<p>ChrxswxN - What about -8? :P</p>
<p>or mabe -10 haha </p>
<p>650?</p>
<p>perazziman- thanks! :)</p>
<p>@spencer
Mo was mocking Duncan because he said “kindly” all the time. The clues were “and then the enmity began”, how he repeated “kindly” all of time (indicating biting sarcasm), and Mo’s annoyance at Duncan in previous paragraphs. Duncan was trying to approach the situation (Mo was telling him to give more homework and stop doing songs because few students were showing up to Mo’s class) politically. He tried to be excessively polite and kind, granting Mo concessions Duncan hoped would get Mo to say “Yes” to the compromise. Mo mocked this politeness and kindness by repeating “kindly” in everything he said. No other answer choice even came CLOSE to this argument. In fact, most of the other choices were refuted by evidence from the passage! Mocking was the correct answer.</p>
<p>Readymade 2nd paragraph: This questions is still kind of under debate. On one side, the answer could have been an explanation as to how readymades could become appealing because:
a) The second paragraph focused on readymades.
b) The opinion of critics had already been discussed in the first paragraph.
c) The final sentence states a possibility (readymades could become appealing) without explaining the possibility (something the author did with every other idea in the draft). The ending did not had ‘finality’. </p>
<p>Or, it could be critics, because:
a) The opinion of the critics in the first paragraph was entirely related to his exhibit. No response to his theory (all art is readymade) at all.
b) There did not need to be an explanation of how readymades could become appealing; it is irrelevant to the overall passage, which introduced the idea of readymades. The passage did not talk about the theory’s lasting impact at all. Rather, it focused entirely on introducing the concept. The only reference to a ‘later’ time period was the final sentence of the novel (readymades could become appealing). </p>
<p>Oh, and I’d like to open the ‘thief’ discussion again. The sentence was either:</p>
<p>“That the thieves failed to sell all of the stolen artwork they had smuggled out of Sicily showed that the market for stolen antiquities has shrunk.” </p>
<p>Or</p>
<p>“That the thieves failed to sell all of the stolen artwork they had smuggled out of Sicily shows that the market for stolen antiquities has shrunk.”</p>
<p>In the first case, “has shrunk” is not correct, because “has shrunk” belongs to a noun phrase the modifies the verb, “showed”, which is in past tense. It should have been “had shrunk”.</p>
<p>In the second case, the “has shrunk” is correct, because of the same argument above, but in this case it modifies “shows”, which is in present tense. Ergo: No error.</p>
<p>Which sentence was it?</p>
<p>^I said that he should elaborate on how readymades could be appealing because of the last sentence.</p>
<p>I also remember that thieves question as “showed” and “has shrunk,” therefore I put D, “has shrunk.”</p>
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<p>“Tape recorder signified difference in Mo’s and Duncan’s students.” What were the other answers to this question? I put something like “The sentence served to show a contrast between the actions of Mo and Duncan’s students.” </p>
<p>“Mo was trying to limit Duncan’s ability as a teacher.” I probably got this wrong, but I put that he knew how to intimidate him; my rationale being that Mo was intending to intimidate Duncan so that he could continue being lazy. </p>
<p>Also still need clarification on the “passionate” question. I put pretentious. </p>
<p>I put “hypothetical musings” for the “concessions” one, but “concessions” does seem more reasonable.</p>
<p>“Quotation marks distanced the author from the aforementioned critics.” I said that it was to give an excerpt of what they said or something, but this was my second choice. </p>
<p>Made two mistakes on math; not sure how many on writing, but I agree with all of the other above answers. </p>
<p>Side note: Can we whine about our scores and what we need for NMSF in another thread? It’s becoming more difficult to look through discussion of the answers.</p>
<p>Does anyone know what the question about k was??</p>
<p>k/(2k-n) was the answer.</p>
<p>It said k was the number of male employees, and there were n more males than females.</p>
<p>So there would be:</p>
<p>k males
k-n females</p>
<p>k+(k-n) = 2k-n total</p>
<p>The fraction of males out of the total could therefore be represented as k/(2k-n)</p>
<p>Thank you! So now I’m expecting -0 on math. couldn’t remember that question at all!</p>
<p>I still don’t agree with Mo trying to “limit Duncan’s ability as a teacher”. I still believe that Mo “was a poor judge of the student’s characters”… or something like that.</p>
<p>I would also like an explanation on the “passionate” one in the extraterrestrial passage. I got “pretentious”</p>
<p>For the thieves question, I don’t remember the exact words, but I do remember the “has” was the correct tense. I just wasn’t sure about the “shrunk” part. I am sure about that one. Also, for the readymade art question, I was 1 of those people who thought that the explanation of how it become appealing would be irrelevant, but I think other people and I just over-thought it and since the theme of that paragraph was not about the critics, then the answer about the critics’ thoughts is wrong. Also, did anyone find that the vocab was far more challenging than normal in the passages and questions and answers to the passages? The vocab section is always going to have tough vocab obviously, but before this test, I’ve never had trouble with the vocab anywhere other than the few tough vocab questions at the end of the filling in the blanks section.</p>
<p>Does anyone remember the options for the “Quotation marks distanced the author from the aforementioned critics” question? aka “vulgar masses”? Thanks.</p>
<p>@Spencer: Yeah, the sentence completion was a walk in the park, but some of the words in the other passages I had no idea…</p>
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<p>That’s what I did. I don’t remember if it was showed or shows, though, so I’m going to wait until more people reply before saying anything else. </p>
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<p>The answer choice specified and the answer choice you’re talking about are both the same answer choice, just worded differently. The answer choice you chose was the correct one. </p>
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<p>Mo wasn’t trying to intimidate Duncan. Mo didn’t speak more than three sentences in a row and is more of a passive-aggressive guy (indicated by his sardonic use of the word “kindly” at the end). Mo was annoyed and jealous of Duncan, the “foreign expert”, because the students enjoyed Duncan’s class much better than Mo’s and therefore were not coming to Mo’s class anymore. The correct answer choice, based on this, would have been “Mo was trying to diminish Duncan in the eyes of the students.”, or something along those lines, but that was not an answer choice.</p>
<p>The vital clue was given after Duncan protests that he already gives four hours of homework; Mo tells Duncan that teaching isn’t a popularity contest (indicating he was jealous that Duncan was more popular than he and therefore trying to hurt Duncan’s popularity) and tells him to “also stop doing those songs”, something that the students had specifically asked for. This quote clearly shows that Mo was trying limit Duncan’s teaching style and ability (the things that were making Duncan much more popular than Mo).</p>
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<p>The passages in question are the extraterrestrial passages. Passage one talked mainly about how “the public” supported anything even remotely related to the search for extraterrestrial life, NASA’s astrobiological initiatives, the likelihood of finding life on Mars, and the fact that finding life elsewhere in the universe would spark a huge philosophical debate. Passage two talked about how mind-boggling it is that we’re spending million of dollars trying to find extraterrestrial life without seriously thinking about what we would do if we actually found it, how any life form we found would probably be so advanced they’d treat us like we treated chimpanzees, how broadcasting our location is a stupid idea. The author ending this passage imploring people to stop broadcasting our location.</p>
<p>The answer choices came down to passionate or pretentious. The author of the first passage was NOT passionate - he was more objective than emotional. He referenced statistical data, detailed scientific initiatives, and talked about possibilities, all the while without talking in first person much, if at all. The second author, however, spoke entirely in first person, used an anecdote to illustrate his point, and implored people to stop broadcasting information about Earth. He even referred to humanity as “us”, something pretentious writers, who believe that they are better than everyone else, rarely do. He was not pretentious - he was passionate. He was warning humanity to be cautious.</p>
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<p>This was a straightforward question. The clue was albeit, which indicated it was a concession. Logically, the question that had concession in it was narrowed down to two answers: concession and retraction. Retraction is defined as “a taking back of a previous statement”. An example would be “The answer was X. Wait, no, the answer was Y.” This is something that happens in dialogs a lot, but it is definitely not something that would appear on a PSAT/SAT Critical Reading passage. The sentence in question was referring to the fact that water was found on Mars, albeit in a permafrost state. “Albeit in a permafrost state” does NOT retract the statement “Water was found on Mars.” and, therefore, the answer could not have been retraction. Concession is correct because concessions are things that acknowledge possible counter arguments. An general example is “We will do this because, even though X is true, we think Y will happen.” Albeit is a clear indication that the phrase was a concession. </p>
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<p>The quotation marks were around “vulgar masses”. The passage was, at that point, rephrasing the viewpoint of the highbrow critics. That automatically narrowed it down to two answer choices: Distance from the viewpoint and quoting the critics. The answer was to “distance from the viewpoint expressed” because the author of that passage went on to refute to say in the next couple of sentences how she/he did not agree with this summary - changes in cultural trends are always like that, he argued: “rejected by the current generation, accepted by the next, and revered as historical by the later ones.” Another key point was the inclusion of quotation marks earlier in the sentence about the “valueless houses”, or something like that. Having two sets of quotation marks that far apart in the sentence indicates that the author does not agree with the quoted viewpoints. The two-word length of the quotation also kills basically any chance that the answer regarding exact quotations had of being correct. The author is not quoting the viewpoint of a critic verbatim - she/he is providing examples for an idea she/he later delves into (older/next/later generations). </p>
<p>Hope this answers any questions anyone had left.</p>
<p>If anyone has anything they’d like to debate on, please do!</p>
<p>So I saw this earlier, and I’m certain that it was the problem I had.
If x<y<0, which of the following are true?</p>
<p>I. x+3<y+2 ii.="" 3x<2y="" iii.="" (x="" y)="">1</y+2></p>
<p>The second and third are true. But the first isn’t true for all values of x and y. For example, let x=-1.2 and y=-1. then apparently 1.8<1, which if false.</p>
<p>Was the kid embarrassed that he wasn’t a good student? Or was he self-conscious that he was asking the class’s request.</p>
<p>Was Duncan trying to shape the idea carefully or bring up the idea carefully?</p>
<p>He was self conscious and Duncan tried to bring up the idea.</p>
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<p>There is some debate about what I. actually was and whether or not there was an answer choice that said “I, II, and III.” The general consensus was that I. was x+1<y+2, which would always be true. I, personally, don’t remember this question well enough to want to say anything but what others have already said, so this is most likely a question that won’t be answered until we get out test booklet’s back in December.</p>
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<p>The student (William) was self-conscious that he was asking the class’s request. The context clues and wording supported this choice. I don’t quite remember how, though, so if someone else could jump in on this one that’d be great.</p>
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He was trying to bring up the ideas carefully. He approached it in a way “befitting his status as a foreign expert” - he was trying his best to not offend Mo. He was not ‘shaping’ the ideas. Shaping has a slightly negative connotation but Duncan was one hundred percent positive feelings. The very first definition for broach, the word in question, is “to raise (a sensitive or difficult subject) for discussion: ‘he broached the subject’.” Duncan broached the subject.</p>
<p>for the india question regarding questions what were the other answer choices?</p>
<p>^The India question regarding questions? Do you mean the India question about the number of computer users (in millions), the graph question, in one of the math sections?</p>
<p>^ yes, i know i thought it was 1.5 computers but i wasnt sure what the other answer choies were</p>
<p>China had 100 million users and 4 computers. That means one computer represents 25 million users. India had 1 and a half computers. That means that India had 1.5*25=37.5 million computer users. That was the correct answer. Do you still need to know the other answer choices?</p>