Welcome to an SAT cram session! I’m going to give you guys five quick tips for your SAT if you’re taking the SAT soon, focusing on the reading and writing section.
Remove Comma Sandwiches and Phrases You Do Not Need
My first tip is a grammar tip. Number one: remove comma sandwiches and any phrases you don’t need. When you’re trying to figure out the grammar of a sentence, whether it’s subject-verb agreement, pronouns, or some other kind of sentence structure question on the SAT, a good thing to do is to get rid of or ignore phrases and clauses you don’t need.
So here I’m going to read the second sentence:
These spherical bits of glass form when asteroids collide with the planet, ejecting bits of molten rock into the atmosphere that after cooling and solidifying into glass, ____ back onto Mars’s surface.
There’s a comma sandwich here that I don’t really need, which is dangling, and I feel like it needs something. Something’s getting in the way of the blank in this sentence, so I want to get rid of it so I can hear what should be there or what’s going on. The other thing I can get rid of is the prepositional phrases, such as “of glass.” I can even get rid of clauses, such as “when asteroids collide with the planet.” I don’t actually even need the whole dependent clause “ejecting bits of molten rock into the atmosphere.” Then, we can really easily hear what the answer should be. So, get rid of intervening phrases if they’re getting in the way of matching things up. Get rid of unnecessary prepositional phrases and clauses. Get down to that bare-bones sentence, and then you’re going to be able to figure out what the answer is.
Subjects Doing the Action Come After a Comma
Tip number two is that subjects doing the action come after a comma in opening phrases. This is essentially modifiers if you’ve ever done a lesson on modifiers. I love this tip because it’s super fast and super easy.
Here’s the basic gist of it. Participles are words that we use with helping verbs. In the sentence, “I was going to the store,” going is a participle. These opening phrases have these verby kinds of words that don’t have a subject attached to them. When you have that situation, whoever or whatever is doing that action or described by that action needs to come after the comma. Let’s look at an example:
Known as Earth’s living skin, biocrusts are thin layers of soil held together by surface dwelling microorganisms such as fungi, lichens, and cyanobacteria. Fortifying soil in arid ecosystems against erosion, ____.
So what is known as Earth’s living skin? Biocrusts is the answer, and you see how it comes right after the comma. We’re going to do the same with the next sentence. Whoever or whatever is fortifying the soil is building it up or strengthening it. And based on the answer choices and the previous sentence, you can tell that the answer is the phrase starting with “these crusts.” You can see how fast and easy these questions are if you just know this rule. Whoever or whatever is doing that action-y participle word at the beginning opening phrase has to come after the comma.
Perfect Answer First
Tip number three: perfect answer first. This is probably the number one tip that I give to students. It’s probably in its own video, but it deserves to be in this video too. Here’s the trick: don’t treat this like a multiple-choice test. Treat it like it’s an open answer, and your brain is going to start working harder. When your brain works harder, you get smarter. You pick better answer choices.
Linguist Deborah Tannen has cautioned against framing contentious issues in terms of two highly competitive perspectives, such as pro versus con. According to Tannen, this debate-driven approach can strip issues of their complexity and, when used in front of an audience, can be less informative than the presentation of multiple perspectives in a noncompetitive format. To test Tannen’s hypothesis, students conducted a study in which they showed participants one of three different versions of local news commentary about the same issue. Each version featured a debate between two commentators with opposing views, a panel of three commentators with various views, or a single commentator.
Which finding from the students’ study, if true, would most strongly support Tannen’s hypothesis?
A) On average, participants perceived commentators in the debate as more knowledgeable about the issue than commentators in the panel.
B) On average, participants perceived commentators in the panel as more knowledgeable about the issue than the single commentator.
C) On average, participants who watched the panel correctly answered more questions about the issue than those who watched the debate or the single commentator did.
D) On average, participants who watched the single commentator correctly answered more questions about the issue than those who watched the debate did.
We know that it’s going to be bad and non-informative. So, before I look down, I’m going to figure out what the answer is or what it should be or what it should probably look like. Tannen’s hypothesis is that debate is less informative than a panel of three or more people who are just getting along. Answer choice A is not focusing on whether it’s informative to the people watching the debate, but also it’s saying that the debate is more knowledgeable in some way, which is the opposite of the hypothesis. B is out of scope, because she never mentions the single commentator in her hypothesis. C says that the panel was more informative than the debate or the single commentator. D is comparing a single commentator to the debate, which is not the scope of her hypothesis. Her hypothesis is panel versus debate. So, C is the answer. Perfect answer first, so then I know what I’m looking for.
Avoid Extremes Unless Well Supported
Tip number four is to avoid extremes unless they are well supported. Most of them on the SAT extreme answer choices are dodgy. Let’s try it:
One theory behind human bipedalism speculates that it originated in a mostly ground-based ancestor that practiced four-legged “knuckle-walking,” like chimpanzees and gorillas do today, and eventually evolved into moving upright on two legs. But recently, researchers observed orangutans, another relative of humans, standing on two legs on tree branches and using their arms for balance while they reached for fruits. These observations may suggest that ___.
Which choice most logically completes the text?
A) bipedalism evolved because it was advantageous to a tree-dwelling ancestor of humans.
B) bipedalism must have evolved simultaneously with knuckle-walking and tree-climbing.
C) moving between the ground and the trees would have been difficult without bipedalism.
D) a knuckle-walking human ancestor could have easily moved bipedally in trees.
A isn’t in the scope of “may suggest.” B is really weird because evolution isn’t about all at the same time, and “must have evolved” is also weirdly strong. So my SAT-probably-wrong alarm is going off. Extremes don’t make answer choices wrong, but they tend to be part of answer choices that are dodgy. So, I’m just telling your little alert system to be wary of them. That’s not the reason that this is wrong. The reason this is wrong really is the word simultaneously, because evolution isn’t about simultaneously. It’s about growing into that. Those extreme words tend to be dodgy. C is also really weird because it is just very presumptive and too extreme. So I can get rid of those. And the idea that it would have been difficult is an inference. We don’t want to infer.
Do Not Infer
And that brings me to tip number five: don’t make things up. Do not infer. Do not bring in ideas that there’s no support for. Everything in the SAT has to be supported by the text. Paraphrase, but don’t make things up.
Algae living within the tissues of corals play a critical role in keeping corals, and the marine ecosystems they are part of, thriving. Some coral species appear brown in color when healthy due to the algae colonies living in their tissues. In the event of an environmental stressor, the algae can die or be expelled, causing the corals to appear white. To recover the algae, the bleached corals then begin to produce bright colors, which block intense sunlight, encouraging the light-sensitive algae to recolonize the corals.
What does the text most strongly suggest about corals that produce bright colors?
A) These corals have likely been subjected to stressful environmental conditions.
B) These corals are likely more vulnerable to exposure from intense sunlight than white corals are.
C) These corals have likely recovered from an environmental event without the assistance of algae colonies.
D) These corals are more likely to survive without algae colonies than brown corals are.
So, my perfect answer is they are trying to woo the algae back to them. That’s my perfect answer. A is possible because the text supports the domino effect about the environmental stressor causing the change in color. For B, remember to not make things up. How are they more vulnerable to exposure from intense sunlight when it says they block intense sunlight? Don’t infer something super random when there’s no evidence. If anything, there’s evidence against that. C would also be an inference. I have no idea whether corals can recover without the algae. All it says is that they want the algae back. It’s just not here, so don’t make things up. For D, remember that comparisons are another way that the College Board tries to get you to infer or make things up that aren’t supported by the passage. You can’t infer comparisons. Don’t do it.
See what makes sense and what’s supported by the passage. If it’s coming out of left field, if it’s coming out of weird places, if it’s weird comparisons that really aren’t on the page, don’t pick it. And you will be better off.
Hope this was helpful!
