Re: Are you Smart Enough to take the S.A.T.?

jannabelle1 · ‎09-12-2010

A - no change.....the rest of the paragraph explains "the why". My comment though, is this truly a practice question on a current SAT? Granted, I took the test in 1965 or 66, but I can guarantee there were no questions like this. I'm honestly shaking my head that a question about making the workplace more comfortable would be included on the SAT. Critical thinking? Maybe, but this further makes me question the focus of education in our country.

Lisa Y · ‎09-07-2014

@RainCityWoman wrote:
As an English teacher, I have a problem with this paragraph due to the fact that the topic sentence introducing the paragraph indicates it's going in one direction, while the heading and the body of the paragraph move in another direction. Yes, the bulk of the paragraph is about natural lighting, but that is NOT what the introductory sentence indicates. I would make my students rewrite the topic sentence to fit the main idea of the paragraph. There is NO adequate connection established here between temperature control and light control. THIS is an actual SAT question???

I teach third grade and I agree with you that the topic sentence is first followed by supporting sentences. IMO, standardized tests are written to confuse the test taker.

shoesnbags · ‎03-10-2010

@jannabelle1 wrote:
A - no change.....the rest of the paragraph explains "the why". My comment though, is this truly a practice question on a current SAT? Granted, I took the test in 1965 or 66, but I can guarantee there were no questions like this. I'm honestly shaking my head that a question about making the workplace more comfortable would be included on the SAT. Critical thinking? Maybe, but this further makes me question the focus of education in our country.

@jannabelle1 The point of the question is to quiz the student on paragraph writing, and workplace comfort is just the subject of the paragraph. The point is that the one sentence is out of place in that paragraph. It's an English language question, not a Sociology question. They could just as easily written a paragraph about thunderstorms with one sentence that didn't fit. It would still be an English exercise, not a Science exercise.

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