SAT and Academic Success

Here is an interesting little article about the SAT and its implications for students who are not good at the test (Thanks, Dick).

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-03/sat-act-college-admissions-tests-are-holding-american-students-back

Of course, the article doesn't tell us much. Sternberg is obviously academically successful. (That's an understatement: He is a renowned psychologist and the same guy who came up with the Triarchic Theory of Intelligence.) There is indeed a correlation between SAT scores and wealth. However, as an epistemically responsible individual, I'm not gonna jump to any conclusions--just thought you guys would enjoy the article.

This is what I look like when I can't figure something out.

Wahhhh! I've been busy.

Sorry, it's been a while. I've been mired in work and study and will continue to get busier, but that's no excuse for me to neglect this blog. That being said, here's a quick challenge question and some funny stand up comedy about college application essays.

26. Mediators were standing by, prepared (A) to intervene in the labor dispute (B) even though both sides (C) had refused earlier offers (D) for assistance. (E) No error

See below for answer and explanation.



Answer: D. I know. This one is weird and annoyingly so. The phrase should be "offers to assistance" (as in "they offered to assist) or "offers of assistance" (as in, they made an offer. What offer? An offer of assistance). You don't "offer for" something; the phrase "offer for" is unidiomatic.

Four Challenge Problems and Explanations

3. Traveling through Yosemite, the scenery of waterfalls and granite peaks, which we photographed, was beautiful.
(A) the scenery of waterfalls and granite peaks, which we photographed, was beautiful
(B) the waterfalls and granite peaks were the beautiful scenery we photographed
(C) we photographed the beautiful scenery of waterfalls and granite peaks
(D) we photographed the scenery of waterfalls and granite peaks, being beautiful
(E) what we photographed was the beautiful scenery of waterfalls and granite peaks

Answer and explanation (highlight): Who travel's through Yosemite? We travel through Yosemite. So, cross out (A), (B), and (E). (D) should be crossed out because of the awkward phrase "being beautiful". (C) is the answer.


4. The poet Firdawsi composed the Iranian national epic Shah-nameh in 1010 with his purpose being to recount the history of the Persian kings.
(A) with his purpose being to recount
(B) and his purpose was recounting
(C) to recount
(D) thus recounted
(E) he recounted

Answer and explanation: Again, we have the annoying and cumbersome "being" in the stimulus. What's another way to say "his purpose being"? Think about it this way. Is it simpler to say "I went to the grocery store for the purpose of buying apples", "I went to the grocery store for my purpose was to buy apples", or "I went to the grocery store to buy apples?" The last one is the best right? So, pick (C).

16. One (A) subject of Felipe Alfau's second novel, published (B) more than 40 years after it (C) has been (D) written, is the illusory nature of the passage of time. (E) No error

Answer and explanation: (C) is the answer. We want to use "was". First, not only is there no need to use the perfect tense, but it doesn't make sense at all. However, the big giveaway is not just that the sentence is in the perfect tense, but that it is in the present perfect. The book was written more than 40 years ago! So, use "was".

17. Joining a grassroots movement against inhumane working conditions, some consumers in the United States (A) have stopped buying products from countries (B) in which workers are (C) essentially (D) a slave laborer. (E) No error

Answer and explanation: (D). There are many workers, so they are essentially slave laborers (plural).

Using Big Words and Ignoring Your Teacher's Bad Advice

Brad Leithauser posted an article entitled "Unusable Words" in The New Yorker. His advice will be useful for those of you who plan to use big, fancy words in your writing.

In the three decades I’ve been teaching, I find that the subset of students is steadily increasing who consider nearly all words of three or more syllables pretentious, with the exception of “pretentious”—which is for them an indispensable term. Meanwhile, in recent years, a word I’ve always been fond of—“artisanal”—has been swallowed by an enormous maw. Its fine associations of individual tooling and subtle calibration—the craftsman’s guild—have all but vanished. The word has been devoured by fast-food franchises, supermarkets, junk-food confectioners; any day now I’ll spot on some diner menu artisanal s’mores, artisanal pigs in a blanket.

So, what's the take-home message? Here's what I think: Prof. Leithauser's ideas, if warranted, suggest that you should probably do a bit of research on a new word before you use it. Simply knowing the definition is not enough--you'd have to have some idea of how commonly that word is employed, when it is usually used, and what its connotations and associations are before you "make it your own".

Some of my high school teachers used to discourage us from using "big" words so we would not sound "pretentious". Although their advice has some bearing on decent writing, it's also freaking lazy. For instead of teaching us how to use new words, they simply tell us to avoid such words so we won't sound like wannabe grownups. Bad advice.

How Not to Write: Academic Bullshit (+3 Challenge Problems and Answers w/ Explanations)

Some of you know I'm fond of discussing bullshit. I don't mean that I like to bullshit you; I just like talking about bullshit as a social phenomenon and analyzing it through a philosophical lens. Well, good for me...because bullshit saturates not only speech, but also writing. This is especially true in academic writing, which frequently contains what the philosopher G.A. Cohen would call "unclarifiable unclarity". Victoria Dailey lampoons this kind of bullshit in her post, "Pride and Prejudice," Translated into Academiotics, in The New Yorker: 

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
Translation:
The heterogeneity of assumed intentions may incur a conclusory stereotype regarding gender selections in marriage-based societies, especially in those where the masculine hegemony of capital resources presupposes the feminization of property and uxorial acquisition.

Granted, the "translation" above may not qualify as "unclarifiable unclarity". A reasonably intelligent individual who knows his or her vocabulary (very well) would have no trouble understanding the gist of the passage. But (1) Who the hell writes for reasonably intelligent individuals who know their vocabulary around here? (You're writing for god-knows-who-works-for-College-Board, who only has so much time to skim your essay) and (2) Even if such writing is "clarifiable", why would you want to write like that at the risk of sounding either like a snobbish poo-poo head or a wannabe scholar? No reason. No reason at all.

Click below for challenge problems.

Special Boy With Freakishly Large Brain Wins Spelling Bee

21. Georgia O'Keefe painted landscapes and they express the mystique of both the desert and the mountains of the Southwest.
(A) landscapes and they express
(B) landscapes, being the expressions of
(C) landscapes, they express
(D) landscapes that express
(E) landscapes, and expressing in them



Answer and Explanation:
(A) is grammatically correct but wordy/awkward. (B) is awkward and contains an unnecessary "being". (C) contains a comma splice. (E) is wordy and contains and unnecessary -ing verb. (D) is the correct answer.

Six Challenge Problems and Answers

1. Mr. Chung would like to retire, but retirement is unable to be afforded by him.
(A) Mr. Chung would like to retire, but reitrement is unable to be afforded by him.
(B) Mr. Chung would like to retire, but he cannot afford to do so.
(C) Mr. Chung would like to retire, but he is unable to afford that.
(D) Retirement is what Mr. Chung would like to do, but he cannot afford it.
(E) Retirement appeals to Mr. Chung, but he cannot afford stopping working.

2. The Ussuri tiger, a relative of the Bengal tiger, has been described as the strongest tiger and also the most peaceful of them.
(A) the strongest tiger and also the most peaceful of them
(B) not only the strongest tiger, but also more peaceful than any
(C) the strongest tiger at he same time as it is the most peaceful tiger
(D) at once the strongest and also the most peaceful of them
(E) the strongest and yet the most peaceful of tigers

3. Carrying signs and waving flags, the company's corporate office was surrounded by angry demonstrators demanding better health benefits.
(A) the company's corporate office was surrounded by angry demonstrators demanding better health benefits
(B) the company's corporate office, surrounded by angry demonstrators demanding better health benefits
(C) angry demonstrators demanding better health benefits surrounded the company's corporate office
(D) angry demonstrators surrounding the company's corporate office demanding better health benefits
(E) demanding better health benefits, the company's corporate office was surrounded by angry demonstrators

4. Jerome often referred (A) to art history textbooks (B) while he was sculpting; whenever he learned a new method in art class, he (C) seeks out the work of sculptors who (D) had used it in the past. (E) No error

5. (A) From about A.D. 700 to 1600, sculptors (B) created (C) nearly 1,000 colossal rock statues on the (D) remote and tiny Easter Island. (E) No error

6. It is difficult to predict (A) what kinds of books (B) will be popular in the years ahead, because tastes change and topics either get overexplored (C) and lose (D) their relevance. (E) No error

Answer (highlight): BECCEC

Four Challenge Questions with Answers and Explanations

1. Lorena Ochoa has been recognized not only as a champion golfer but also being a humanitarian, having created a foundation to support young people in Mexico.
(A) but also being
(B) but also as
(C) she also is
(D) also that she is
(E) and also as

2. Relations between the United States and China began to thaw in 1971, when the Chinese table-tennis team invited its American counterpart to play in a series of exhibition matches.
(A) when the Chinese table-tennis team invited
(B) where the Chinese table-tennis team had invited
(C) as the Chinese table-tennis team invites
(D) that was when the Chinese table-tennis team invited
(E) the Chinese table-tennis team invited

3. Crows and their relatives--which include ravens, magpies, and jays--are renowned for their intelligence and the capability to flourish in landscapes dominated by humans.
(A) the capability
(B) are capable
(C) how they are ble
(D) their ability
(E) to be able

4. Leaders of programs that promote gender equity frequently point to the role that parents and educators play in promoting young women's interests in science, technology, and math.
(A) play in promoting
(B) plays in promoting
(C) is playing to promote
(D) plays to promote
(E) having played in promoting

Click below for answers and explanations.

SAT ESSAY TIPS: How to Bullshit Your Way to a Decent Score by Using Ancient Greek Fart Jokes

Introduction

In this post, I will (1) talk about Ancient Greek toilet humor and (2) apply Ancient Greek toilet humor in multiple SAT essay prompts. This is an ironic way to show you just how easy it is to bullshit on the SAT. Of course, you need to prepare more "scholarly" examples for your SAT essay (i.e., you can't talk about farting and shitting, you silly goose), but who gives a shit today? This is for practice. Read on...

Socrates, while explaining to the dumb Athenian Strepsiades that thunder is a natural phenomenon and not the product of Zeus: 

"First think of the tiny fart that your intestines make. Then consider the heavens: their infinite farting is thunder. For thunder and farting are, in principle, one and the same." --Socrates (Aristophanes, The Clouds)

Also...

"Oh you most honoured sacred goddesses, in answer to your thunder call I’d like to fart..." - Strepsiades (Aristophanes, The Clouds)

Those of you who are too lazy to read the entire play can watch this video to have a rough idea of what The Clouds is about.



Here's a summary of what you just watched. The summary would probably receive a D- in a philosophy class, but it'd get a pretty good grade in College Board wonderland.

SAT Grammar: Informal Language and 10 Challenge Questions

After a brief hiatus, I'm back. Hopefully, you've recovered from SAT hell. We're gonna take a look at informal language today. With few exceptions, informal language on the SAT writing section indicates that the question under consideration is wrong. Keep in mind that all of the basic grammar rules apply. However, words like "you" and "plus" are red flags that scream "don't pick me". Questions are below. Do them!

SAT COUNTDOWN: ONE DAY - Seriously, just chill

This is what you should be doing right now:

Or this:

BUT NOT THIS, OKAY?

SAT COUNTDOWN: TWO DAYS - More Vocabulary Quizzes

All ten of the vocabulary quizzes are below. Download them and do as many as you can. I will put up the answers some time, but don't count on it because I'd have to do all of the quizzes myself. I do have the answers for the first three quizzes though. In the meantime, feel free to email or text me if you have questions about the vocabulary words.

Vocabulary Quizzes
Quiz 1
Quiz 2
Quiz 3
Quiz 4
Quiz 5
Quiz 6
Quiz 7
Quiz 8
Quiz 9
Quiz 10

I know that there are some mistakes in those quizzes. I just haven't gotten around to fixing them yet. Let me know if you find any.

Below are the answers to the first three quizzes:

SAT COUNTDOWN: THREE DAYS - Vocabulary Quizzes

These quizzes do not contain SAT problems, but serve as practice for those of you who want to memorize vocabulary by some other means. I have ten of those quizzes in total. I will upload them all in the next 24 hours. Meanwhile, you can do the one below. I'm not posting the answers yet, because I want you to look the words up yourself (Warning: some of these questions sort of suck. Oh well...)