The question is: The graph of v = ƒ(t) is shown above. If 0 
t 5, and if (t, v) is on the graph of vƒ, which of the following must be true?
A. –10 v –5
B. –5 v 0
C. 0 v 5
D. 5 v 10
E. 10 v 15
Collegeboard thinks this is a “Hard” math question. Why can’t applying to colleges be this “hard”?
I like Foxtrot (which is always brilliant), so I took its idea and made my own Sudorku, based on a medium-difficulty one from websudoku.com. I didn’t know Bill Amend was a physics major. That might explain something… Check it out! Open Office Math’s EQ editor became pretty handy. I realized how useful and easy it was after making 10 equations or so. Download the PDF!
Get it Here! (http://my.originxt.com/sudorku/sudorku2.pdf)
EDIT:
Whoops. I meant to have the infinite geometric series one start on i=1; it is a 1, not a 2.
Not bad for forgetting to bring my 33 point section review (which was stuffed in the AG book I forgot to bring), and losing 2 other homework assignments (the day they were due). It does make me feel bad, though, that I am below the class average. Nobody else loses or forgets homework assignments like I do… Darn you Bergantz! Can’t you give me half credit at least???? After all, I can’t blame myself for bringing the assignments the day they were officially due (when it was not collected….)! If they were collected on time, I would still have a pretty good homework record.
I’ll just chalk it up as “Oh, I’m too good to do Bergantz homework”. That’ll preserve my reputation.
Hey, I’m decreasing on test performance. I think I gave up in that class the first time I lost 25 points or something because the papers were under Stanford pamphlets. Darn you Stanford!
At least this is the only “borderline” grade I have. Everything else (ap physics, ap bio, etc) is 99% or higher, or in the case of AP Literature, … a medium-high B. That’s not borderline — that’s a “safe B”.
Junior asks his dad, “Daddy, how was I born?”
His dad, who is a software engineer sighs and replies, “Ah, my son, I guess one day you would have to find out anyway!”
“Well, you see, your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on MSN. Then I set up a date via e-mail with your mom and we met at a cyber-cafe. We sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive. As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall, but it was too late to hit the delete button.”
“Six weeks later your mom sent me an instant message saying that her operating system was showing signs of unauthorized program activity from a self extracting file which had implanted itself in her BIOS.”
“Then nine months later a little Pop-Up appeared and said: ‘You’ve Got Male’”
I think this explanation will suffice 30 years from now.
After extensively examining the one-dimensional records that will be sent to colleges to be reviewed, I have come to the stern and definite conclusion that the selection process must be refined. The current system of judging a student’s level of “reasoning” with the “SAT Reasoning Test” is not only misleading but inaccurate, and thus must be abolished and replaced with a better-working system, which I will later propose. It does not test “Reasoning” well enough to merit its nomenclature.
First of all, the “SAT Reasoning Test” does not truly test “reasoning”. The Writing portion tests specific knowledge on grammar, sentence-selection, refinement, and writing. I will not delve deeper into this because I believe it is obvious that the aforementioned is not a true test of reasoning, and therefore I propose that the Writing portion be moved out, just like before, to be an SAT “Subject Test”, which is what it truly is; it is a test of how well you grasp the “subject” of writing. ETS made a fatal mistake by including that as part of the SAT “REASONING” Test.
The “Reading” section of the SAT “REASONING” Test is also a misnomer. Examining the first section alone tells you that the section does not truly test your reasoning capabilities; if it did, why are half the diction something I am vaguely familiar with? I miss the “Sentence Completion” questions not because I lack reasoning or logic skills, but because I do not know the precise definitions of each word under the choices and I can never guess correctly. In order for the Sentence Completion questions to be truly a test of reasoning skills (what logically fits into the blanks), the test takers must be presented with accurate definitions for each and every word (or be permitted to use a personal dictionary), or be presented with choices populated with simple words. Only then will CollegeBoard be able to genuinely test our level of reasoning, not how many words we are familiar with.
The actual “Critical Reading” portion of the “Reading” section of the SAT 1 (keep in mind SAT 1 means SAT “REASONING” test) is perhaps a better indicator of logic and reasoning in some circumstances, but honestly, the answers are often arguable. For every one of the Critical Reading questions, I debate with myself internally (with some good evidence on both sides too…) for around 50 seconds, then choose the side that had the larger impact, but often times, not one side completely owns the other side — for a good portion of the questions, I cannot arrive at a definite “I’m 100% sure this is right” answer. Maybe for me “The author wrote this as a child” is more significant than “The author is African-American” (for a question such as “What is the significance of this paragraph?”)
The mathematics portion is noticeably better in terms of measuring “Reasoning” and not “Knowledge”: it does not test how much Calculus you know, how much of the trig table can you memorize, or anything of the sort. However, it does not accurately gauge the reasoning skills of many math-proficient students. (I got 800s on my maths but I know from others’ accounts) A good friend of mine, Anonymous (to protect the guilty), passed the AMC in sophomore year, and scored a 800 on SAT 2 Math Level 2, 5 on AP Calculus BC Exam (as a Junior), yet received a dissatisfactory 720 on the SAT 1 math section. Why? Because three or four minor mistakes got him that. The math portion must be amended such that there is a larger range of scores, so that one mistake does not drop you 10 percentiles down. But how can this be done? Simple. Triple the number of questions per section (keeping the time given and difficulty constant), and make the curve more lenient. This will ensure that even a 780 will look extremely impressive, and thus representative of one’s mathematical prowess.
But why make so many amendments to the current SAT system when one change can fix it all? Replace the current SAT 1 with a lengthy (time limits should be equal to that of current SAT2s — 1 hour - but with more questions) IQ test filled with questions involving pattern determination, spatial analyses, analogy questions (with words defined if analogies involve words), and other questions used to measure logic and reasoning skills (NOT QUESTIONS THAT ASK YOU TO COUNT THE NUMBER OF Ts IN A SENTENCE. WTF???). Sprinkle quick math problems such as “If John and Jake both start from the same point, go 30 miles in the opposite direction, then turn left and go 40 miles, how far apart are they?” that do not require any calculation (notice 3-4-5 triangle x 20), but more intuitive thinking. These types of questions should cover non-specific (Calculus or Algebra 2 type) mathematics. By having an IQ test, CollegeBoard can eliminate the misleading misnomer, and the students taking the test will know that their reasoning skills will accurately be measured. This will also eliminate the need for students to “prepare” for the “Reasoning” test.
I understand that the current system has a purpose: the Reading section has a secondary purpose (or I should say primary purpose because of my point of view as an immigrant for whom English is the third language) of testing our familiarity with the English language. However, this fits perfectly into my proposal to eliminate the current SAT system and compartmentalize each subject into its own individual test: just as we can take “SAT Subject Test (SAT 2) - Chemistry”, we should also be able to take “SAT 2 English Language” (comprised of tests on grasp of vocabulary, grammar, etc), alongside “SAT 2 English Literature”.
The changes I proposed are definitely radical, but they will allow each criteria of the students to be assessed independently; having each variable independently tested (as much as possible) would allow the best judgements to be made. (I actually had a nice conclusion here but my computer crashed and I had to rewrite this part, so discount the lack of quality here) Only when every test becomes “Subject Tests” will the tests administered by CollegeBoard be as objective and accurate, and the students be represented as genuinely, as is possible.
*sigh*. This is the type of essays I write when I should be doing my Lit essay.
The first page I look at is http://admissions.caltech.edu/admissions/freshman (via google search), and the first thing that catches my eye is the mistaken spelling of “official” (written as “offical”).
And a grammar mistake too: (run on sentence) “Many of the questions we ask on the supplement are similar to the questions asked on the Common Application, please repeat the answers to similar questions again on our Application Supplement.”
Whoa, even Caltech can make mistakes. Maybe it’ll make a mistake again and admit me.
But then again, math & tech nerds aren’t obligated to know perfect English.