Anestis M. - McGraw-Hill Education SAT 2015

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to gratefully acknowledge the help of those who have contributed to this enormous project and have been committed to its success. This project would not have been the same without the help of so many of our close friends and relatives: Elizabeth Black, the worlds greatest teacher of mathematics, for her many years of patience, wisdom, and gracious support; Sarah and Anna Black for their constant inspiration and marvelous good humor; Stephanie Anestis for her invaluable efforts in reading and editing the text and for her incredible love and support; and Robert, Janice, Michael, and Matthew Anestis, who also gave their insight on the work in progress. We would also like to thank Brigid Barry, Aulden Kaye, Peter Obourn, Kristoffer Shields, and the brilliant tutors of College Hill Coaching for their thoughtful and valuable assistance. We appreciate the hard work of those at McGraw-Hill Education who made this project work and the thoughtful help of our agent, Grace Freedson. Finally, we would like to thank all the students of College Hill Coaching who have contributed to the growth of these materials over the years; their insight and experiences have thoroughly inspired and informed this book.

Contrary to popular opinion, the SAT does not merely test how well you can take a multiple-choice test or write a formulaic essay. Also, it is not designed to predict your college grades (because grades are too subjective and unstandardized). But neither is it a test of overall intelligence nor of the major subject material youve learned in high school. Instead, it is designed to do what your school grades rarely do directly: assess a very particular set of academic skills that are central to your success as a college student. These skills include thinking under pressure, writing cogently and fluently, understanding complex prose, and tackling a wide range of quantitative problems. Of course, there are many other skills that are important to college success: creativity, organization, social intelligence, perseverance, and so on. But those skills are almost impossible to assess with a multiple-choice test. So, college admissions officers look elsewhere in your applicationyour essays, your recommendations, your extracurricular activities, and so onto evaluate those qualities. But dont take the SAT lightly or cynically: critical reading, writing, and math skills are central to success in college and beyond.

Students who ace the SAT are adept at eight core reasoning skills: mapping problems, analyzing problems, finding patterns, simplifying problems, connecting to knowledge, considering alternatives, thinking logically, and checking their work. If you practice tackling SAT problems with these skills in mind, you will find that you can break through even the toughest questions. Lets look at these skills a little more closely.

Mapping a problem is the first step to solving it. Mapping means orienting yourself to the problem and representing its information. Its called mapping because it is like pulling out a map to start a trip. The map doesnt tell you how to get to your destination (you still have to find the best route), but it orients you to the problem by showing where you are and where you are going, and it represents what you can use to get there.

If you have the wrong map at the start, youll never solve the problemon the SAT or anywhere else. Many students struggle on the SAT because they dont realize what it is really testing. For instance, many students try to tackle SAT math questions with rote procedures or heavy calculations rather than looking for the elegant, simple solutions that emerge from seeking patterns and analyzing problems from different angles. They forget to read the math problems carefully, so they miss essential facts and restrictions that make the problems easier to solve..