http://luminaprep.com/blog Just another WordPress weblog Sat, 20 Mar 2010 21:11:02 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en LuminaPrephttp://feedburner.google.com This is the first of a few tips in which we’ll be going over pronouns. A pronoun (he, she, we, it…) must have a uniquely determined antecedent. That is, there must be a noun of the same number and gender in the same sentence for it to refer ... http://luminaprep.com/blog/pronouns-sentence-correction/ A common pitfall among test-takers on the Critical Reading portion is the habit of choosing answers that are only partially correct. This occurs most commonly on general questions—questions that address a passage’s overall tone or point, its author’s overall tactics, opinion or tone… you get the picture. The ... http://luminaprep.com/blog/partially-correct-answers/ As if the SAT Critical Reading sections didn’t already have enough tricks up their sleeve, they introduce new question types just for the dual passage sections! (This is when you have two longer passages labeled “Passage 1” and “Passage 2” lined up vertically.) The most challenging question type ... http://luminaprep.com/blog/dual-passage-question-on-sat/ Ever see those weird symbol questions on the SAT? Something to the tune of “if xΩ = 2x-1, then what is the value of 3Ω?” You freeze and think to yourself—we haven’t covered horseshoes yet in precalc! 1) The “weird symbols” questions are really functions in disguise. Whenever ... http://luminaprep.com/blog/functions-as-symbols/ Some SAT Algebra questions will not only have one variable, but two or three for you to keep in mind. On occasion you’ll be given a set of equations, a “system” of equations, and asked to solve for one or all of the many variables in that system. ... http://luminaprep.com/blog/systems-of-equations/ You may already be familiar with idioms from your study of a foreign language. It’s typically a phrase that, when translated or taken literally, makes no sense. We have idioms in English as well. However, the idioms tested on the Writing portion of the SAT are of ... http://luminaprep.com/blog/idioms-sat-writing/ You may be familiar with the concept of parallelism from your English class, but in case you’re not, here’s a quick overview. Parallelism is one of the most common concepts tested on the Writing section of the SAT, and one of the easiest errors to spot, once you know ... http://luminaprep.com/blog/parallelism-sat-writing/ There is a subset of word problems on the SAT I: those involving tables, charts and graphs.  These provide a great chance for the SAT to try to trip you up by asking for information that does not readily appear to be on the graph! The main difficulty students have with ... http://luminaprep.com/blog/charts-graphs-sat-word-problems/ Sarah Fine, an advisor to Lumina Prep, recently published a column on the coverage that education receives in the media. Specifically, Sarah focuses on the topics that seem to get coverage versus those that go largely unreported. Those interested in the larger topic of Education can read Sarah's article here: http://blog.ednewscolorado.org/2010/01/12/write-like-your-school-is-on-fire/ http://luminaprep.com/blog/media-coverage-of-education/ The Holy Grail of Sentence Errors in the SAT Writing section are subject-verb agreements… Or rather, the Holy Grail of Sentence Errors is subject-verb agreement. For those of you who didn’t catch the mistake in the opening, this tip is for you! The SAT loves testing you on subject-verb agreement—on ... http://luminaprep.com/blog/subject-verb-agreement/