ChingTea

This is the GOOD LUCK TISSUE

Here is the explanation. 👀

Queen Rania: Let’s Drop The First ‘I’ In ISIS. There’s Nothing Islamic About Them

LONDON — Queen Rania of Jordan said Thursday evening that there is nothing Islamic about the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or ISIS.

I wrote in a different post that the best way to sound excited in your “Why us” statement is to actually get excited about the school you’re writing for. How? By doing research.

But is there a way to tell the difference between a student who really wants to go to a particular school and one who’s well, BS-ing the essay? (Ha, that sounds funny.)

There is a way.

And here’s a hint: your BS detector is actually pretty good. You just need to turn it on. Do so now …

I took the SATs twice. First time I got 2080. Second time I got 2390. It’s a bullshit test that isn’t correlated with future success or grades, and it has several weak spots. So here’s a guide of unconventional hacks, tips, and tricks that you won’t learn in most test prep books. This is specifically for people taking the SAT before March 2016. OKAY HERE WE GO:

Past Tests and Prep

Past Tests 

http://ineedapencil.ck12.org/

http://www.majortests.com/sat/

Google Drive of Prep 1

Google Drive of Prep 2

Barron’s book is great and harder than Princeton, so I recommend getting it

Grubers is highly recommended as well

There’s tons of masterposts on here if you google, so not going into detail

Miscellaneous (important!) tips: Essay

5 paragraphs- intro, 3 points, conclusion. Yada yada, you’ve heard this before.

Pick a side. Don’t try to be all smart and argue both. You think you can, and you’re probably right, but your argument will be a lot more nuanced and well-supported (which is a chunk of the mark) if you choose one side

You don’t need to worry about actually forming an argument supported by evidence. Spend 2 minutes planning and come up with exactly 3 points. In each paragraph, make your point and then bam, you’re good to go. You know why? Because you make up examples. Whatever you want- Make up dates! Make up people! Make up absolute shit that the grader knows isn’t true! I mean, try not to write 500 words on how Shakespeare’s most famous play, ‘Roly-poly Ollie and Julianne Moore’, changed your life, but. Make up books, plays, personal anecdotes, whatever. It does not matter. You can do that. They’re marking you on whether or not you have examples, not whether or not they happen to be true.

Listen up, because this is the most important: write a lot. Write two pages, or more, and if you can’t, write bullshit but write two pages as long as it’s semi-coherent.

There is a direct and strong correlation between length of essay and mark assigned. What does this mean? You write shit, you get a higher mark. Collegeboard says it ain’t so, but the facts disprove it. 

Memorize a couple of big words like “deluge”, “guile”, and “plethora”, and make sure you know how to use them. Then just shove ‘em in when you’re sure you’ve used them right. Preferably in the first page, and the conclusion.

Here’s a handy guide to basically bullshitting your way through the essay

Miscellaneous (important!) tips: Vocabulary/Grammar

Do not try to cram vocabulary two weeks in advance. The words aren’t obscure enough to justify that.

Read. Read books, read newspapers, read articles, read journals. If you read voraciously the year before you take the SAT, I guarantee you’ll ace the vocab section without studying.

But. If you don’t have a year and you gotta hit the vocab lists, here’s how to do it:

Get a list of a certain number of words to memorize, depending on how long you have: like this, for 100 words, or this one, for 500 words. Use the good/medium/bad system. Every day, do the words in the bad pile. If you can do them after 4 days, move them to the medium pile. Those are words you do every 3 or 4 days. The good pile is words you go over every week. If you fail at a word in the good or medium pile, move it down to bad.

Learn the meanings of some prefixes and suffixes, and several or more common roots of words (again, depending on time). This means if you come across words you don’t know, you can make a good guess.

Seriously though, just read

Memorize the grammar rules. There’s about 10 that they always re-use and they’re not complicated

Miscellaneous (important!) tips: Math

During the SATs you’re allowed to bring in a calculator with programs. DO NOT WASTE THIS OPPORTUNITY. But don’t waste precious time using a program when you could use your head and be faster

Here’s the programs you can put in yourself

Here are ones you can download (about the same)

A program isn’t there to do hard math; it’s there to save time. You need time. 

You also don’t need to memorize formulas for anything because you can get a program that’ll do anything with formulas for you

I highly 150% recommend getting your hands on a graphing calculator if you don’t have one. Get one off your friend or rent one or something, but get one

Miscellaneous (important!) tips: Critical Reading

In my opinion, the most bullshit part of the whole test. And the essay is a thing that exists, so.

Don’t read the text first. That’s ridiculous. Skim the text, just the first bit of every paragraph. Then close your eyes and in less than 10 seconds, think of a summary. What’s the author’s main point? A line or two, like ‘Technology is helping restaurants. The food is cheaper which is benefitting consumers.’ It sounds stupid but do it.

Read the question and go to that part of the text (it goes in order). Knock off any that are obviously wrong. Now you’re looking for the ‘most correct’ one which, what the fuck, should not be a thing! But anyways, most times, from the remaining options one will be in-line with your little summary from before, and one won’t.

There will never be two right answers. If two answers seem right to you, it’s because you’re thinking ‘oh, but this sentence suggests that-’ stop. Don’t overthink these questions. Often, people will be trying to think of the implications, themes, etc. and you don’t need to. This section is superficial as fuck.

If y’all have any specific questions you want to send me to get advice on how to tackle them, feel free.

General Advice for the Day Before/On the Day

Get a good night’s sleep! You got this. But if you can’t sleep, don’t worry! You still got this.

Get there early if you can, so you’re not adding anxiety to yourself

Don’t spend longer than a minute on a question. If you haven’t got it in that time, come back to it at the end. You’ll be more relaxed after having finished the ones you do know.

Once You’re Done

Yay! I’m proud of you

Don’t look up the answers. And if you do, don’t stress about any that you got wrong

Go have lunch or dinner with your friends or family and rant about how you just spent 6 hours in a stuffy room and stuff your face with cheesy pizza and chips bc you deserve it

Important Final Points

No matter what CollegeBoard says, the SATs are not an IQ test. It is very possible to boost your scores by 300 points

Your score does not define you. All it does is tell you how you did on that one day, but that’s not all you are. That’s not even 0.0001% of who you are

If a college doesn’t accept you because your score isn’t as high as they’d like, even after going over the rest of your application, then you don’t want to be there anyways

You will get in somewhere, and you’ll have a great time

THE POMODORO TECHNIQUE 

1. Be realistic: I typically shoot for learning about 2-3 new words each week, but that really depends on you. Goals are great, but picking out 10+ words to master each week isn’t going to help you if you’re too busy to follow through with it!!

2. Pick words you will actually use: This is especially important if you’re just starting out your vocab improvement journey! It’s much easier to remember words and incorporate them into your speaking and writing when they are applicable in all sorts of situations. I find verbs and adjectives are the easiest to incorporate into my daily speech. If you’re trying to improve your vocabulary for the SAT or AP essay writing, try googling “SAT words” or “AP Lang terms” or “rhetorical verbs”– anything along those lines, and you should be good to go! (Vocabulary.com is a great resource; they have many vocab lists specifically for SAT prep too!)

3. Learn how to pronounce them: This will save you many an embarrassing moment! Plus, you’ll feel more comfortable using the word if you know how to pronounce it properly. If you google the word you’re learning or check an online dictionary, a pronunciation is typically included but if you’re having difficulty finding one there, check out http://forvo.com/ ! I use it to check my pronunciation for new words in foreign languages, but they have English pronunciations as well!

4. Practice, Practice, Practice! I like to create flashcards on Quizlet and study my vocab words when I get a spare second in class or on the way to school. I also like to create sentences using the words or imagine situations I would use them in, which can be very fun if you get creative.

5. Reading is good for you: Reading is the easiest way to improve both your vocabulary and your writing! When you come across a word you don’t know, write it down! I like to make my own books marks out of plain white paper (they’re very nice for doodling), and scrawl the words I’m unfamiliar with on the back of them. Keep in mind that this doesn’t just have to include novels: news articles and your textbooks count too! I like to pour through the New York Times for an hour or so every Sunday and I always find awesome new words there!

6. Use the words whenever you can: Don’t be afraid to lay down one of your new vocab words whenever you get a chance! Only good can come of it, so there’s no reason to be nervous about it. So what if you use it incorrectly the first time or mispronounce it? It’s a learning opportunity! So what if you say it to someone who doesn’t know the meaning? Simply offer another definition or explain the meaning to the person, and you’ll be improving your own understanding as well as teaching them something new! Sweet!

Hey, everyone! As a thank you to the 1k subscribers on my YouTube channel, I’m making my SAT Comparison spreadsheet FREE to download.

Cool things this pre-programmed spreadsheet does:

Compares your SAT score to the 25th/75th percentile of up to 20 different schools

Ranks schools by how well your SAT score fits their accepted averages

Color-coded for intuitive use (red = bad match, green = good match)

You can download the spreadsheet here:  ➜ http://bit.ly/1ICYZ8q

I explain how to use it in this video:  ➜ http://bit.ly/1VVlE5n

The SAT is, for the most part, a necessary evil. Bubbling in Scantrons for nearly four hours on a Saturday morning isn’t anybody’s idea of fun, but every year, millions of high school students take it, and it’s here to stay.

The Critical Reading section is the only one that is purely multiple choice. It consists of sentence completion and passage comprehension. Here are my methods of attack:

1. Read. Read everything. Okay, this isn’t very helpful if you’ve only got a week or so left before your SAT, but if you still have a good chunk of time left, read.  Read the classics on your high school’s recommended reading list; read mystery bestsellers; read memoirs and science research and travel brochures. To truly sharpen your critical reading skills, you must read. 

2. Play vocabulary games. I never used the flashcards method or crammed long strings of words, since I found them mind-numbingly boring. Instead, I played the Synonym Matching game in the SATup app. Other good options include Freerice.com and the free Quizzitive app. 

3. Annotate. When reading longer passages, look at the questions first and underline/bracket all lines and phrases mentioned. Then skim the entire passage and focus on only the marked-up portions. 

4. Don’t answer questions in order. Answer the questions about specific sentences and words as soon as you reach the section being mentioned. Answer the questions about the entire passage after you finish reading the entire thing. 

5. Do full tests. Sure, just doing three Critical Reading sections seems like it would be just as effective, but a huge factor in your performance on the actual test is your endurance. Being able to focus after an hour and being able to focus after three hours require completely difference levels of stamina.