<p>d(10 char)</p>
<p>thanks naidu… i’m <em>fairly</em> certain i put that, but i guess i’ll just have to wait and see…</p>
<p>hmmm you bring up a good point “whatiscollegeok”. I didn’t notice that the second passage came from a book. A scholar can just be defined as “one who has profound knowledge of a particular subject,” and he wrote a book about hiking so he seems to fit that description…I dunno, it’s still uncertain, but i hope it’s conv/schol, cause i put that too. The 1st passage is definitely conversational i think, though.</p>
<p>dang, i put A for that one…hmmmmmmm</p>
<p>edit: cory, that was my reasoning for putting conversational/scholarly</p>
<p>i calculated my real psat score by using the conversion table on the back of the practice psat that we got when we registered for the test, and i know that it wont be exactly like the curve that will be used for the real one that we just took, but should it still be fairly close? if anything, would it be more generous than the curve that was printed on the last page of the practice booklet?</p>
<p>i dunno ucanttouch…the writing curve on the back of the booklet seems too generous. Of course i’m hoping it’ll stay that way, but I have a feeling it’ll get a bit harsher. Last year was the first time they used writing on the PSAT, so it was probably a little generous. CR and Math will probably stay the same though.</p>
<p>oh yeah, last year was the first time they had used it, hopefully the curve is like last years’ and one off is still an 80</p>
<p>it probably will be…</p>
<p>how do i stand in terms of qualifying if i missed 0 math, potentially 1 in writing, and around 5 + 1 omitted for crit?</p>
<p>if that’s exactly what you got wrong, and there aren’t any extra errors you forgot, i’d say you have semifinalist in any state.</p>
<p>I don’t know about you guys/gals who have been following this forum for the last 32 hours, but it seems to me that the scholarly/earnest question has been the most controversial one. I know it’s impossible to know for sure what the answer is until December (and even then, I’m sure there’ll be complaints about the ambiguity of the answer choices) but let’s just try to think through the question as clearly as possible, even though more than thirty hours have already elapsed since the examination.</p>
<p>My gut instinct on this question was that it was conversationalvscholarly. I know, I know, you’re “supposed” to go with your first reaction because of your subconscious mind, or something like that, but I perused each section again and I noticed that, while the first section does seem conversational, the second is not really all that scholarly. For example, the entire second passage is written in the first-person. Obviously, this fact does not compromise the passage as not being scholarly, but further examination revealed that the author never really uses any scientific or “scholarly” information to support his claim that going into the woods is safe as long as one is prepared. The passage as a whole seemed more of a reflection of his own experiences as a hiker and his coming to believe in the ability of man to transcend barriers of nature that initially seemed impregnable. The main support for his claim were personal anecdotes, i.e. his encounter with the hikers. In response to the comments above in this thread: being in a book does not necessarily imply scholarliness. </p>
<p>But why should the answer be humorous vs. earnest? Passage 1 does not seem all that droll at first, but it in fact does contain a little bit of humor, as in the description of the theoretical bear (at the end of the passage). Passage 2 is earnest because it attempts to debunk the claim of the first, albeit in a non-erudite way.</p>
<p>I, for one, am still not sure, though… Furthermore, humor is relative; most people, I think, did not find passage 1 funny, so if it indeed is the answer, well… What do YOU think? Let’s try to settle this. There’s got to be a revealing piece of evidence somewhere.</p>
<p>i also put conv/scholarly, cause i didnt really feel the first was all that humorous, and especially did not feel that the second was all that earnest… as i reflect back on it, scholarly doesnt seem like the <em>perfect</em> answer, but what else is it…</p>
<p>I, too, put the conv/scholarly. Most of the controversy is on the humorous and scholarly parts. From many of the questions I’ve seen from collegeboard, none of the right answers have been anything close to or something like an opinion. Doesn’t humorous fit that ‘opinion’ category?</p>
<p>Hmmmm… I am confident that humorous/earnest is the right choice for these testtakers. I’m lobgent, and I approve this message.</p>
<p>But the confidence is dwindling.</p>
<p>looks like im at 5/6 wrong on CR, 0 on math, 1/2 on writing.</p>
<p>where does that put me for national merit?</p>
<p>And it seems liek the CR section (esp. the first one) was really difficult - is it likely that the curve will be more generous?</p>
<p>i’m not sure if i have a 70 in anything. I going for a worse case scenario in math with 5 wrong and 3 wrong multiple choice. WCS for CR is 5 to 6. Writing WCS is 3. Yeah, things are grim.</p>
<p>At lowest I got an 1800…at highest I got a 2000</p>
<p>Wouldn’t conversational be 2nd person?</p>
<p>Hey, for the astronomer passage, one of the first questions has an answer with “phenomena” in it.</p>
<p>Is it the one about the main point of the passage, because I remember putting down that there was a problem in astronomy for one of them, while I also put something with phenomona.</p>
<p>Also, was the technique called magic because of its many success or because of its ability to reduce the atmosphere interference. I put the first answer (A).</p>
<p>Also, you guys can ask me anything on writing. I did not miss any at all, and I am sure of it. In the spot the error question, there was only ONE no error (the one that had the word “as” many times that compared her skills).</p>
<p>It’s possible that I got an 80 on the writing, but I have two lingering concerns.</p>
<p>First, I chose B for the question about Mary Lowell (?) because it replaced “arguing” in the original sentence with “argued,” and choice E contained the awkward construction of “resented to be taught.”</p>
<p>Second, I chose A, or the original phrasing, for the question about skills in fabric design. Choice A stated “those involved in making,” choice B stated “those involved to make,” and the other choices didn’t contain “those,” which is necessary for a logical comparison.</p>
<p>How did everyone else respond?</p>