Saturday, May 16, 2015

The Redesigned Math SAT: should I be afraid?

You do NOT have to be afraid. There are plenty of great books out there. However, being a mathematician myself, I tend to sort out books before I buy them. Now I write my own study guides.

 The new SAT Math exam coming up in 2016 will require the knowledge of trigonometry, geometry, sequences, logic, algebra, word problems, graphical reasoning, data analysis, among other topics.

 Typically, word problems must be solved in the following way: you are given information in words, and you are required to put it in mathematical form.

 Example word problem: Rita is 8 years older than John was 3 years ago. Tom will be twice the current age of John in 4 years time. How old is Tom now if Rita is 25?

 Solution: let r be Rita's age now, j John's age now, and t Tom's age now. Then we have r = j - 3 + 8 (we got this from sentence "Rita is 8 years older than John was 3 years ago."), t + 4 = 2j (from "Tom will be twice the current age of John in 4 years time."). Since r = 25, we have 25 = j - 3 + 8, which means that j = 25 - 5 = 20, and t = 2(20) - 4 = 40 - 4 = 36. Thus Tom is 36 years old.

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Please visit our website RevisedSAT.com to practice for free.



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