<p>Ok, so what techniques does one have to use in order to figure this problem out? Obviously, next to nobody would get this problem correct if it weren’t for multiple choice, so what strategies should one use here?</p>
<p>The marine biologist found a shell fragment on the beach and identified it as part of the -----, the bony outer covering, of an Atlantic green crab.</p>
<p>Also, I have another question which carries no relevance to the problem above; what is that word that means like, one’s vocabulary, or something like that. The word slipped my mind…</p>
<p>If you don’t know the vocab, this one’s all about process of elimination. The word has to mean “the bony outer covering”, so you probably know enough vocab to eliminate A, B and C. If you don’t know carapace or viscera, it’s just a guessing game at this point.</p>
<p>The clue in the sentence is “bony outer covering”. Carapace is just that.
There is always clues IN the sentence…the hard ones just have more trite and harder to understand clues.</p>
<p>I understand the clues in the sentence, but how are we supposed to know what the “bony outer covering” of a crab is called? The only ones I could eliminate were antennae, because I know what it means (as do most people) and know that it wouldn’t fit in the sentence, and cavity because I thought that a cavity is inside something (ex. cavity in tooth) so I figured that cavity wouldn’t work since they are asking for a word that means bony OUTER covering. That’s all I could eliminate. So do they expect people to actually know these words in this problem, or are there like roots to analyze or something in order to figure out this problem?</p>
<p>BTW, does anyone know the answer to my second question. It is kind of bugging because I learned the word and then forgot. I’ll add a example sentence if my definition wasn’t clear enough.</p>
<p>Johnny had a large ----- (whatever words means ones vocabulary); he was like a walking dictionary.</p>
<p>The only way to know the answer then is to study vocab.
As for your second question, there are no choices, but for the blank i would put mind/intelligence/wisdom. Some word conveying his knowledge.</p>
<p>yeah where did you get this. i highly doubt questions like this will come up on the real SAT. i mean who the heck knows what a crab part is called</p>
<p>The crab question came from the Official CollegeBoard PSAT Bulletin practice test. I remembered this question because I thought the vocab was odd as well :)</p>
<p>This problem is from the practice test in the 2005 Official Student Guide to the PSAT/NMSQT. I got it from my school. And yeah, I don’t know how much studying vocab would help, because, how often does one learn words like these? That’s why I thought/think that one is supposed to use roots or something to help figure out this problem.</p>
<p>I guessed right. Like others I eliminated A B and C. Then I looked at D and E. D seemed to remind me of a outer body, so I used my intuition and guessed D. This is pretty odd though, weird vocab word. As for the roots, I do not recognize any that would give me a hint on D and E. Although it would be good to note that I’m not done memorizing roots and I only have an average vocab.</p>