***January 2016 SAT (US Only) Thread***

@JuicyMango I thought the answer to that question was that wood needed to be used bc it was better for architecture. It was right in the passage idk

@JuicyMango I think its because the paragraph said " we need to look to our past" or something, and explicitly states that wood should be used more

I accidentally thought you could tell which section was experimental if someone was using a calculator when I had a writing section, so I had two 25-minute writing sections, but I only did one. I’m really regretting this right now, because I did really well on the other sections and essay. Could you guys say what your improving paragraphs for your writing sections were? I completely forget what mine talked about.

Using previous curves and trends, I filled in the gaps from the extrapolated data, so here they are:
(-#, where # is number of questions incorrect)

Reading:
-0, 800
-1, 800
-2, 800
-3, 780
-4, 760
-5, 740
-6, 720
-7, 710/700
-8, 690

Math:
-0, 800
-1, 770
-2, 740
-3, 710
-4, 690
-5, 680
-6, 670
-7, 650
-8, 640

Writing:
-0, 80
-1, 78
-2, 76
-3, 71
-4, 69
-5, 68
-6, 66
-7, 65
-8, 62

My son just read discussions from June 2014 test. He said this was the exact same test… every reading passage mentioned is the same as he took yesterday. They mention the fish question and after much discussion it is agreed the answer is 8.

@gasenioryear Would you mind asking him for insight on the curve? Thank you!

Did anyone get a passage about Louis May Alcott and her feminist essays?

@ratclown I believe x was 36, because with 3 squares connected with y, x, & x, the entire thing adds up to 360 (because they all revolve around a central point, creating a circle), and since the 3 squares have one 90 degree angle touching that point, we can subtract 270 (90 times 3) from 360. This leaves us with x,x, and y. Since x = 2y, we need to add 2y, 2y, & y, giving us 5y, and setting it equal to 360-270, or 90. 90 divided by 5 is 18, and so y = 18. And since x = 2y, x = 2 times 18, or 36.

@rand123 @smileydinosaur But the passage never said to reduce steel use, only increase timber use.

@JuicyMango Timber use was to be an alternative to steel, implying a reduction in steel use. The rest of the answers, if I recall correctly, were too radical (advocating complete steel ban). There also was another answer which implied steel was less durable/usable than wood, but the author conceded that they were both the same in terms of durability.

@BenedictArnold Then what’s wrong with the choice I picked? It was something like “if steel energy was more efficient then the author would say to use that” or something like that. And I don’t see that implication, since the author said “they have their place”…or along those lines. Reducing steel use just seemed unsupported by the passage.

@JuicyMango Though I don’t remember all the details of that passage, my reasoning when considering your answer was that while we know that steel is less energy efficient than wood, the hypothetical converse may not be supported by the author, since all we know is how he feels about steel right now. My answer may not be correct, but that was the logic I used in the elimination process. Overall, I felt my answer supported the author’s contention of bringing wood back into the limelight, as to use more wood and justify why it’s better than steel seems that steel ought to be used less than wood, or at least less in general. The reasoning of your answer doesn’t seem all that off, insofar as I remember, so perhaps it could have gone either way.

Did anyone get two 25 minute writing sections?

@BenedictArnold I have to admit you have a decent argument…anyone else want to share their opinion? This was a hard question, so I guess we’ll see when scores come out.

@JuicyMango What did your writing improving paragraphs talk about?

@BenedictArnold yes! i got that one too. that one may have been experimental?

It couldn’t have been because I had it, and I only had 3 reading sections

@Tocsss I think one of them was about this woman who travelled around the world in 72 days, compared to the book “Around the World in 80 Days” by Julius Verne. She was the first woman to do this, sometime in the 1800s.

Can anyone explain their answer and reasoning for the math question that asked for k when k was a list of consecutive positive integers that began with 1 and whose median was 99? I believe the answer would have to be either 197 or 198.

thank you @BenedictArnold