.

Thursday, June 11, 2020

SAT Tutor Questioning Your Answers

And question everything. One of the most helpful resources for a difficult and confusing standardized test question is the set of answer choices that are provided to you (except for grid-in math problems! Sorry folks!) In a math problem, if you can quickly set up and solve an equation, you’re always better off, but sometimes these test makers succeed in being quite tricky. But particularly in a confusing, or seemingly ambiguous, reading or writing question, the answers can really come in handy. For example, as a GRE and SAT tutor in Boston, one of the responses I hear a lot from students is that they were torn between two plausible answers choices. Two of them just seemed right, and the final choice was made arbitrarily. But answers on standardized tests are never arbitrary. Rather than agonize over the seemingly incommensurate virtues of two attractive choices, start asking yourself questions about answers. In this particular case, ask: what is/are the relevant distinction(s) between the two choices? Often, in improving sentences questions, for example, the distinctions will be quite slight. Maybe one answer choice has a comma and the other has a semi-colon; maybe one answer choice has a past tense verb and the other has the same verb in past perfect. Asking yourself about the precise distinctions between the answer choices will start you on the path toward the right answer. Rather than simply continuing to look at each answer choice in relation to the sentence as a whole, this process narrows down the elements that you have to look at, and allows you to choose one over against the other. Further, this practice also helps you double check your initial estimation of the answers—several times I’ve seen students reread a question only to realize that one word they thought both answers shared actually differed slightly between the two options. Asking questions about distinctions allows you to more firmly grasp the differences between the answer choices, and keeps you from making such careless mistakes. What do you do once you’ve elicited the difference between difficult responses? The same thing you should be doing with every problem, only in a more precise manner: you now check each one back against the original sentence. Noticing the comma and semi-colon, for example, should lead you to check for a run-on sentence. Asking questions about answers works in all kinds of contexts. Say, for example, that you’ve read through an error identification sentence and no glaring grammatical issues stuck out. Before you choose E and move on, ask yourself a few further questions about your answers—are any of them ambiguous? are there any redundancies in the sentence? are there any diction issues, or improper idioms? These are all subtler issues that can be easy to overlook if you’re not paying attention to the set of answer choices in front of you and asking good questions about them. At any point on any standardized test there will always be a question you could ask yourself that can get your thinking back on the right track, and sometimes, it’s the answers themselves that need the most questioning. ;

Tuesday, June 9, 2020

Argumentative Essay Topics

Argumentative Essay TopicsArgumentative essay topics are important in order to get good grades. Without an interesting topic, you won't have the opportunity to add your unique perspective to your overall essay. These essays need to be provocative and engaging in order to stand out from the rest of the competition. In this article, I will discuss some different argumentative essay topics that you can use.The first thing you should do is think about what personal experiences you want to touch on in your essay. As you research more about what you want to write about, you may find out that you don't really have any personal experiences. This is a common dilemma for many people. If you are going to write an argumentative essay, then it is best to steer clear of personal experience at all costs.The next thing you should do is decide on a topic that is interesting. Once you know what your topic is going to be, you can start writing an essay on that topic. By researching what others have wri tten about the topic, you will learn how to write a good argument. People are always hungry for new and interesting topics to write about. If you research some other arguments that have been written, you will come up with more ideas than you could ever have imagined.One thing that you should avoid doing is writing your argument as if you were trying to make a personal opinion about the subject. Arguments are written as facts and opinions are written as ideas. You should treat your essay as if you were writing it for a class assignment or as a review of the best articles on a particular topic. You should be able to express your opinions with confidence. Never try to use your opinion to sway the reader into agreeing with you.What is the best way to write a good essay? Well, the best way to write a good essay is to write as objectively as possible. If you use your personal experiences to sway the reader to agree with you, then they will not take your argument seriously. Always follow p roper grammatical rules when writing your essay. One of the most effective ways to write an interesting essay is to write from a point of view that is unbiased.Remember that you will never be able to please everyone. It will help to write several drafts before you ever submit your essay. It will also help to read the same essay being written by someone else to gain a better understanding of how it should be written. Try to find a topic that you truly enjoy writing about. By doing this, you will be able to make it interesting.While you are writing your essay, keep the overall theme of your essay in mind. If you are going to write an argumentative essay, it is best to write from a point of view that is unbiased. When you focus on a particular topic, your essay will be less likely to seem repetitive. Try to stay away from using personal experiences to sway the reader to agree with you. Remember that you are trying to write an essay on a specific topic.By following these tips, you will be able to write an interesting topic for your argumentative essay. Make sure to research a number of topics before you get started. With a little research, you will be able to write an interesting essay that will challenge you as well as impress your reader.