Monthly Archives: March 2008

PQOTD 3/30/08

(1)Cicero said, “A room without a book is a body without a soul.” (2) Certainly when I enter someone’s home for the first time, I am likely to gravitate to the bookshelf, in part to glean further insight into the personality of its owner. (3) But now that the family encyclopedia is likely to have been replaced by a CD-ROM it is possible that the book might be reduced to an item of decoration rather than information and entertainment.

(4)In a sense, books have always been more than just repositories of information. (5) The look and feel of a book is as much a part of its appeal as its contents. (6) There is something immensely satisfying about opening a new book: the smell of the paper, the feel of the cover, the design on the dust jacket and the weight of the volume all contribute to the impression it makes. (7) The most aesthetically pleasing volumes, the leather bound volumes, and the volumes with beautiful bindings are actually often bought by interior decorators to add to the look of a study, office or of a living room.

(8)Books have a symbolic power. We shudder when we hear of ‘book burning’, associated down the ages with tyranny and oppression. (9) Books as cultural icons remind us of freedom of speech and enhanced opportunities, they remind us of the intellectual aspirations of the human race.

(10)But in the future will the book still be read? (11)I believe it will. (12)More books are being written and published than ever before; the book has withstood the advent of the cinema, television, and personal computer and are likely to be there in centuries to come.

Questions for Day 2:

1.  What revision is most needed in sentence 9?

A. Change “enhanced” to “equal”.
B. Change the comma to a semicolon.
C. Change “us” to “people”
D. Rewrite to avoid repetition of “they remind us of”.
E. Insert “Moreover” at the beginning of the sentence.

2.  Sentence 7 would probably benefit from all the following changes EXCEPT

A. Change from passive to active voice
B. Correct faulty parallelism
C. Rewrite to avoid repetition of “volumes”.
D. Delete the word “actually”.
E. Remove the word “aesthetically”.

  1. Is there anything wrong with saying “enhanced” here? Not really. This rules out (A). If we change “us” to “people,” then we’d have to make a lot of other changes. Throughout the article, the writer has been referring to “we” or “us.” To make this change would break that consistency. (C) is not the answer. The repetition of “they remind us of” is done for emphasis; in this case, the repetition is okay—it works well as a rhetorical device. (D) is not correct. (E) would really be an unnecessary addition. Sentence 9 is a comma splice. Remember that you cannot use a comma to separate two independent clauses (or complete sentences); you must use a semicolon—just like I did in this very sentence! The answer is B.
  2. Did you read the question carefully? Here we’re looking for the one choice that does not work. This is different from other questions we’ve seen so far. (A) is always good advice. Generally, the active voice is preferred over the passive voice. There is some faulty parallelism here:  “. . .to add to the look of a study, office, or of a living room.” The second “of a” is unnecessary and breaks the pattern of the series. For more on parallelism in sentence structure, click here. (B) would benefit this sentence. (C) would too. It’s always a good thing to weed out any unnecessary repetitions. (D) is a good idea. “Actually” here really serves no purpose—kind of like our appendix. (E) would not benefit this sentence; in fact, to take the word “aesthetically” out would make the sentence confusing—it would not be clear in what sense the book was pleasing. The answer is E.

PQOTD 3/29/08

(1)Cicero said, “A room without a book is a body without a soul.” (2) Certainly when I enter someone’s home for the first time, I am likely to gravitate to the bookshelf, in part to glean further insight into the personality of its owner. (3) But now that the family encyclopedia is likely to have been replaced by a CD-ROM it is possible that the book might be reduced to an item of decoration rather than information and entertainment.

(4)In a sense, books have always been more than just repositories of information. (5) The look and feel of a book is as much a part of its appeal as its contents. (6) There is something immensely satisfying about opening a new book: the smell of the paper, the feel of the cover, the design on the dust jacket and the weight of the volume all contribute to the impression it makes. (7) The most aesthetically pleasing volumes, the leather bound volumes, and the volumes with beautiful bindings are actually often bought by interior decorators to add to the look of a study, office or of a living room.

(8)Books have a symbolic power. We shudder when we hear of ‘book burning’, associated down the ages with tyranny and oppression. (9) Books as cultural icons remind us of freedom of speech and enhanced opportunities, they remind us of the intellectual aspirations of the human race.

(10)But in the future will the book still be read? (11)I believe it will. (12)More books are being written and published than ever before; the book has withstood the advent of the cinema, television, and personal computer and are likely to be there in centuries to come.

Questions for Day 1:

1. Which is the best version of the underlined portion of sentence 3 (reproduced below)?
But now that the family encyclopedia is likely to have been replaced by a CD-ROM it is possible that the book might be reduced to an item of decoration rather than information and entertainment.

A. might be reduced to an item of decoration rather than information
B. might be reduced to an item of decoration rather than a source of information
C. will be reduced to an item of decoration rather than information
D. will be reduced to an item of decoration rather than a source of information
E. could be reduced to an item of decoration rather than information

2. Which version of sentence 8 would form the best transition between paragraphs two and three?

A. Besides their aesthetic appeal, books have symbolic power.
B. Books have also always had symbolic power.
C. Besides their use to decorators, books have a symbolic power.
D. Books have other functions besides decoration.
E. Other people have used books as symbols.

Source:  majortests.com

  1. First of all, I suggest that you do the same thing I suggested for the passage-based reading sections:  read only the sentences just before and after the sentence that is being asked about. If you read the whole thing first, by the time you get to the questions you will have forgotten the specific content, unless, of course, you have uncanny retentive abilities. Most people do not have such abilities. That’s just the way it is. Anyway, to answer the first question, I would read the first four sentences of the paragraph. This is not a context question here, but it still makes sense to read the first few sentences, so that you have a sense of what the overall paragraph is going to be about. In this particular sentence, are there any problems? If not, you’ll choose the (A), which is just a restatement of the original underlined part. Here, the answere is not (A). What makes that clear from the outset is the word “might.” “It is possible that the book might be reduced. . .” is redundant; if something is a possibility, then “might” is already implied. With that in mind, we can eliminate (A) and (B). The other problem is with “to an item of decoration rather than information.” This does not work, because “item” here refers to both decoration and information—so it sounds like the author is referring to an “item of information,” which is not what is intended here. What the author wants to say is that books will no longer be seen as sources of information, but merely as adornments. With that, we can rule out (C) and (E). Of course, (E) can also be eliminated on the grounds of redundancy:  “possible” can also imply “could.” That leaves us with (D), which works just fine.
  2. A common thing the test writers will do in this section is to have weak transitions. Here, all of a sudden, the writer starts talking about books having symbolic power. This is very abrupt, given the fact that the subject matter up till this point has been the contention that books are becoming more decorative than functional. Before a good writer transitions to another subject, he/she will always introduce the new topic somehow. So we know we’re looking for a good transition sentence here:  one that will introduce the idea of books having not only aesthetic appeal, but symbolic power. The question now is which of the choices does this the best. The problem with (B) is the word “also.” The use of this word would imply that books have always had aesthetic appeal. While this may be true, it is not a point that the author makes. (C) is too specific. The usefulness of books to decorators is merely an example of the larger point:  that books have aesthetic appeal in a variety of ways. (D) is just poorly worded, and (E) is a misinterpretation of the author’s point. The author is not saying that books are symbols; he/she is saying that they have symbolic power, which is a different point. Yes, they’re closely related points, but they are nonetheless different. (A), then, is the best answer.

PQOTD 3/28/08

In the xy-coordinate plane above, line  contains the points (0,0) and (1,2). If line m (not shown) contains the point (0,0) and is perpendicular to  , what is an equation of m?

 
 
 
 

There’s one very important rule you need to know here in order to answer this question correctly. Lines that are perpendicular to one another will always have slopes that are the negative reciprocals of each other. For example, if you have a line with a slope of 5, the line perpendicular to it will have a slope of -1/5. The other thing, which you will remember from Algebra class, is that the equation for a line is y=mx+b (m being the slope; b being the y-intercept). From the graph above, we can figure out the slope. One way to determine the slope of this line is to take the two points that are given to you (0,0 and 1,2) and plug them into this equation:  [y(2)-y(1)]/[x(2)-x(1)], or in this case:   (2-0)/(1-0)=2/1=2.

The slope is 2. The y-intercept, because the line passes through the origin (0,0) is zero. The equation for the line shown, then, is y=2x. The equation for the line perpendicular to it, as a result, is y=-1/2x. The answer is A.

Source: collegeboard.com  

PQOTD 3/27/08

For the next four days, we’ll be picking apart this passage-based reading test. There will be eight questions about it; I’ll give two a day for the next four days.

Source:  majortests.com

    A stout old lady was walking with her basket down the middle of a
    street in Petrograd to the great confusion of the traffic and with no
    small peril to herself. It was pointed out to her that the
    pavement was the place for pedestrians, but she replied: ‘I’m going
5   to walk where I like. We’ve got liberty now.’ It did not occur
    to the dear old lady that if liberty entitled the pedestrian to
    walk down the middle of the road, then the end of such liberty
    would be universal chaos. Everybody would be getting in
    everybody else’s way and nobody would get anywhere.
10  Individual liberty would have become social anarchy.

    There is a danger of the world getting liberty-drunk in
    these days like the old lady with the basket, and it is just as well
    to remind ourselves of what the rule of the road means. It means
    that in order that the liberties of all may be preserved, the
15  liberties of everybody must be curtailed. When the policeman,
    say, at Piccadilly Circus steps into the middle of the road and
    puts out his hand, he is the symbol not of tyranny, but of liberty.
    You may not think so. You may, being in a hurry, and seeing
    your car pulled up by this insolence of office, feel that your
20  liberty has been outraged. How dare this fellow interfere with
    your free use of the public highway? Then, if you are a
    reasonable person, you will reflect that if he did not interfere with
    you, he would interfere with no one, and the result would be that
    Piccadilly Circus would be a maelstrom that you would never
25  cross at all. You have submitted to a curtailment of private liberty
    in order that you may enjoy a social order which makes your
    liberty a reality.

    Liberty is not a personal affair only, but a social
    contract. It is an accommodation of interests. In matters which do
30  not touch anybody else’s liberty, of course, I may be as free as I
    like. If I choose to go down the road in a dressing-gown who
    shall say me nay? You have liberty to laugh at me, but I have
    liberty to be indifferent to you. And if I have a fancy for dyeing
    my hair, or waxing my moustache (which heaven forbid), or
35  wearing an overcoat and sandals, or going to bed late or getting
    up early, I shall follow my fancy and ask no man’s permission. I
    shall not inquire of you whether I may eat mustard with my
    mutton. And you will not ask me whether you may follow this
    religion or that, whether you may prefer Ella Wheeler Wilcox to
40  Wordsworth, or champagne to shandy.

    In all these and a thousand other details you and I please
    ourselves and ask no one’s leave. We have a whole kingdom in
    which we rule alone, can do what we choose, be wise or
    ridiculous, harsh or easy, conventional or odd. But directly we
45  step out of that kingdom, our personal liberty of action becomes
    qualified by other people’s liberty. I might like to practice on the
    trombone from midnight till three in the morning. If I went on to
    the top of Everest to do it, I could please myself, but if I do it in
    my bedroom my family will object, and if I do it out in the streets
50  the neighbors will remind me that my liberty to blow the
    trombone must not interfere with their liberty to sleep in quiet.
    There are a lot of people in the world, and I have to
    accommodate my liberty to their liberties.

    We are all liable to forget this, and unfortunately we are much
55  more conscious of the imperfections of others in this respect than
    of our own. A reasonable consideration for the rights or feelings
    of others is the foundation of social conduct.

    It is in the small matters of conduct, in the observance of
    the rule of the road, that we pass judgment upon ourselves, and
60  declare that we are civilized or uncivilized. The great moments of
    heroism and sacrifice are rare. It is the little habits of
    commonplace intercourse that make up the great sum of life and
    sweeten or make bitter the journey.

Questions for Day 4:

1. The author assumes that he may be as free as he likes in

A. all matters of dress and food
B. any situation which does not interfere with the liberty of others
C. anything that is not against the law
D. his own home
E. public places as long as no one sees him

2.  In the sentence ‘ We are all liable….’ (lines 54-56) the author is

A. pointing out a general weakness
B. emphasizing his main point
C. countering a general misconception
D. suggesting a remedy
E. modifying his point of view  

  1. This is not a difficult one. He does defend one’s right to wear a dressing gown, but this is just an example he brings up in order to support his bigger idea. What is the bigger idea at work here? Is it (C)? That doesn’t work because there are plenty of things that are not against the law that are nonetheless unacceptable. There’s no law against being a jerk, for example. The author would certainly not say that anything goes as long as you’re in your own home. There are things one can do in one’s own home that would be unacceptable—like abusing a family member. (E) is laughably incorrect. If (E) is tempting for you, then you really need to read the article again. The answer is (B). The whole point of the article is that being free does not allow one to do anything regardless of who might be affected.
  2. This should not be difficult either. The line says that we are ALL liable to this behavior. ALL is a generalization. Liability implies weakness. The answer has to be (A).

The Old SAT vs. The New SAT

Most of you are aware that in 2005, Collegeboard did a major overhaul of the SAT. This article explains some of the differences. Bottom line, the new SAT is a much better indication of college preparedness. Read it here.

The Importance of SAT (and other) Scores

Click here for a nice little article with some great advice!

PQOTD 3/26/08

A stout old lady was walking with her basket down the middle of a
    street in Petrograd to the great confusion of the traffic and with no
    small peril to herself. It was pointed out to her that the
    pavement was the place for pedestrians, but she replied: ‘I’m going
5   to walk where I like. We’ve got liberty now.’ It did not occur
    to the dear old lady that if liberty entitled the pedestrian to
    walk down the middle of the road, then the end of such liberty
    would be universal chaos. Everybody would be getting in
    everybody else’s way and nobody would get anywhere.
10  Individual liberty would have become social anarchy.    There is a danger of the world getting liberty-drunk in
    these days like the old lady with the basket, and it is just as well
    to remind ourselves of what the rule of the road means. It means
    that in order that the liberties of all may be preserved, the
15  liberties of everybody must be curtailed. When the policeman,
    say, at Piccadilly Circus steps into the middle of the road and
    puts out his hand, he is the symbol not of tyranny, but of liberty.
    You may not think so. You may, being in a hurry, and seeing
    your car pulled up by this insolence of office, feel that your
20  liberty has been outraged. How dare this fellow interfere with
    your free use of the public highway? Then, if you are a
    reasonable person, you will reflect that if he did not interfere with
    you, he would interfere with no one, and the result would be that
    Piccadilly Circus would be a maelstrom that you would never
25  cross at all. You have submitted to a curtailment of private liberty
    in order that you may enjoy a social order which makes your
    liberty a reality.

    Liberty is not a personal affair only, but a social
    contract. It is an accommodation of interests. In matters which do
30  not touch anybody else’s liberty, of course, I may be as free as I
    like. If I choose to go down the road in a dressing-gown who
    shall say me nay? You have liberty to laugh at me, but I have
    liberty to be indifferent to you. And if I have a fancy for dyeing
    my hair, or waxing my moustache (which heaven forbid), or
35  wearing an overcoat and sandals, or going to bed late or getting
    up early, I shall follow my fancy and ask no man’s permission. I
    shall not inquire of you whether I may eat mustard with my
    mutton. And you will not ask me whether you may follow this
    religion or that, whether you may prefer Ella Wheeler Wilcox to
40  Wordsworth, or champagne to shandy.

    In all these and a thousand other details you and I please
    ourselves and ask no one’s leave. We have a whole kingdom in
    which we rule alone, can do what we choose, be wise or
    ridiculous, harsh or easy, conventional or odd. But directly we
45  step out of that kingdom, our personal liberty of action becomes
    qualified by other people’s liberty. I might like to practice on the
    trombone from midnight till three in the morning. If I went on to
    the top of Everest to do it, I could please myself, but if I do it in
    my bedroom my family will object, and if I do it out in the streets
50  the neighbors will remind me that my liberty to blow the
    trombone must not interfere with their liberty to sleep in quiet.
    There are a lot of people in the world, and I have to
    accommodate my liberty to their liberties.

    We are all liable to forget this, and unfortunately we are much
55  more conscious of the imperfections of others in this respect than
    of our own. A reasonable consideration for the rights or feelings
    of others is the foundation of social conduct.

    It is in the small matters of conduct, in the observance of
    the rule of the road, that we pass judgment upon ourselves, and
60  declare that we are civilized or uncivilized. The great moments of
    heroism and sacrifice are rare. It is the little habits of
    commonplace intercourse that make up the great sum of life and
    sweeten or make bitter the journey.

Questions for Day 3:

1. A situation analogous to the ‘insolence of office’ described in paragraph 2 would be

A. a teacher correcting grammar errors
B. an editor shortening the text of an article
C. a tax inspector demanding to see someone’s accounts
D. an army office giving orders to a soldier
E. a jailer locking up a prisoner

2.  ‘Qualified’ (line 46) most nearly means

A. accredited
B. improved
C. limited
D. stymied
E. educated

  1. Here’s the explanation offered by majortests.com:  “The insolence of office is a situation in which an official who is doing his duty stops us and questions our behavior. It also has to be something that we at first resent, but then have to admit is socially necessary. This is best conveyed by answer C.“  I couldn’t have explained that one any better myself!!
  2. This is not a difficult one. (A), (B), and (E) are obviously wrong. Here “qualified” has to do with “qualifier,” which is a limitation placed on something. For example, if I say, “You can do whatever you want, within reason,” I’m saying that you can do whatever you want as long as it’s a reasonable thing to do. “Within reason” is the qualifier in that sentence. (D) is related; but “stymied” is stronger than “limited.” The answer is (C).

PQOTD 3/25/08

A stout old lady was walking with her basket down the middle of a
    street in Petrograd to the great confusion of the traffic and with no
    small peril to herself. It was pointed out to her that the
    pavement was the place for pedestrians, but she replied: ‘I’m going
5   to walk where I like. We’ve got liberty now.’ It did not occur
    to the dear old lady that if liberty entitled the pedestrian to
    walk down the middle of the road, then the end of such liberty
    would be universal chaos. Everybody would be getting in
    everybody else’s way and nobody would get anywhere.
10  Individual liberty would have become social anarchy.    There is a danger of the world getting liberty-drunk in
    these days like the old lady with the basket, and it is just as well
    to remind ourselves of what the rule of the road means. It means
    that in order that the liberties of all may be preserved, the
15  liberties of everybody must be curtailed. When the policeman,
    say, at Piccadilly Circus steps into the middle of the road and
    puts out his hand, he is the symbol not of tyranny, but of liberty.
    You may not think so. You may, being in a hurry, and seeing
    your car pulled up by this insolence of office, feel that your
20  liberty has been outraged. How dare this fellow interfere with
    your free use of the public highway? Then, if you are a
    reasonable person, you will reflect that if he did not interfere with
    you, he would interfere with no one, and the result would be that
    Piccadilly Circus would be a maelstrom that you would never
25  cross at all. You have submitted to a curtailment of private liberty
    in order that you may enjoy a social order which makes your
    liberty a reality.

    Liberty is not a personal affair only, but a social
    contract. It is an accommodation of interests. In matters which do
30  not touch anybody else’s liberty, of course, I may be as free as I
    like. If I choose to go down the road in a dressing-gown who
    shall say me nay? You have liberty to laugh at me, but I have
    liberty to be indifferent to you. And if I have a fancy for dyeing
    my hair, or waxing my moustache (which heaven forbid), or
35  wearing an overcoat and sandals, or going to bed late or getting
    up early, I shall follow my fancy and ask no man’s permission. I
    shall not inquire of you whether I may eat mustard with my
    mutton. And you will not ask me whether you may follow this
    religion or that, whether you may prefer Ella Wheeler Wilcox to
40  Wordsworth, or champagne to shandy.

    In all these and a thousand other details you and I please
    ourselves and ask no one’s leave. We have a whole kingdom in
    which we rule alone, can do what we choose, be wise or
    ridiculous, harsh or easy, conventional or odd. But directly we
45  step out of that kingdom, our personal liberty of action becomes
    qualified by other people’s liberty. I might like to practice on the
    trombone from midnight till three in the morning. If I went on to
    the top of Everest to do it, I could please myself, but if I do it in
    my bedroom my family will object, and if I do it out in the streets
50  the neighbors will remind me that my liberty to blow the
    trombone must not interfere with their liberty to sleep in quiet.
    There are a lot of people in the world, and I have to
    accommodate my liberty to their liberties.

    We are all liable to forget this, and unfortunately we are much
55  more conscious of the imperfections of others in this respect than
    of our own. A reasonable consideration for the rights or feelings
    of others is the foundation of social conduct.

    It is in the small matters of conduct, in the observance of
    the rule of the road, that we pass judgment upon ourselves, and
60  declare that we are civilized or uncivilized. The great moments of
    heroism and sacrifice are rare. It is the little habits of
    commonplace intercourse that make up the great sum of life and
    sweeten or make bitter the journey.

Questions for Day 2:

1. The sentence ‘It means….curtailed’ (lines 13-15) is an example of

A. hyperbole
B. cliché
C. simile
D. paradox
E. consonance

2. Which sentence best sums up the author’s main point?

A. There is a danger….lines 11-13
B. A reasonable…. lines 56-57
C. It is in the small matters….lines 58-60
D. The great moments….lines 60-61
E. It is the little….lines 61-63

  1. The statement asserts that in a free society, the individual often has to give up his/her personal freedom in order for a greater good to be accomplished. For example, I am perfectly free to push someone out of my way. However, this would be asserting my freedom at the cost of the other person’s freedom. The rules dictate that I am not free to do that because the value of respect for fellow human beings trumps my freedom to push the person out of the way. The famous example of free speech works here too. Freedom of speech does not give one the right to yell “fire!” in a crowded theater. Is the author’s claim a hyperbole? A hyperbole is an exaggeration that is made in order to make a point. That won’t work. Cliche? While the author’s observation is a well-known one, it couldn’t really be called a cliche. Is it a simile?  Do you see the word “like” or “as” anywhere? No. And what is consonance?? Dictionary.com defines it as ”the correspondence of consonants, esp. those at the end of a word, in a passage of prose or verse.” I’m not seeing that. Then there’s paradox. A paradox is an apparent contradiction. It sounds contradictory, but, upon closer scrutiny, it’s not. “The more things change, the more they stay the same” is a well-known paradoxical statement. Here, the author is claiming that we have to give up freedom in order to maintain freedom. This sounds like a contradiction, but when we read through his explanation, we see that his point makes perfect sense. The answer is (D).
  2. First let’s ask ourselves what the main point is. Is it the line we just referred to? That’s tempting, since it is a major point of discussion throughout the article. However, this line is really more of an introduction to the deeper point. Yes, we do have to give up personal freedoms on occasion. However, his main point, is a development from that idea; what he really wants to say is that there are all kinds of little things that we have to do on a regular basis, day in and day out, in order to maintain a truly free society. So (A) won’t work. (B) is also very tempting, but it basically makes the same point as choice (A), just in a different way. We sometimes have to give up our own freedoms in consideration of others. (D) is really an aside. The emphasis is on everyday behavior; he simply makes the point here that most of us will never have the opportunity to do something earth-shakingly heroic, but we have opportunities each and every day to do the right thing. (E) is a concluding statement and is very general. (C) is the best response because it states in detail what one must do in order to contribute to living in a free society.

PQOTD 3/24/08

For the next four days, we’ll be picking apart this passage-based reading test. There will be eight questions about it; I’ll give two a day for the next four days.

Source:  majortests.com

    A stout old lady was walking with her basket down the middle of a
    street in Petrograd to the great confusion of the traffic and with no
    small peril to herself. It was pointed out to her that the
    pavement was the place for pedestrians, but she replied: ‘I’m going
5   to walk where I like. We’ve got liberty now.’ It did not occur
    to the dear old lady that if liberty entitled the pedestrian to
    walk down the middle of the road, then the end of such liberty
    would be universal chaos. Everybody would be getting in
    everybody else’s way and nobody would get anywhere.
10  Individual liberty would have become social anarchy.

    There is a danger of the world getting liberty-drunk in
    these days like the old lady with the basket, and it is just as well
    to remind ourselves of what the rule of the road means. It means
    that in order that the liberties of all may be preserved, the
15  liberties of everybody must be curtailed. When the policeman,
    say, at Piccadilly Circus steps into the middle of the road and
    puts out his hand, he is the symbol not of tyranny, but of liberty.
    You may not think so. You may, being in a hurry, and seeing
    your car pulled up by this insolence of office, feel that your
20  liberty has been outraged. How dare this fellow interfere with
    your free use of the public highway? Then, if you are a
    reasonable person, you will reflect that if he did not interfere with
    you, he would interfere with no one, and the result would be that
    Piccadilly Circus would be a maelstrom that you would never
25  cross at all. You have submitted to a curtailment of private liberty
    in order that you may enjoy a social order which makes your
    liberty a reality.

    Liberty is not a personal affair only, but a social
    contract. It is an accommodation of interests. In matters which do
30  not touch anybody else’s liberty, of course, I may be as free as I
    like. If I choose to go down the road in a dressing-gown who
    shall say me nay? You have liberty to laugh at me, but I have
    liberty to be indifferent to you. And if I have a fancy for dyeing
    my hair, or waxing my moustache (which heaven forbid), or
35  wearing an overcoat and sandals, or going to bed late or getting
    up early, I shall follow my fancy and ask no man’s permission. I
    shall not inquire of you whether I may eat mustard with my
    mutton. And you will not ask me whether you may follow this
    religion or that, whether you may prefer Ella Wheeler Wilcox to
40  Wordsworth, or champagne to shandy.

    In all these and a thousand other details you and I please
    ourselves and ask no one’s leave. We have a whole kingdom in
    which we rule alone, can do what we choose, be wise or
    ridiculous, harsh or easy, conventional or odd. But directly we
45  step out of that kingdom, our personal liberty of action becomes
    qualified by other people’s liberty. I might like to practice on the
    trombone from midnight till three in the morning. If I went on to
    the top of Everest to do it, I could please myself, but if I do it in
    my bedroom my family will object, and if I do it out in the streets
50  the neighbors will remind me that my liberty to blow the
    trombone must not interfere with their liberty to sleep in quiet.
    There are a lot of people in the world, and I have to
    accommodate my liberty to their liberties.

    We are all liable to forget this, and unfortunately we are much
55  more conscious of the imperfections of others in this respect than
    of our own. A reasonable consideration for the rights or feelings
    of others is the foundation of social conduct.

    It is in the small matters of conduct, in the observance of
    the rule of the road, that we pass judgment upon ourselves, and
60  declare that we are civilized or uncivilized. The great moments of
    heroism and sacrifice are rare. It is the little habits of
    commonplace intercourse that make up the great sum of life and
    sweeten or make bitter the journey.

Questions for day 1:

1. The author might have stated his ‘rule of the road’ as

A. do not walk in the middle of the road
B. follow the orders of policemen
C. do not behave inconsiderately in public
D. do what you like in private
E. liberty is more important than anarchy

2. The author’s attitude to the old lady in paragraph one is

A. condescending
B. intolerant
C. objective
D. sardonic
E. supportive

  1. Ok, I must admit that I missed #1 the first time I tried it. I put (E). On reflection, I now see why I was wrong. The author never says that liberty is “more important” than anarchy; what he really says is that liberty that has no rules becomes anarchy. Anarchy is an undesirable state of affairs. It’s not that liberty is more important, it’s that it’s more desirable. So (E) is not correct. (A) is too specific. He uses the example of the woman to demonstrate a larger principle—the idea that liberty doesn’t mean doing whatever one wants to do whenever one wants to do it. (B) is also too specific. (D) does not follow from the article at all. The author is saying that liberty involves giving up certain things for the greater good. We cannot conclude from that that the author would say that anything goes when one is alone. The answer is (C). The main thrust of the article is the idea that our liberties cannot be exercised at the expense of others. We must be considerate of others’ needs as well.
  2. This one seems like an opinion question. It really isn’t. Is the author intolerant of the woman? Not really. He’s critical of her, but he does not indicate that he finds her intolerable. It is certainly not an objective point of view; he clearly has issues with the woman’s behavior and is not just reporting it as something that occurred. Sardonic means scornful or mocking. That seems too strong a description. Supportive is obviously not the right choice. Enough said on that! The answer is (A). He’s condescending toward her. This is especially seen in his reference to her as a “dear old lady.” Clearly he is not using this phrase sincerely, but in a sarcastic way. He sees himself as superior to the woman. Definitely a condescending attitude.

PQOTD 3/23/08

The crowd, which  clamored for the play to begin, were  surprisingly
A B
rowdy for  a Broadway  audience . No error .
C D E

This question is from Sparknotes.com.

The word “crowd” is a collective noun. It is considered singular, even though a crowd contains numerous individuals. Here, it should say “The crowd, . . ., was surprisingly rowdy. . . .”, not “were.” The answer is (B).

PQOTD 3/22/08

The projected sales volume of a video game cartridge is given by the function  where s is the number of cartridges sold, in thousands; p is the price per cartridge, in dollars; and a is a constant. If according to the projections, 100,000 cartridges are sold at $10 per cartridge, how many cartridges will be sold at $20 per cartridge?

We are told that  and we are also told that if the cartridge sells for $10 each, the projected sales is 100,000. So we can plug those numbers in to create the following equation:

100 = 3000/2(10) + a (Remember that s(p) is measured in thousands. So it should be 100 here, not 100,000.)

We have to multiply both sides by 2(10) + a, or 20 + a. That gives you 100 (20 + a) = 3000. Now we solve for a.

2000 + 100a = 3000

100a = 1000

a = 10

We are told that a is a constant. So now all we have to do is figure out what the projected sales are if the item costs $20 rather than $10.

So we plug in and get

s(20) = 3000/2(20) + 10

s(20) = 3000/50

s(20) = 60

But, remember, s(p) is the number of sales in the thousands. So the answer is (C) 60,000.

PQOTD 3/21/08

Question for Friday, March 21st, 2008:

From majortests.com comes the following question. This is from the Improving Sentences portion, in which the student first needs to determine whether there is a grammatical error of some sort, and then chooses the option which best corrects the error. If there is no error, the choice will be (A), which is always just a restatement of what’s in the original sentence. Don’t confuse this with the Identifying Sentence Errors, where (E) will always be the “no error” choice!

More and more holidaymakers are choosing to fly to remote islands in search of the perfect beach; seeking sand, sun and palm trees, rather than centers of entertainment.

A. ; seeking sand, sun and palm trees, rather than centers of entertainment.
B. ; seeking sad, sun, palm trees and not entertainment.
C. , with sand, sun, palm trees and no entertainment.
D. , they seek sand, sun and palm trees, rather than entertainment centers.
E. ; they seek sand, sun and palm trees, rather than centers of entertainment.

It is first important to notice exactly what is underlined. Notice that in this sentence, the subordinate clause after “beach” is underlined, but so too is the semi-colon. So you need to ask yourself if the semi-colon is ok, and then ask if the clause works. If you know the basic rules of semi-colon usage, then you should recognize that there’s a problem here. A subordinate clause, by definition, is not a complete sentence; the preceding clause is what enables the subordinate clause to make sense. Left on its own, it makes no sense:  “Seeking sand, sun. . .entertainment” is not a sentence. A semi-colon cannot be used to separate a subordinate clause from the rest of the sentence. An easier way of explaining this is to understand that the semi-colon can only be used to separate two complete sentences. The easy way to see if a semi-colon works is to read what’s before it and what’s after it; if each could stand on its own then the semi-colon is appropriate. If not, then the semi-colon needs to go. With that in mind, we know that (A) is automatically ruled out. (B) is also ruled out for the same reason—it is a subordinate clause as well. (C) does not work for the simple reason that it is not a viable substitute. The original sentence doesn’t say that people don’t want centers of entertainment at all; it’s just saying that sun, sand, etc. is the more important factor. (D) cannot work because it is an independent clause (a clause that makes sense on its own) preceded by a comma. This is another classic grammatical no-no. Usage of a comma to separate two complete sentences is the highly criminal comma splice. If there were a semi-colon, rather than a comma, (D) could work—although “entertainment centers” would not work, because that implies something in one’s private home. “Centers of entertainment,” on the other hand, would be found at all vacation spots. That leaves us with (E) as the final choice. It’s an independent clause following a semi-colon. Perfect!

PQOTD 3/20/08

Question for Thursday, March 20th, 2008

There is no doubt that Larry is a genuine ——- : he excels at telling stories that fascinate his listeners.

Thanks to collegeboard.com for this question.

If you read my article You Complete Me then you might remember how persistently I emphasized the need for extensive vocabulary if one is to do well on the sentence completions—not to mention the essay, identifying sentence errors, improving sentences, improving paragraphs, and, yes, the passage-based reading questions. Anyway, here’s a typically nasty sentence completion. Look at all of those funky words. You will get at least a few of these types of sentence completions: the ones that are basically testing nothing more than your vocabulary power. If you know the meanings of all of the words, this is a breeze. If you don’t know any of them (or, for that matter, if you only know one or two of them), you’ll end up either having to skip it or take a stab in the dark. Of course, we all remember that on the SAT (unlike the ACT) guessing is not a great idea unless you can narrow it down to a 50/50 situation.

So what are we looking for here? The part after the colon really gives you the answer. (Remember, one of the rules for the colon is that whatever follows the colon is very predictable because the part before the colon is clearly heading in that direction.) We need to indicate which word has something to do with being a good storyteller, right? Ok. So a braggart, as you probably know, is someone who likes to brag. A braggart is, in a sense, a storyteller. The problem, though, is that the word storyteller can have two meanings: one who narrates stories, or one who habitually tells lies. A braggart would fit into the latter category, but the sentence is referring to a storyteller in the first sense. A dilettante is someone who dabbles in something; for example, someone who paints for the fun of it and who doesn’t make a living at it or have extensive training in it would be considered a dilettante. How would that relate to Larry being a good storyteller? A pilferer is a thief. A prevaricator is a liar (again, a storyteller, but not in the proper sense). We are left with raconteur, which just so happens to be the French word for storyteller! The answer is (E). Is the importance of studying your vocabulary becoming more and more clear to you?

Some SAT FAQs

“Should I guess on SAT multiple choice questions?”  “Is there a penalty for guessing?” For answers to these questions, and others, go to http://testprep.about.com/od/satfaqs/f/ShowingScores.htm.

You Think YOU’VE Got it Bad???

So you think YOU’VE got it bad?? Check out these sample questions taken from the very first standardized college entrance exam from the Collegboard, which came out in 1901. Glad I’m tutoring now!!!