<p>Badness #1 (Interesting but not serious):</p>
<p>Question #17 in section 3 is almost identical to question #4 in section 3 of the October 2011 test. It isn’t unusual to see problems similar to those that have appeared before, but these two problems are almost the same.</p>
<p>Badness #2 (Interesting and serious):</p>
<p>Question #8 in section 6 concerns a parabola for which a figure is provided. The question asks for the slope of a line that intersects the parabola. The slope turns out to be 5; however, the figure shows a slope of line 2 (and the parabola is consequently not to scale as well). The answers include both 2 (choice A) and 5 (choice C, the correct one).</p>
<p>If you took this test and chose answer A for question #8, I think you would be able to make the case that you should get the point on the basis that the figure should have been drawn to scale. Or, the question should be discarded from the test.</p>
<p>could you give more info for the second one</p>
<p>Badness in the Original Post (Amusing but not serious):</p>
<p>Section 3 of the October 2012 test was the experimental/equating section.
Section 3 of the October 2011 test was a Critical Reading section.
Considering the title of this thread, I suspect you think that Section 3 of the October 2011 test is a Math section.
Although I can’t verify your claim, I can certainly see why the College Board would want to include similar questions in the equating section from one test to the next.</p>
<p>fignewton’s College Confidential post on March 10, 2013:
</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, fignewton, how did you get a copy of a question on an experimental/equating section?
The October 2012 SAT was released as part of the Question-and-Answer (QAS) service. As such, the QAS packet never contains the experimental/equating section.</p>
<p>Alternatively, you may have simply made a typo…and meant to write “Section 2.”
The mistake regarding the October 2011 test is harder to explain.</p>
<p>October 2012 SAT - Section 6, Question #8:
The problem depicts a parabola with vertex (point P) on the y-axis opening down with the equation: y= - (x^2) + k, where k is a constant. The parabola intersects the points A (left of zero) and B (right of zero) equidistant from the origin on the x-axis. Line segment AB is 10 units long. A line contains points A and P. The question asks for the slope of the line containing points A and P.</p>
<p>It’s clear that the student needs to do the following:
- Find the coordinates of points A and B. (-5,0) and (5,0)
- Substitute the x- and y-values of either point A or B into the given equation for the parabola to solve for k. k = 25
- Identify the coordinate of point P. Given k=25, point P is (0,25).
- Calculate the slope of the line. slope = 25/5 = 5.</p>
<p>A majority of my SAT prep students answer this question correctly in less than 30 seconds. It is the #8 multiple-choice question on the “mixed” SAT Math section, which also contains free response (grid-in) questions. College Board states that this is a level “5” difficulty question, but I think it’s more straightforward than other level 5 questions which I’ve encountered over the years.</p>
<p>Hope this helps…</p>
<p>Yes, it was a typo, I meant section 2, question #17 on the October 2012 test. (Surely that seemed more likely to you than the possibility that I had an equating section in my QAS? 
)</p>
<p>However, the almost identical question I referred to was indeed in section 3, question #4 of the October 2011 test. The SAT is administered using several different arrangements of the sections; your QAS reflects the arrangement you had. But you should be able to easily find the question that I’m referring to in your QAS.</p>
<p>I’m not suggesting that the other problem (section 6, question #8) can’t be solved with algebra or that the correct answer wasn’t there. But the figure was not to scale; a circle plotted on those axes would look like an ellipse. The angle that the dashed line makes with the x-axis looks to be about 60 degrees (a slope of about 2). In reality it is closer to 80 degrees (a slope of 5). This problem would have been perfectly good with the usual “Note: figure not to scale.” Without that disclaimer, the problem is misleading since, as the beginning of each math section states: “Figures … are drawn as accurately as possible …”</p>