June 4 2011 SAT Reasoning Post-Test Discussion

<p>Question: Something about guitars with choices “practice”, “to practice”, and “you practice” || Answer: Unknown</p>

<p>This one was like, “A music teacher recommends (you) begin learning the notes and scales before harder music…”</p>

<p>Something like that…</p>

<p>The answer I selected was (you to), but I really wasn’t sure about that one.</p>

<ol>
<li>yes</li>
<li>“practice” was the correct answer</li>
</ol>

<p>vsizzle222 i can confirm 105 degrees is right</p>

<p>I’m confused about #3- did they mean that the condition(s) would have to apply to <em>every</em> triangle with the sum of 2 sides equaling the other, or is the answer only II (which is what I put)?</p>

<p>@goforit: nahh dawg its not “practice,” it has to be “you practice” because there was no subject in the sentence. The sentence was structured as like “the music teacher recommends THAT, before playing songs blah blah blah, _____ playing scales and progressing something something…” so it has to be you practice in order for there to be like a real subject of the sentence</p>

<p>Vsizzle222, wasn’t like statement three like two sides are exactly equal in length or something, so if it was equilateral wouldn’t statement three also be correct? But there wasnt a choice that said “II and III”. Please someone correct me because I think I may have misread statement III.</p>

<p>@cellomaster, I was wondering the same thing. I think that statement three stated “exactly two sides,” not three.</p>

<p>That confused me too…but they had to be in order for the problem to make sense…i got 4…</p>

<p>@ vsizzle, if the question with the roman numerals said “which can be correct” then you would be right. But if i remember it said always, and i disproved it using the 8-9-10 theory. in addition, trapezoid only has 1 set of parallel lines, since we dont know which ones are, it cannot be determined right? and yeah, i got the practice one wrong :(</p>

<p>For the trapezoid question, I believe that the horizontal lines were parallel, because SAT questions are always drawn to scale, unless they note otherwise.</p>

<p>And for the question about the sheet on top of some poles, what was the answer?</p>

<p>happysmileface so for the trapezoid one I thought one can use the fact that the two angles equal 180 degrees, but thats what I thought after I took the test since I actually put it cannot be determined? But can you use the rule that the two angles “x” and the other one they give you equal to 180 degrees since a trapezoid by definition has a pair of parallel sides?</p>

<p>@cellomaster, yes but we do not know which sides are parallel</p>

<p>cellomaster, yeah, I remember using that rule.</p>

<p>For the maximum value question everyone’s arguing about: I got A. People keep thinking the constant part in choices B through E was</p>

<p>(-x+2)^2</p>

<p>but it was</p>

<p>-(x+2)^2</p>

<p>which makes a big difference.</p>

<p>But either way, A wouldn’t have worked. Trust me, I did it on my calculator. When you plug -2 in for x, you get a value of 4. The first equation had a max of 2 I believe. Therefore, B was right.</p>

<p>can someone clarify on the trapezoidal question and the question with the roman numerals. i still think the answers were “cannot be determined” and “none”</p>

<p>in addition, was the g(x) graph actually “-3” (the one reflected on the x)</p>

<p>Does anyone have what choice A was for the Maximum question?</p>

<p>Choice a was x^2+2. Choice b was -(x+2)^2+(-2)^2. The correct answer was b. For two reasons: one, that at the maximum, which for a is x=0 and for b is b=2. So the initial term is zeroed. And two: if you check it using derivative methods, the derivative for the a is 2x which is 0 at 0 and at 0 the original function is 2. And for the second one, the derivative is -2(x-2) which is 0 at 2. So at 2 the function value is 4. Thus the maximum for b is greater than that of a. </p>

<p>Sent from my SGH-T959 using CC App</p>

<p>Didn’t choice A have a negative in it? Because if it was just x^2+2, then it would’ve had the highest max, since it keeps going…</p>

<p>I think vsizzle is right about the practice one.</p>

<p>The Max one was definitely the one with (-2)^2 at the end. The only real argument against this that I’ve heard is that plugging in two gives you a higher number in the other but that doesn’t work because when the (x-2) becomes enclosed in parentheses it moves 2 spaces to the right.</p>