent and maybe someday be a star contestant on Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Four Key Rules and a Tip On every SAT there are 19 analogies, 19 sentence completions, and 40 critical reading questions, for a total of 78 questions. In this chapter we will go over each type of question individually in order to familiarize you with the different question types, and then we'll show you some slick tricks. But first, here are some general rules for doing the verbal section. Rule 1: Know Your Speed You are given only 75 minutes for the three verbal sub-sections. So you figure, "Great, I have a minute per question." Wrong. You have to subtract about 20 minutes for the amount of time you need to spend reading the reading passages. Then subtract another minute from the total test time for the time you spend watching the kid in front of you pick his nose and maybe another half second for the time you spend picking your own nose. Now you have only about 40 seconds per problem. That's just about the amount of time most people need if they work efficiently. If you find yourself finishing 10 minutes early, then you're probably working too fast and being careless, or you didn't spend enough time picking your nose. If you aren't finishing all the questions before the time runs out, you might have to be a little less careful (or skip the last reading passage of each section, as described in Strategy 5 of the reading passage section of this chapter, page 50). In any case, it's essential that you have practiced enough to know exactly how fast you should be moving. Good control of your speed and timing must be second nature to you when you take the real test. Rule 2: Do the Subsections in the Best Order All questions are worth the same number of points. There- fore, you want to have done as many problems as possible before you run out of time. Sentence completions take the least amount of time, so do them first. Then do analogies. The critical reading passages take the longest; do them last. (This is usually the order of the subsections on the test.) The only exception to this rule would be if you consistently find that you score better on practice tests when you do things in a different order. Rule 3: Realize That Questions Get Harder The Serpent gets more and more cruel as each subsection (a set of 10 sentence completions, a set of 10 analogies, etc.) progresses, except in the questions following each critical reading passage. The first question in a subsection is usually easy. The last question in a subsection is usually hard. This is important to remember, because if you know that you're going to have to skip some questions, you might as well skip the hard ones. This is also important because it can be used to outsmart the Serpent. You can use this principle to find correct answers to questions that you otherwise wouldn't be sure about. How? Since the first few questions in a subsection are always easy, the obvious or most tempting guess is probably correct. The middle questions in a subsection are a little harder; on these questions the obvious or most tempting guess is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. On the last few questions in a subsection, the obvious, most tempting guess is probably wrong. This is a crucial concept. As we will explain in more depth later, a question is put at the beginning of a subsection if, in the Serpent's experience, most students get it right. It is put at the end if most students get it wrong. The tri