<p>
</p>
<p>I’m not sure, but he didn’t mention this in his chance thread.</p>
<p>MissxSilverwing,</p>
<p>How concentrated and actively thinking are you when you take the section? Sometimes, some nervousness is necessary to get yourself to go at a great pace. Also, are you solving the questions inefficiently? Maybe you should check the explanations to see whether there are better solutions even to the questions that you are getting right. Recognizing when to (and when not to) plug in answer choices can save a lot of time.</p>
<p>From [this</a> post](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/955109-silverturtles-guide-sat-admissions-success-47.html#post1065335976]this”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/955109-silverturtles-guide-sat-admissions-success-47.html#post1065335976):-
</p>
<p>This seems a little… Weird to me. I’m not asserting that it’s wrong, but I want to ask - is it right? I’m more comfortable with this version of the sentence the above snippet was extracted from:-
“He proved his intermediate arguments, but he was missing the point and never actually indicated anything fallacious about my original statement.”</p>
<p>^ It was a typo. Your correction was my intention.</p>
<p>Somewhat ironic. :)</p>
<p>ITT: We ask silverturtle questions and nitpick his grammar when he answers them.</p>
<p>
:)</p>
<p>Great thanks for the guide, BTW! I got 670 W, 690 CR, 800 M last time and I intend to rewrite in October. I have to improve in the English sections.</p>
<p>I’ve read the essay advice in your guide, but it was pretty short. Do you have any more information on the essay? Maybe something about how you yourself approach(ed) an essay question. My method of writing essays unfortunately involves thought experiments and stuff - I don’t think that’s very compatible with the SAT.</p>
<p>I would just like to add to your guide, silverturtle :)</p>
<p>You can improve your chances of getting a question on the sentence completion section right by knowing your word roots. I found this very helpful to me, for the words I don’t know. It gives a sense of the word, for example if the sentence is asking for a negative word, rather then a positive word, then a word that starts with “bene” or “benefactor” should be canceled right away. </p>
<p>[SAT:</a> Improve SAT Score with SparkNotes: Dealing with Words You Don?t Know](<a href=“SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides”>SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides)</p>
<p>Nikki98, You can always look into this thread.
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/645763-how-write-12-essay-just-10-days.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/645763-how-write-12-essay-just-10-days.html</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, when I do math in general, my brain gets muddled. It’s like I can’t think straight, which is weird, because in W/CR (especially W) I work very efficiently and solutions are (usually) clear to me immediately. But in math, I do these weird, roundabout paths to solutions and then I realize later that it was actually very simple; I just didn’t think it through. So maybe I need to stop and think about the questions beforehand…the way I rush headfirst into every problem may, in fact, be the issue.</p>
<p>oh yea I love word roots. I memorized the wikipedia page of latin and greek roots</p>
<p>some of them were useless, but I did figure out “untenable” on a test once by knowing ten=hold, so untenable= unable to be held.</p>
<p>i don’t know how well you know your roots or how many you know, but after if you know as much as I do (not bragging), every word begins to make sense</p>
<p>like helicopter is heli + co + pter, so literally, sun with wings</p>
<p>^If you didn’t know what a helicopter was in the first place, that explanation would be absolutely useless in figuring out the meaning of the word.</p>
<p>hmmmm I think that’s true, but helicopter and most other nouns referring to specific things are special cases. adjectives and verbs are better and appear on the SAT more often</p>
<p>extort = to twist out,
exhume = to out of the ground (dig out)
derelict = de + re + lict, so (away from) + (done over) + (leave)</p>
<p>some nouns can be figured out etymologically too
like</p>
<p>polyglot = many tongues, a speaker of many languages
etymology = etymo + logy(from logos) so (truth) of (word) </p>
<p>logy is also a suffix meaning study of or the discipline of, so etymology means the study of the truth of words.</p>
<p>ok i’ll stop now</p>
<p>Doesn’t logy = study of? Where’d you get ‘words’ from in etymology?
Sorry, I’m not a master of Lating/roots like you 
But yeah roots can be helpful. Too time-consuming studying them for the SAT, if you ask me. If you know them beforehand then that’s great, but studying them is the same as studying a long list of SAT words. Except you very well might find it less helpful.</p>
<p>^ I disagree. There aren’t that many word roots. It is MUCH more helpful then actually studying words. Rather then memorizing words, and wasting hours and hours on them, you can just try to figure out 1 root, and you might, as I said, understand if the word is positive, or negative and if it fits in the whole sentence. I didn’t memorize the whole word root, I only remember the list that Spark Notes gave me, and that was the most helpful and short list ever.</p>
<p>I’m not a big fan of root words. I like to know the precise definitions of words, not very rough concepts of them that may be incorrect. But if you are really in a jam and simply don’t know a word, root words can be helpful as a last resort.</p>
<p>^ But even as you said, memorizing words are not the recommended option. It’s just a waste of time…</p>
<p>
logy is from the greek *logos<a href=“logos,%20ethos,%20pathos”>/I</a>
it can mean word, thought, speech
so the study of could roughly be translated into the thought of (pathology, study of diseases (path for hurt, pain, so study of what hurts, ethology, same thing for ethos)</p>
<p>etymologlogy looks too awkward, but hey, I didn’t make up the word</p>
<p>when I studied word roots, I did like 3 letters per day (A B C, D E F, and so on–although some letters have more than others–ugh @ C and P) so I finished within a month, which included some days that I didn’t feel like reading root lists or had something else to do.</p>
<p>unless you memorize m&w’s collegiate dictionary (and even that’s missing some), there’s bound to be some words that you havn’t seen yet.</p>
<p>words like kleptomania and schizophrenia arn’t words that you can just reason through without either reading it once before or through roots
klepto for steal, mania for craze, schizo for cut, damaged, phren for mind</p>
<p>ever seen a word starting with iatro-?
it’s a weird beginning, but every word that starts with that root means something to do with a physician or medical treatment: iatrogenic -> generated by medical treatment, literally a disease inadvertently (can be broken into in(not) ad(to) vert(bend, turn) ent(noun for doing/performing) ly(adverb)) caused by a physician or medical treatment.</p>
<p>*earlier in this thread, i used the word “educing”
e for out, duce(duct) for lead, so to lead out.
just about every word can be broken down to its roots</p>
<p>Hi Silverturtle,</p>
<p>A question I had was the importance of taking an AP “rigorous” Science (Physics) vs. APES.</p>
<p>The main problem is that I received B’s in both semesters of my junior year in Honors Physics. Would it look a lot better if I took AP Physics and got an A at least for first semester? Would college admission people notice and look a lot more favorably that I received B’s in the honors class and got an A in the AP course (with the same teacher, by the way)?</p>
<p>If I intend to major in business, would it matter a lot if I take AP Physics rather than APES? I have taken Honors Biology, Chemistry over the summer, and Honors Physics. Now in my senior year, I can either take AP Physics or APES (not going to take AP chem or bio).</p>
<p>The rest of my schedule is: AP Gov, AP Lit, AP Psych, AP Stats (took calculus already) and journalism.</p>
<p>I’m reaching for Columbia/UPENN.</p>
<p>Thanks dude!</p>
<p>CantTouchMe,</p>
<p>Getting an A in AP Physics could help to mitigate the effect of your B’s in Honors Physics. And taking AP Physics would definitely help to give your courseload a more rigorous feel; Gov, Psych, and Stats are all seen as some of the easier AP courses, as is APES.</p>
<p>Note, however, that Columbia doesn’t offer a business major. Technically, Penn doesn’t either, but the Wharton economics program is essentially a business program.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for your help!</p>