<p>The October SAT is coming up. Everyone needs a good kick in the ass once in a while. </p>
<p>As the thread title says, post the hardest SAT question(s) you've ever encountered. </p>
<p>Rules:
[ul]
[<em>] The questions must have been created by the Collegeboard
[</em>] Authentic sources include released SATs, the Blue Book, the Online Course, and the Question of the Day service
[li] Please do not post any questions from the Princeton Review or other third-party sources[/li][/ul]</p>
<p>I’ll start us off:</p>
<p>Question Number 17 of Section 2 of the January 2006 QAS. Use the diagram from #17 in the link below. The actual question from the QAS is the same but x+y= 80.
[Complex</a> Math Improvement Section 1-1 Quiz](<a href=“http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?title=complex-math-improvement-section-11-quiz]Complex”>Complex Math Improvement Section 1-1 Quiz - ProProfs Quiz)</p>
<p>Question Number 20 in Section 3 of the January 2009 QAS. I consider this to be by far the hardest question I’ve seen on an SAT. In fact, I still have no idea how any of the answers make a bit of sense, and I get 800s on the majority of the Critical Reading sections I do.
Unfortunately, I can’t find the text for the question’s passage. Just google January 2009 SAT and you should be able to find a pdf for the test.</p>
<p>I know this is ‘post the hardest the question’ and not ‘answer the hardest question’, but here’s the explanation and answer for the question in the link you provided (Tell me if this isn’t clear enough.):</p>
<p>A trapezoid is a quadrilateral => the sum of its interior angles in 360 degrees. You can subtract the sum of x and y (90 degrees) to get the sum of two of the interior angles. The sum of the two interior angles turns out to be 270 degrees. Divide by two → 135 degrees each → Interior angle of an octagon.</p>
<p>The answer is D) Eight.</p>
<p>I think. I’m pretty sure. I could be wrong. <em>worried face</em></p>
<p>Yep you’re right. I got destroyed by that question when I took the test because I didn’t notice that I could determine the degrees of the interior angles. Even if I had noticed that, I didn’t remember the interior angles equation thingy: (180n-360)/(n)=360. </p>
<p>Anyhow, there is another way to figure out this problem. It’s towards the bottom of the page:
[PWN</a> the SAT: Weekend Challenge - Best Band You’ve Never Heard Of Edition](<a href=“http://blog.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2011/06/weekend-challenge-best-band-youve-never.html#.Ukj2vNKsiSo]PWN”>http://blog.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2011/06/weekend-challenge-best-band-youve-never.html#.Ukj2vNKsiSo)</p>
<p>Oh yeah the link’s explanation is for the problem when x+y=72</p>
<p>The hardest question on THIS site? </p>
<p>Can you please read the stickied threads before posting? Pretty Please? :)</p>
<p>What are you referring to?</p>
<p>And honestly? It baffles me as to how someone so condescending could be so revered on this site.</p>
<p>What? </p>
<p>First of all, perhaps the smiley could have helped you see the post was jocular. What did it refer to? It was all about the often repeated advice to use the search functions to find answers to problems that have been posted over and over. For the record, i am quite certain that threads about the hardest problems are in the depths of this precise forum. </p>
<p>Spend a decade here helping others … And having to repeat the same simple suggestions, and you might learn to recognize the difference between being condescending and a bit sarcastic. </p>
<p>And, if being condescending was my intention, I might have offered a solution to the hard problem that made it trivial to anyone who knows the angular progression of geometric figures.</p>
<p>DumbAndLethal, here are the pics associated with the question you are referring to.
<a href=“http://s22.postimg.org/92ora7mnl/jan09s3passage.png[/url]”>http://s22.postimg.org/92ora7mnl/jan09s3passage.png</a>
<a href=“http://s14.postimg.org/uglbh12xt/jan09sqs19_24.png[/url]”>http://s14.postimg.org/uglbh12xt/jan09sqs19_24.png</a>
Also here is my attempt to answer question #20. So he uses the word specialization in line 11 with a slight negative connotation. Scientific approaches are specific in the sense that they complicate things by being overly concerned with details (specifics). This leaves A and E. But A is wrong because the author never says that the way of life referred to in line 37 is uncomplicated in nature. He is obviously approving of the Bajau way of life when he calls it rare and specialized in line 37 as opposed to his critical use of the word in line 11. Therefore E is correct.</p>
<p>Now for my hardest question ever encountered. Coincidentally it is the question that immediately precedes the question that I just answered: number 19. The answer is A, but doesn’t his question qualify (or challenge) the influence/contributions of the bajau people in society (which is choice B)?</p>
<p>I don’t even know where to start with your response, Xiggi, so I won’t (defeatism for the win?).</p>
<p>Anyways, tehdude1, this is interesting. The question that you say is the hardest was easy for me, while it seems like my question was easy for you. </p>
<p>Well, I mentally cross off B because the world challenge implies that the author is contending that the Bajau people’s contributions are of no value. In fact, the word even seems to denote that:
Challenge (v.): dispute the truth or validity of
Either way, A seems to be perfectly correct because the question is essentially being reflected on in the rest of the paragraph. The author is arguing for diversity because of “the order of knowledge…we stand to lose if and when the Bajau finally abandon there way of life.”</p>
<p>Also, for my question, that’s the best explanation I’ve seen yet. I completely understand your process of elimination, but I don’t see how the author is implying a “distinction”. What is he saying is different between the two?</p>
<p>Yes I was thinking the exact same thing when I read your post lol. Number 19 was the only question I missed in the section and #20 seemed pretty easy whereas #19 was arugably the hardest I’ve ever come accross in like 18+ practice tests lol.</p>
<p>Anyways, as for your question. He never explicitly says that he is using the word in two different contexts; that is something that you, the reader, must infer using the context in which it is being used. The same word can have different meanings depending on context; in this case the “same word” is the word specialize, and you must infer the two different meanings.</p>
<p>Xiggi, isn’t “angular progression of geometric figures” just a fancy way of referring to the formula 180(n-2)/n?</p>
<p>EDIT: @Xiggi, Just to clarify, I am not trying to poke fun at your post; I was just curious if that is what you were referring to or if it is some really advanced high level math concept.</p>
<p>No problem! </p>
<p>It is not really advanced math. After all this is the SAT. To answer your question, the progression is indeed based on either using the polygon formulas or simply memorizing the angles of common polygons. </p>
<p>As far as this question, I would have followed a different approach that takes about 10 seconds. Here we go:</p>
<p>External angle?<br>
We know 360 - 90 is 270 and the internal angle is thus 135. That means the external angle is 45.
Number of sides? The total of all external angles is 360. Accordingly …
360/45 = 8 sides.</p>
<p>My paper shows only 360 / (180-135). Trivial, I’d say.</p>
<p>f 6 times j is 1 more than the square of k is an integer , what is the smallest possible value of j ?</p>
<p>answer 1/6</p>
<p>6j = k^2+1
Smallest possible value of j is the same thing as the smallest possible value of 6j which is the same thing as the smallest possible value of k^2+1. The smallest possible value of k^2+1 is the minimum value of the function f(k)=k^2+1. Make a quick sketch mentally (or on paper) and realize that the minimum occurs at k = 0. Or just use common sense to arrive at the exact same conclusion.
Set k = 0 and get 6j = 1. Therefore the smallest possible value of j is 1/6.</p>
<p>Well Xiggi, what is the hardest problem you’ve come across? I’m guessing it’s not a math question…</p>
<p>[College</a> Confidential Discussion](<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?69/80505]College”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?69/80505)</p>
<p>I think he meant SAT problem…</p>
<p>And this is after an hour of trying to solve the damn thing… I’m not getting much sleep tonight :(.</p>
![http://s22.postimg.org/92ora7mnl/jan09s3passage.png[/url]](http://s22.postimg.org/92ora7mnl/jan09s3passage.png%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
![http://s14.postimg.org/uglbh12xt/jan09sqs19_24.png[/url]](http://s14.postimg.org/uglbh12xt/jan09sqs19_24.png%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
