Monthly Archives: February 2020

13 Feb 2020

ACT Section Retesting: relief arrives for students taking the ACT with extended time

ACT now offers Section Retesting. Source: http://www.ACT.org

Taking the ACT plus Writing already clocks in at nearly 4 hours of consecutive exam time. For students with extended time accommodations, this lengthy test can drag on for an entire day.

However, ACT has recently incorporated some major changes to the way the test can be taken that will majorly benefit students needing extra time.

What are the changes?

ACT now allows students who have already taken the full ACT test, to re-take one or more specific sections of their choice. For example, if a student does poorly on the Science section, they may return on a different test day to focus their energy on that portion.

While this is already great news for the general population of ACT test takers, it has a particular impact on students with extended time.

Students with 50% extended time will have already been sitting for the exam for nearly three hours before they arrive at the Reading section. They may be burnt out and exhausted before even beginning the remaining two or three sections of the test.

With Section Retesting, extended time students can schedule their Reading, Science, and Writing sections for a later exam date. By doing so, they can give themselves a better chance of scoring at their full potential by coming into these sections refreshed.

06 Feb 2020

Getting stuck on quadratic equations? Consider using this trick.

Image result for quadratic equations

Using a calculator program is still the best way to solve questions involving quadratics on the SAT, ACT, and SAT Subject Tests in Math levels 1 and 2 (here’s a video showing how you can do this on a few different standard-issue graphing calculators).

However, if you aren’t using a graphing calculator, or if programming one isn’t an option, this technique is a great way to solve quadratics.

Solving quadratic equations using the quadratic formula is often time consuming, and the long formula can be difficult for students to memorize. Or, students are taught to factor out the expression and use trial and error to solve. This strategy can end up being an inefficient use of your time during a timed exam.

It turns out there is a better way–and, it even works for equations that are not easily factorable.

In this article from the New York Times, A Carnegie Mellon Professor of Mathematics describes a new, surprisingly intuitive method to solve quadratic equations.

Written and video tutorials of the process can also be found directly from Dr. Loh’s blog, through this link.

Happy solving!