Alternative Solutions to the Official Practice Tests

pckeller
Wed, 09 Mar 2016 20:56:13 +0000

Like many of my fellow SAT teachers, I have been spending a fair amount of time going over the four released rSATs – just the math. Then I looked at the official solutions. The solutions all look right to me, but I couldn’t help noticing:

1. They only present the relentlessly algebraic solutions.

2. There is something enervating about their style of writing about math. ["Enervating": one of those obscure words kids used to learn for the SAT...]

3. For somewhere between half and 2/3 of the problems, I found myself thinking: hey wait -- there's another way (and sometimes several).

Depending on how fluent your algebra is, you may find the alternative way easier at least sometimes. I was writing them all up to include in my book revision, but I decided to post them here on my blog as well:

http://wp.me/P4uvY7-9X

Since I would end up posting a lot of these here one thread at a time, I figured why not share them all now. Eventually, as more students prep for this test, the internet will saturate with alternative solutions like it did with the Blue Book. For now, this can help you get going*. The links to the four sets of solutions are at the bottom of the page. And there is some general advice about how to prepare as well.

*Really, they are not step-by-step solutions. More like the kind of hint a math teacher gives you when they want you to know how to get started but still have to finish on your own.