Free Essays on What Its Like To Be A Black Girl

An Explication: From transition to disappointment. An explanation in its purest form of â€Å"What it’s like to be a Black Girl (for those of you who aren’t)† by Patricia Smith, is just that, an explanation. From the first three syllables â€Å"First of all,† the author gives a sense of a story being told. She also uses irregular sentence structure and strong dynamic language to present the reader with the seriousness of her topic. Smiths poem gives the audience an insider’s view into a young black girl’s transition into black woman-hood at a time where both being a black girl and a black woman was not as welcomed. Puberty is usually defined by the biological changes a young boy or girls body undertakes around the age of 9 up until about 14. â€Å"It’s being 9 years old and feeling like you’re not finished,† writes Smith, â€Å"like your edges are wild, like there’s something, everything, wrong.† (Smith, 4) These thoughts have run around the minds of almost all puberty stricken youngsters. However, Smiths subject seems to also have the added pressures of a racially jagged society. This â€Å"black girl† she refers to in her poem is feeling the awkwardness of her newly changing body and the hope of something different and maybe better to come. The poem tells the story of a young black girl exploring and experiencing what it is to become a black woman in her changing social circle. â€Å"it’s dropping food coloring in your eyes to make them blue and suffering their burn in silence. It’s popping a bleached white mophead over the kinks of your hair and primping in front of the mirrors that deny your reflection.† (Smith, 9) The food coloring in her eyes, and the bleaching of her hair can only symbolize her need to grow into the more â€Å"accepted† form of society, the white skinned, blue eyed, blonde haired men and women of the 1960’s. Where for her, â€Å"it’s flame and fists and life according to Motown† (Smith, ... Free Essays on What Its Like To Be A Black Girl Free Essays on What Its Like To Be A Black Girl An Explication: From transition to disappointment. An explanation in its purest form of â€Å"What it’s like to be a Black Girl (for those of you who aren’t)† by Patricia Smith, is just that, an explanation. From the first three syllables â€Å"First of all,† the author gives a sense of a story being told. She also uses irregular sentence structure and strong dynamic language to present the reader with the seriousness of her topic. Smiths poem gives the audience an insider’s view into a young black girl’s transition into black woman-hood at a time where both being a black girl and a black woman was not as welcomed. Puberty is usually defined by the biological changes a young boy or girls body undertakes around the age of 9 up until about 14. â€Å"It’s being 9 years old and feeling like you’re not finished,† writes Smith, â€Å"like your edges are wild, like there’s something, everything, wrong.† (Smith, 4) These thoughts have run around the minds of almost all puberty stricken youngsters. However, Smiths subject seems to also have the added pressures of a racially jagged society. This â€Å"black girl† she refers to in her poem is feeling the awkwardness of her newly changing body and the hope of something different and maybe better to come. The poem tells the story of a young black girl exploring and experiencing what it is to become a black woman in her changing social circle. â€Å"it’s dropping food coloring in your eyes to make them blue and suffering their burn in silence. It’s popping a bleached white mophead over the kinks of your hair and primping in front of the mirrors that deny your reflection.† (Smith, 9) The food coloring in her eyes, and the bleaching of her hair can only symbolize her need to grow into the more â€Å"accepted† form of society, the white skinned, blue eyed, blonde haired men and women of the 1960’s. Where for her, â€Å"it’s flame and fists and life according to Motown† (Smith, ...

How to Get a Perfect 1600 SAT Score, by a 2400 Expert Full Scorer

How to Get a Perfect 1600 SAT Score, by a 2400 Expert Full Scorer SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Updated for the New 2016 SAT! The maximum score on the SATis a 1600. Out of the 1.7 million students who take the test every year, only about 300 get the highest possible SAT score. This elusive perfect score catapults you to the top of high school academic achievement and can be a big boost to your college applications. I scored perfect scores on the SAT. I actually scored two perfect scores- a 1600 in 2004 when I was in high school, and a 2400 in March 2014 when I took it ten years later. Most of the advice out there about how to get a perfect score come from people who didn't get perfect scores. In this exclusive article, I'll be breaking down exactly what it takes, and the ruthless techniques I used to get a perfect score. Quick Disclaimer Let me start with a few disclaimers. I'm a humble person, and I don't like talking about my accomplishments without good reason. I know a lot of you are looking to score the highest SAT score possible, so I've written this guide to help you get there. So whatever I say here, please take it as advice from a mentor eager to help, not as a braggart strutting his stuff. Also,a last note:I co-founded the company PrepScholar- we create online SAT/ACT prep programs that adapt to you and your strengths and weaknesses. I want to emphasize that you do NOT need to buy a full prep program to get a great score. If you follow the principles below and are very driven, you'll do just fine. I do believe, however, that PrepScholar is the best SAT program available right now, especially if you find it hard to organize your prep and don't know what to study. I'll refer to decisions we made in creating the program to flesh out principles I discuss below. What Perfect SAT Scores Look Like For full transparency, let me show you my personal score report. This is a screenshot from my College Board SAT Organizer: I took the two SATs 10 years apart. The 2004 test was in an old format of the SAT and was scored out of 1600. I took the new test in 2014 and scored a 2400. (Yes, I took the SAT as an adult. Besides getting funny looks from high school students, I wanted to go through the experience anew so I knew what my students at PrepScholar were going through.) So that you can see in bleeding detail how I got the 2400, I've attached my unofficial detailed score report from the College Board. You can see exactly how many questions I missed and read my essay (my handwriting could use some work). Using my score report as an example, let's examine what it takes to get a perfect SAT score. While this score report talks about the Old 2400 SAT, the principles are still the same. In the new SAT, there are still Reading, Math, and Writing sections, and you still need to do EXTREMELYwell on them to get a perfect score. What It Takes to Get a 1600on the SAT At the top end of the scoring range, the SAT is not forgiving. You need to aim for perfection. Specifically, here's what you need to do in each section: In Reading, you can only miss 1 or 2 questions. This depends on the curve for that test. It's best to aim for missing 0 or 1 question. In my test, I missed 1 reading passage question. In Math, you need to get every question correct. No question about it.The curve is unforgiving for Math. Miss 1 question and you won't get an 800 on this section. In Writing, you can sometimes miss 1 question at most.In some tests, you have to get a perfect Writing and Language score to have a shot at an 800. Essentially, you need to aim for perfection during your prep. If you're consistently missing one or more questions on each section, you're not performing consistently enough to be safe for a 1600. We'll go into more detail about this below. If you want to confirm my statements here, check out the College Board score charts for official SAT practice tests. One last question to answer before my actual advice: But Wait...Are You Just Smart? Will This Advice Work for Me? You may have heard about top scoring students who just rolled out of bed, strolled to the SAT test center, and scored the highest possible SAT score without any prep. This was not me. Some people like the above may in fact exist, but they're rare.In high school, I was naturally stronger at math- I participated in math and science competitions- and I could reliably get 800's on the math section. But my reading and writing needed work. When I started off, I consistently got in the 700 range. Now, this is already pretty high, but it wasn't enough for the top schools I was aiming for. I just wasn't that accustomed to the SAT reading passages and the types of questions they asked. It took a lot of hard work for me to learn how the SAT works, how it tries to trick students, and how to find a strategy that worked for myself so I could reliably get top scores.My co-founder at PrepScholarhad a similar story. Since I'm older, I also have the benefit of seeing whether my methods worked over time, or just on the SAT. Emphatically, the principles below have worked throughout my academic career. Here's another example. As an undergraduate in college, I planned to attend medical school, so I had to take the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test). In my view, this is a much harder test than the SAT. It covers many more topics: general chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, biology, and verbal reasoning. Furthermore, you're competing with pre-med's across the nation, people who are naturally driven and competing to get into medical school, not just the average high school student. When I started studying for the MCAT, I scored around the low 30's. The test is scored out of 45, and it's curved very aggressively. Again, this was already well above average, but it wasn't enough for the top medical schools I was going for. So I worked hard. I put in the time, covered all the subjects I needed to know, and was ruthless about my prep. In the very end, I scored a 44: As the testing organization notes, this is in the 99.9 percentile rank, with 0.0% achieving this score (this figure is rounded). I had multiple medical advisers tell me that they had never seen a score this high before, and there might indeed be fewer than three people per year- or none at all- who get a 44.Scoring this high definitely helped me get into the MD-PhD program at Harvard Medical School and MIT. I wish I were talented enough to get these test scores naturally without hundreds of hours of hard work. That would be the cooler thing to say. But it wasn't true for me, and it probably won't be true for you either. With this foundation laid, here's the meat of what I want to say: What Do You Need to Do to Get a Perfect 1600 SAT Score? In broad strokes, it takes a lot of hard work, a lot of smart work, and some amount of luck. But you've heard this before so just this alone isn't helpful. Let's dig deeper. You have to want it. Really, really want it. You need the motivation to push yourself. You need to put SAT prep as one of your top priorities in life, overcoming watching Youtube or hanging out at the mall. In the darkest of days, when you take a practice test and drop 100 points inexplicably, and your parents are freaking out, and you're worried you're never getting into your top college, you need the inner fire to not get depressed. Instead, you need to pull yourself up and objectively rip apart your mistakes so you don't repeat them. People don't often mention motivation, but in my view this is one of the most important pieces that differentiate successful people from not, in all aspects of life. It's much more important than just being smart. Make a list of all the reasons you want to get a perfect score. Write them down. Stare at them when you lose faith. Want to get into Harvard or an Ivy League school? Want to make up for a bad GPA? Want to prove to your parents that you can beat their expectations? Want to compete with your friends?Want to show up your 3rd-grade teacher who said you would never amount to anything? That's all good. Anything that drives you from within is a valid reason to work hard. You'll need this to combat procrastination and laziness. You'll need this to push yourself to execute every strategy I tell you below. If you're not motivated, it's just too easy to brush aside failure and be sloppy about your weaknesses. In my personal case, beyond the academic benefits, I thought the SAT was a dumb test that was impeding my life. I was angry at test writers who devised tricks to fool students. I approached it like a video game- the SAT and the College Board were bosses that I needed to dominate. Plus, my brother had a near-perfect score, and I wanted to one-up him. Write down all the reasons you want a perfect score and use it to fuel yourself every study session. Exclusive Blog Bonus: We've written a popular free guide on 5 tips to improving your SAT score by 160+ points. Get a free download here. Step 1: Do High-Quality Practice and Avoid Low-Quality Materials The SAT is a weird test. It's unlike tests that you've taken throughout school. It presents simple concepts in bizarre ways. This is essentially how the College Board makes the test hard- it takes concepts most students have seen before, twists them to be unfamiliar, and counts on students to screw up. To excel at this test, you need the highest quality practice materials. Because the SAT has questions that are twisted in a particular way, you need to train in exactly the way they're twisted so you learn the patterns. As we've said before, by far the best practice material comes directly from the College Board in the form of official SAT practice tests.When I was studying, I devoured every SAT practice test I could find. I took over 15 full-length practice tests and was ruthless about finding my mistakes, as I'll talk about soon. Just like the mantra about your diet and body, what you put in is what you get out. Trash in, trash out. If you train yourself on questions that don't reflect what's on the SAT, you're going to learn the wrong patterns. Using bad materials is like training for baseball by playing tee-ball. Yes, if you spend 1000 hours practicing tee-ball, you'll be a tee-ball pro. But when someone pitches a real baseball at you, you're going to freak out- "why is the ball traveling so fast? Why's it so close to my face? Ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod." And then you strike out. To be frank, most of the books available on the market are trash. They boast about having a lot of questions, but they're written by people who aren't truly experts on the test. This means the questions don't test concepts in the same way; the answers are sometimes ambiguous; the questions don't trick you in the same way the SAT does. In my company PrepScholar, we hire only SAT full-scorers and 99 percentile scorers to craft our thousands of test questions. You need to have mastered the test to really understand the intricacies of how the SAT works. We've turned away dozens of applicants who scored below a 2300since they really don't understand the test well enough. If you likestudying with books, here's my list of the top SAT prep books available. There are some pretty high-quality books written by true experts, though they can get pricey- buying the top five books will cost you at least a hundred dollars. Collect good prep materials and study using only these. Step 2: Focus on Quality First, Quantity Second Now you have a lot of materials. Some students focus hard on getting through every single page of every book they have. They might not know why they're studying what they're studying, but at least they sure put in a lot of time and effort! This is the wrong idea. You don't want to pound your head against the wall and use a brute force approach. Improving your SAT score is about quality first, and quantity second. It's so tempting to just focus on getting work done, because that's the easy part. Understanding your weaknesses, as we discuss below, is what takes real energy and insight. Think about it this way- let's say you're learning to throw a football with a perfect spiral. You can pick up a football and, by trial and error, if you throw it 1,000 times, you'll make some progress. Now imagine you have New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady standing by your side. You throw the ball once, and he corrects your technique. Move your foot back this way, have your hand follow a certain motion, and follow through. You try again, and it's way better. In throwing 50 balls this way, I'm certain you'd end up doing better than 1,000 by yourself. I'm not suggesting that Tom Brady is a tutor, and you must have a tutor. You can be your own Tom Brady, and we discuss below how to do that. But you need to make sure you get the most out of your studying and make it as efficient as possible. You need your own SAT Tom Brady. Step 3: Be Ruthless About Understanding Your Mistakes On the ground level, when you're actually studying, this is by far the most important way you'll succeed over other students. EVERYmistake you make on a test happens for a reason. If you don't understand EXACTLYwhy you missed that question, you will make that mistake over and over again. If you're performing at the 700 level, you're missing around 10% to 15% of all questions. This means you have some consistent errors that are holding back your score. This is what you need to do: On every practice test or question set that you take, mark EVERYquestion that you're even 20% unsure about. When you grade your test or quiz, review every single question that you marked, and every incorrect question. This way even if you guessed a question correctly, you'll make sure to review it. In a notebook, write down the gist of the question, why you missed it, and what you'll do to avoid that mistake in the future. Have separate sections by subject and sub-topic (reading- passages vs sentence completion, writing- sentence errors vs improving paragraphs). It's NOT enough to just think about it and move on. It's NOT enough to just read the answer explanation. You have to think HARD about why you specifically failed on this question. By taking this structured approach to your mistakes,you'll now have a running log of every question you missed, and your reflection on why. Everyone who wants to get to an 800 on a section has different weaknessesfrom you. It's important that you discover for yourself what those are. No excuses when it comes to your mistakes. Go Deeper- WHY Did You Miss It? Now, what are some common reasons that you missed a question? Don't just say, "I didn't know this material." Always take it one step further- what specifically did you miss, and what do you have to improve in the future? Here are some examples of common reasons you miss a question, and how you take the analysis one step further: Content: I didn't learn the skill or knowledge needed to answer this question. One step further:What specific skill do I need to learn, and how will I learn this skill? Incorrect Approach: I knew the content, but I didn't know how to approach this question. One step further:How do I solve the question, and is there a general rule that I need to know for the future? Wrong Guess:I was stuck between two answer choices, and I guessed wrong. One step further: Why could I not eliminate one of the last answer choices? Knowing the correct answer now, how I can eliminate it? Does this suggest a strategy I can use for the future? Careless Error: I misread what the question was asking for or solved for the wrong thing One step further:Why did I misread the question? What should I do in the future to avoid this? Does this seem hard? It is- you have to think hard about why you're falling short and understand yourself in a way that no one else can. But few students actually put in the effort to do this analysis, and this is how you'll pull ahead. By the end of my studying, I had notebooks filled with practice questions that I'd missed, and when eating breakfast I could thumb through them to review them, like flashcards. Adopt a no-mistake-left-behind policy toward your mistakes. Letting one slip through can mean you make the same mistake on your real SAT. Five Why's Here's another useful trick when reviewing mistakes: ask yourself "Why?" five times? This is a revolutionary technique developed by Toyota to figure out the root cause of manufacturing problems. The point is that when you ask yourself "Why?" five times, you'll dig deeper and deeper to understand what the underlying cause is, and how to fix it. Here's an example. Let's say you miss a Reading passage question. Everyone does this. Starting point: I missed a Reading question about the big picture summary of the passage. Why? I picked the wrong answer choice, out of the two I had left. Why? The wrong answer choice had a phrase that was in the passage, but otherwise the meaning was wrong. I got tricked. Why? I didn't fully understand the passage when I was reading it. Why? I read the passage too quickly. Why? I was scared about running out of time. Wow- you see how a single question can give you a TON of information about where you went wrong? Now you have a lot of opportunities to improve- on how you read passages, how you eliminate answer choices, and how to process big picture questions. Again, very few students actually have the discipline to go through this reflection. And this is why YOU'REgoing to get a better score. Step 4: Find Patterns in Your Weaknesses, and Drill Them to Perfection Now that you're collecting mistakes in a notebook, you'll be able to start finding patterns to your weaknesses. This might be a content area- like problems with math circle problems, or a specific grammar rule. Or it might be a personal habit of yours, like misreading the passage or eliminating the wrong answer. Focusing on your weaknesses is CRITICALbecause you have a limited amount of time to study, and you need to spend that precious time on the areas that will get you the biggest score improvement. I've worked with students who just love drilling their strong points because it's comfortable. Of course, this is a waste of time- you have to confront your demons and pick at where you're weak, which is uncomfortable and difficult. When I was studying for the SAT and MCAT, I kept track of my mistakes in an Excel spreadsheet. I found, for example, that I consistently missed Reading passage questions about inferencesbecause I was reading too far into what the author was saying. I then focused on drilling those specific types of questions until I had developed my own strategy for solving the questions. As another example, back when the SAT emphasized vocab more, I needed to study thousands of vocab words, any of which could show up on the test. I developed my own method onthe best way to study SAT vocab words- what I call the Waterfall Method. This method forces you to review words you don't know over 10x more than words you already know- efficient studying. You don't need to use this for the New 2016 SAT, but you may still find it helpful for any class you need to use flashcards for- foreign language, history, or English. Find the weak link in your chain. When you find your weakness, you need to find resources to drill that content area. If you're weak in Trigonometry questions, you need to find a lot of SAT Trig questions to really drill those skills. If you're weak in subject/verb agreement, you need to find grammar questions to drill. Doing all of this well is tough for many students, because you have to at once: Do practice questions Diagnose your weaknesses Find more practice questions Understand whether you're improving or not Adjust your plan continuously This is the backbone of every effective study method, but it takes a lot of mental energy to do well. This is actually why we started PrepScholar- we wanted to build an online prep program that would do all the heavy lifting for you, so that you can concentrate on learning.In our PrepScholar program, we detect your weaknesses andautomatically organize your quizzes by skill so that you can focus on learning and not on the higher-level activities of analyzing your own progress. By the way, a quick side point- be suspicious of any content-level strategies that promise you results. By content-level, I mean strategies that tell you how you must solve a type of question. At your level, you need to focus on what works best for you. For example, people approach reading passages differently. Some read the passage first, then answer questions. Some skim questions first, then go back to the passage. I know what works best for me, but that's not necessarily what works best for you. What you will have to do is aggregate strategies for your weaknesses, then test them out yourself to see if they work for you. Specific strategies for each weakness is out of scope of this article, but we'll post examples later. Step 5: Eliminate Careless Errors These types of mistakes are by far the most frustrating. You know the content, you know how to solve it, but because of a misreading of the question, you don't get the question right. This can already disqualify you from an 800 on Math. In my own SAT, I made careless errors because I was trying to finish early and save time for the end, so I would rush through questions too quickly. I hated myself every time I made a careless error. But when I focused on the two things below, I was able to claim back my lost points. #1: Double-check that you're answering the right question.The SAT is designed to ask you tricky questions.You might find the area of the square, but the question actually asks for the perimeter. To eliminate this, always underline what the question asks you to solve for. Don’t stop your work until you solve for the correct thing. Another strategy is to write what the question is looking for in your scratch area. For example, if it asks for seconds instead of minutes, write â€Å"= ____ seconds† and circle it before you start your work. This might sound like extra work, but how you defeat careless errors is by having a reliable, failproof system. #2: Be wary about choosing the "No Change" option.For Writing, a common careless error is choosing "(A) NO CHANGE"in grammar questions. That's because when you read the question, it seems grammatically correct to you because the grammar rule just isn't ringing a bell. Whenever this happens, make sure you double check the other answer choices to make sure that NO CHANGEis absolutely the best answer choice. You should check especially for grammar rules that are easy to overlook, like Subject-Verb Agreement and Misplaced Modifier. By analyzing your mistakes, you'll be able to find patterns in grammar rule weaknesses that you have. You can then build your own system for grammar rules that you often miss- for example, for Subject-Verb Agreement, identify the subject and the verb, and then make sure they match. Step 6: Develop AmazingStudy Habits If you're highly motivated and aiming for a top score, you're likely to spend at least 200 hours studying for the SAT. Your job is to get the most out of every hour you can. Learning how to study more effectively has huge returns on your time. Think about it- if you can learn some techniques to improve your study efficiency by 20%, this will effectively give you back 40 hours of your life. Here are my best recommendations on great study habits, all of which I follow myself. Habit 1: Create a Schedule and Force Yourself to Stick to It It's important to have a plan. You need to understand when you're going to do what, and then you need to follow that plan. Here are questions to ask yourself: How much time do I have until my next test? How much time will I spend studying every week? How many practice tests should I take before then? When will I take them? During each week, what specific times and days will I be studying? What will I actually be studying each day? Why? How should my schedule change based on the info I receive from practice tests? Do NOT approach SAT prep without a plan like this. You'll wander aimlessly from book to book, test to test, without actually focusing on what is going to get you results. We designed PrepScholar to take care of all this hard work for you. Every week, we create customized lesson plans so you know exactly what to study and when. We schedule practice tests for you at the best moments leading up to your test date. We ask you for your weekly study schedule,then text you reminders to study. We send you progress reports so you know how well you're doing and whether you need to study more. If you feel like you don't know how to create your own study schedule or aren't confident you can stick to one, you might like PrepScholar's SAT program. Habit 2: Eliminate All Distractions You have so many distractions at your fingertips- Snaps, texts,YouTube, games, and more. All of these are super fun and super easy to consume for hours on end. All of these will improve your SAT score by ZERO. If you're studying and you glance at your phone every 3 minutes, you are NOT STUDYING. The brain is actually terrible at multitasking, and every time you lose attention, you take minutes to go back to full concentration. I know how tempting it is to stay up to date with everything your friends are doing. There's major Fear of Missing Out. You don't want to miss a hilarious joke or be late to a scandalous story. The thing is, in the long term, these little interactions don't actually make a big difference. Think about the last time responding to a text within 3 minutes was VITAL to your friendship. You are not missing out on anything important if you text back an hour later.Maybe you'll call me an old man and just claim I don't get it, but a friend who gets mad at you for not replying within a few minutes doesn't sound like a good friend to me. I once sat in a coffee shop next to a girl who was trying to study chemistry. Every few minutes she would look at her phone, laugh, and return a text. She got through two pages in an hour- I kid you not. Instead, here's what you need to do: Go to a quiet place where you won't be interrupted. Wear earplugs if it helps. Turn your phone off or leave it another room. Don't listen to music where you actively have to listen to words. Don't study with friends. It's more fun but everyone does a crappy job of studying. If you're using a program like PrepScholar on a web browser, use tools like StayFocusd to keep yourself off of distractions. Treat this seriously.One hour spent studying at full concentration is better than three hours at 50% concentration. Habit 3: Have a Positive Mindset. Your Job Is to Grow. When you're trying to get a perfect 1600 SAT score, you'll get frustrated when you make mistakes. I was the same way, and I got mad at myself for making careless mistakes or for forgetting something I used to know. The important thing is to channel that frustration into learning and growth. Treat every mistake as a learning opportunity. Every mistake tells you exactly where your weakness is, and what you need to do to fix it. You are allowed to get upset, but not so much it paralyzes you. Instead, treat your primary goal as getting better- not as getting a specific score. Step 7: Get Fast Enough to Always Double Check Your Answers Now that you’re aiming for a top score, you need to finish each section ahead of time to give yourself time to double check your answers. A good rule of thumb is to finish the section with at least 5 minutes to spare. As you get better at the SAT, this will be easier to accomplish since you’ll solve each question in less time. When I took the SAT, I reliably finished each section with 5-10 minutes to spare. I would mark any questions that I felt I had to return to and double-check. I had enough time to review all my answers twice. The real time-killers are questions you get stuck on. It’s very easy to get sucked into a question for five minutes, frustrated that the SAT is taking a point away from you. Avoid this temptation. Follow this rule: if you’ve spent 30 seconds on a question and can’t see how you’re going to get to the answer, circle the question, and skip it. You’ll have time at the end to come back to it. For now, you need to work on the other questions.How do you double check effectively? It varies between sections. For math, you should try to re-solve the question quickly in a different way. For some questions, you’ll be able to plug the answer back in. For others, you’ll just need to check your steps you took the first time around.For writing, confirm that the sentence has the error you think it does. Again, for No Error answer choices, make sure you aren't missing something in the question.For reading, confirm that there is no other better answer ch oice than the one you picked. For passage questions, make sure you rule out four incorrect answers. For sentence completion questions, plug the words back into the blanks to make sure they fit perfectly. As you get better at the test, you'll have more time left. Aim for at least 5 minutes left after each section, and use that time to double-checkyour answers. Stay calm during the test, even if you get confused on a question. Step 8: Don't Get Inside Your Own Head During the Test If you're vying for a perfect 1600 score, you'll face pressure during the test. You know how little room for error there is. This means that if you're having trouble with a question, it's easy to psyche yourself out. "Oh no! I'm having trouble with this math question. If I don't get this right, my 800 in math is gone!" This will make you nervous, which makes you even less likely to answer the question, which makes you more nervous, and so forth. This vicious spiral can suck you down for the rest of the test. Controlling your mental status is important during the test. Just like a pro athlete or performer, you need to be confident about your skills. You already put in a ton of work, and you've learned most of what the College Board has to throw at you. The last thing you want to do now is ruin more of the test. So it's a single question you're unsure about- this doesn't affect your performance on any other question. Try your best and clear your head, then move on. Does All of This Really Work? I can say from personal experience that these are the principles that I used to excel in academics. If you follow these principles for your own classes and in college, you'll do an amazing job. I would also be hard-pressed to find any top scoring student who doesn't agree wholeheartedly with the advice above. This advice also works if you're not aiming for a 1600. If you want to improve from a 1200 to a 1500, you can use these principles to power your learning. These principles also work in life. As a startup founder, I adhere to lean principlesto constantly analyze where my weaknesses are, how to build them, and how to focus on what's really important for our company. While the SAT tests specific skills that you may not use in everyday life, the process of preparing for it can teach you a lot about yourself, your limits, and your ambitions. This sounds a little hokey, but take it from this old man, you can learn a lot about yourself. Finally, keep in mind that you don't need a 1600to get into top colleges! A 1520+ will make you more than competitive for top schools like the Ivy League. If you get a 1540, your time is better spent building up the rest of your application than eking out a few more points. Quick Plug:I've mentioned my company PrepScholar a few times. If you agree with what I say above, you'd like my course. I designed our SAT course around the principles above, knowing that most students don't have the energy or expertise to diagnose their own weaknesses. PrepScholar automatically figures out what you need to work on and focuses your learning by drilling your weak skills. It also builds in motivational features so you're up to date on your progress and commit to more study time. Check out our SAT program here. What's Next? If you liked this article, you'll also like my expert guides on getting an 800 in each of the SAT sections. Each one goes further into deeper details on how to ace each section. Check out: How to get an 800 in SAT Math How to get an 800 in SAT Reading How to get an 800 in SAT Writing Aiming to get into Harvard and the Ivy League? Read my How to Get Into Harvard guide. Youmight learn that you're headed straight to the rejection path. Finally, check out our online SAT prep program.We have a 160+ point money back guarantee: if you finish our course and don't improve by 160 points, you get all your money back, no questions asked. I designed the PrepScholar program around the principles in this article. Thousands of students have used PrepScholar to improve their score by hundreds of points, which is why I'm confident it'll work for you too. Try our program with a 5-day free trial today:

How to Get a Perfect 1600 SAT Score, by a 2400 Expert Full Scorer

How to Get a Perfect 1600 SAT Score, by a 2400 Expert Full Scorer SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Updated for the New 2016 SAT! The maximum score on the SATis a 1600. Out of the 1.7 million students who take the test every year, only about 300 get the highest possible SAT score. This elusive perfect score catapults you to the top of high school academic achievement and can be a big boost to your college applications. I scored perfect scores on the SAT. I actually scored two perfect scores- a 1600 in 2004 when I was in high school, and a 2400 in March 2014 when I took it ten years later. Most of the advice out there about how to get a perfect score come from people who didn't get perfect scores. In this exclusive article, I'll be breaking down exactly what it takes, and the ruthless techniques I used to get a perfect score. Quick Disclaimer Let me start with a few disclaimers. I'm a humble person, and I don't like talking about my accomplishments without good reason. I know a lot of you are looking to score the highest SAT score possible, so I've written this guide to help you get there. So whatever I say here, please take it as advice from a mentor eager to help, not as a braggart strutting his stuff. Also,a last note:I co-founded the company PrepScholar- we create online SAT/ACT prep programs that adapt to you and your strengths and weaknesses. I want to emphasize that you do NOT need to buy a full prep program to get a great score. If you follow the principles below and are very driven, you'll do just fine. I do believe, however, that PrepScholar is the best SAT program available right now, especially if you find it hard to organize your prep and don't know what to study. I'll refer to decisions we made in creating the program to flesh out principles I discuss below. What Perfect SAT Scores Look Like For full transparency, let me show you my personal score report. This is a screenshot from my College Board SAT Organizer: I took the two SATs 10 years apart. The 2004 test was in an old format of the SAT and was scored out of 1600. I took the new test in 2014 and scored a 2400. (Yes, I took the SAT as an adult. Besides getting funny looks from high school students, I wanted to go through the experience anew so I knew what my students at PrepScholar were going through.) So that you can see in bleeding detail how I got the 2400, I've attached my unofficial detailed score report from the College Board. You can see exactly how many questions I missed and read my essay (my handwriting could use some work). Using my score report as an example, let's examine what it takes to get a perfect SAT score. While this score report talks about the Old 2400 SAT, the principles are still the same. In the new SAT, there are still Reading, Math, and Writing sections, and you still need to do EXTREMELYwell on them to get a perfect score. What It Takes to Get a 1600on the SAT At the top end of the scoring range, the SAT is not forgiving. You need to aim for perfection. Specifically, here's what you need to do in each section: In Reading, you can only miss 1 or 2 questions. This depends on the curve for that test. It's best to aim for missing 0 or 1 question. In my test, I missed 1 reading passage question. In Math, you need to get every question correct. No question about it.The curve is unforgiving for Math. Miss 1 question and you won't get an 800 on this section. In Writing, you can sometimes miss 1 question at most.In some tests, you have to get a perfect Writing and Language score to have a shot at an 800. Essentially, you need to aim for perfection during your prep. If you're consistently missing one or more questions on each section, you're not performing consistently enough to be safe for a 1600. We'll go into more detail about this below. If you want to confirm my statements here, check out the College Board score charts for official SAT practice tests. One last question to answer before my actual advice: But Wait...Are You Just Smart? Will This Advice Work for Me? You may have heard about top scoring students who just rolled out of bed, strolled to the SAT test center, and scored the highest possible SAT score without any prep. This was not me. Some people like the above may in fact exist, but they're rare.In high school, I was naturally stronger at math- I participated in math and science competitions- and I could reliably get 800's on the math section. But my reading and writing needed work. When I started off, I consistently got in the 700 range. Now, this is already pretty high, but it wasn't enough for the top schools I was aiming for. I just wasn't that accustomed to the SAT reading passages and the types of questions they asked. It took a lot of hard work for me to learn how the SAT works, how it tries to trick students, and how to find a strategy that worked for myself so I could reliably get top scores.My co-founder at PrepScholarhad a similar story. Since I'm older, I also have the benefit of seeing whether my methods worked over time, or just on the SAT. Emphatically, the principles below have worked throughout my academic career. Here's another example. As an undergraduate in college, I planned to attend medical school, so I had to take the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test). In my view, this is a much harder test than the SAT. It covers many more topics: general chemistry, organic chemistry, physics, biology, and verbal reasoning. Furthermore, you're competing with pre-med's across the nation, people who are naturally driven and competing to get into medical school, not just the average high school student. When I started studying for the MCAT, I scored around the low 30's. The test is scored out of 45, and it's curved very aggressively. Again, this was already well above average, but it wasn't enough for the top medical schools I was going for. So I worked hard. I put in the time, covered all the subjects I needed to know, and was ruthless about my prep. In the very end, I scored a 44: As the testing organization notes, this is in the 99.9 percentile rank, with 0.0% achieving this score (this figure is rounded). I had multiple medical advisers tell me that they had never seen a score this high before, and there might indeed be fewer than three people per year- or none at all- who get a 44.Scoring this high definitely helped me get into the MD-PhD program at Harvard Medical School and MIT. I wish I were talented enough to get these test scores naturally without hundreds of hours of hard work. That would be the cooler thing to say. But it wasn't true for me, and it probably won't be true for you either. With this foundation laid, here's the meat of what I want to say: What Do You Need to Do to Get a Perfect 1600 SAT Score? In broad strokes, it takes a lot of hard work, a lot of smart work, and some amount of luck. But you've heard this before so just this alone isn't helpful. Let's dig deeper. You have to want it. Really, really want it. You need the motivation to push yourself. You need to put SAT prep as one of your top priorities in life, overcoming watching Youtube or hanging out at the mall. In the darkest of days, when you take a practice test and drop 100 points inexplicably, and your parents are freaking out, and you're worried you're never getting into your top college, you need the inner fire to not get depressed. Instead, you need to pull yourself up and objectively rip apart your mistakes so you don't repeat them. People don't often mention motivation, but in my view this is one of the most important pieces that differentiate successful people from not, in all aspects of life. It's much more important than just being smart. Make a list of all the reasons you want to get a perfect score. Write them down. Stare at them when you lose faith. Want to get into Harvard or an Ivy League school? Want to make up for a bad GPA? Want to prove to your parents that you can beat their expectations? Want to compete with your friends?Want to show up your 3rd-grade teacher who said you would never amount to anything? That's all good. Anything that drives you from within is a valid reason to work hard. You'll need this to combat procrastination and laziness. You'll need this to push yourself to execute every strategy I tell you below. If you're not motivated, it's just too easy to brush aside failure and be sloppy about your weaknesses. In my personal case, beyond the academic benefits, I thought the SAT was a dumb test that was impeding my life. I was angry at test writers who devised tricks to fool students. I approached it like a video game- the SAT and the College Board were bosses that I needed to dominate. Plus, my brother had a near-perfect score, and I wanted to one-up him. Write down all the reasons you want a perfect score and use it to fuel yourself every study session. Exclusive Blog Bonus: We've written a popular free guide on 5 tips to improving your SAT score by 160+ points. Get a free download here. Step 1: Do High-Quality Practice and Avoid Low-Quality Materials The SAT is a weird test. It's unlike tests that you've taken throughout school. It presents simple concepts in bizarre ways. This is essentially how the College Board makes the test hard- it takes concepts most students have seen before, twists them to be unfamiliar, and counts on students to screw up. To excel at this test, you need the highest quality practice materials. Because the SAT has questions that are twisted in a particular way, you need to train in exactly the way they're twisted so you learn the patterns. As we've said before, by far the best practice material comes directly from the College Board in the form of official SAT practice tests.When I was studying, I devoured every SAT practice test I could find. I took over 15 full-length practice tests and was ruthless about finding my mistakes, as I'll talk about soon. Just like the mantra about your diet and body, what you put in is what you get out. Trash in, trash out. If you train yourself on questions that don't reflect what's on the SAT, you're going to learn the wrong patterns. Using bad materials is like training for baseball by playing tee-ball. Yes, if you spend 1000 hours practicing tee-ball, you'll be a tee-ball pro. But when someone pitches a real baseball at you, you're going to freak out- "why is the ball traveling so fast? Why's it so close to my face? Ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod." And then you strike out. To be frank, most of the books available on the market are trash. They boast about having a lot of questions, but they're written by people who aren't truly experts on the test. This means the questions don't test concepts in the same way; the answers are sometimes ambiguous; the questions don't trick you in the same way the SAT does. In my company PrepScholar, we hire only SAT full-scorers and 99 percentile scorers to craft our thousands of test questions. You need to have mastered the test to really understand the intricacies of how the SAT works. We've turned away dozens of applicants who scored below a 2300since they really don't understand the test well enough. If you likestudying with books, here's my list of the top SAT prep books available. There are some pretty high-quality books written by true experts, though they can get pricey- buying the top five books will cost you at least a hundred dollars. Collect good prep materials and study using only these. Step 2: Focus on Quality First, Quantity Second Now you have a lot of materials. Some students focus hard on getting through every single page of every book they have. They might not know why they're studying what they're studying, but at least they sure put in a lot of time and effort! This is the wrong idea. You don't want to pound your head against the wall and use a brute force approach. Improving your SAT score is about quality first, and quantity second. It's so tempting to just focus on getting work done, because that's the easy part. Understanding your weaknesses, as we discuss below, is what takes real energy and insight. Think about it this way- let's say you're learning to throw a football with a perfect spiral. You can pick up a football and, by trial and error, if you throw it 1,000 times, you'll make some progress. Now imagine you have New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady standing by your side. You throw the ball once, and he corrects your technique. Move your foot back this way, have your hand follow a certain motion, and follow through. You try again, and it's way better. In throwing 50 balls this way, I'm certain you'd end up doing better than 1,000 by yourself. I'm not suggesting that Tom Brady is a tutor, and you must have a tutor. You can be your own Tom Brady, and we discuss below how to do that. But you need to make sure you get the most out of your studying and make it as efficient as possible. You need your own SAT Tom Brady. Step 3: Be Ruthless About Understanding Your Mistakes On the ground level, when you're actually studying, this is by far the most important way you'll succeed over other students. EVERYmistake you make on a test happens for a reason. If you don't understand EXACTLYwhy you missed that question, you will make that mistake over and over again. If you're performing at the 700 level, you're missing around 10% to 15% of all questions. This means you have some consistent errors that are holding back your score. This is what you need to do: On every practice test or question set that you take, mark EVERYquestion that you're even 20% unsure about. When you grade your test or quiz, review every single question that you marked, and every incorrect question. This way even if you guessed a question correctly, you'll make sure to review it. In a notebook, write down the gist of the question, why you missed it, and what you'll do to avoid that mistake in the future. Have separate sections by subject and sub-topic (reading- passages vs sentence completion, writing- sentence errors vs improving paragraphs). It's NOT enough to just think about it and move on. It's NOT enough to just read the answer explanation. You have to think HARD about why you specifically failed on this question. By taking this structured approach to your mistakes,you'll now have a running log of every question you missed, and your reflection on why. Everyone who wants to get to an 800 on a section has different weaknessesfrom you. It's important that you discover for yourself what those are. No excuses when it comes to your mistakes. Go Deeper- WHY Did You Miss It? Now, what are some common reasons that you missed a question? Don't just say, "I didn't know this material." Always take it one step further- what specifically did you miss, and what do you have to improve in the future? Here are some examples of common reasons you miss a question, and how you take the analysis one step further: Content: I didn't learn the skill or knowledge needed to answer this question. One step further:What specific skill do I need to learn, and how will I learn this skill? Incorrect Approach: I knew the content, but I didn't know how to approach this question. One step further:How do I solve the question, and is there a general rule that I need to know for the future? Wrong Guess:I was stuck between two answer choices, and I guessed wrong. One step further: Why could I not eliminate one of the last answer choices? Knowing the correct answer now, how I can eliminate it? Does this suggest a strategy I can use for the future? Careless Error: I misread what the question was asking for or solved for the wrong thing One step further:Why did I misread the question? What should I do in the future to avoid this? Does this seem hard? It is- you have to think hard about why you're falling short and understand yourself in a way that no one else can. But few students actually put in the effort to do this analysis, and this is how you'll pull ahead. By the end of my studying, I had notebooks filled with practice questions that I'd missed, and when eating breakfast I could thumb through them to review them, like flashcards. Adopt a no-mistake-left-behind policy toward your mistakes. Letting one slip through can mean you make the same mistake on your real SAT. Five Why's Here's another useful trick when reviewing mistakes: ask yourself "Why?" five times? This is a revolutionary technique developed by Toyota to figure out the root cause of manufacturing problems. The point is that when you ask yourself "Why?" five times, you'll dig deeper and deeper to understand what the underlying cause is, and how to fix it. Here's an example. Let's say you miss a Reading passage question. Everyone does this. Starting point: I missed a Reading question about the big picture summary of the passage. Why? I picked the wrong answer choice, out of the two I had left. Why? The wrong answer choice had a phrase that was in the passage, but otherwise the meaning was wrong. I got tricked. Why? I didn't fully understand the passage when I was reading it. Why? I read the passage too quickly. Why? I was scared about running out of time. Wow- you see how a single question can give you a TON of information about where you went wrong? Now you have a lot of opportunities to improve- on how you read passages, how you eliminate answer choices, and how to process big picture questions. Again, very few students actually have the discipline to go through this reflection. And this is why YOU'REgoing to get a better score. Step 4: Find Patterns in Your Weaknesses, and Drill Them to Perfection Now that you're collecting mistakes in a notebook, you'll be able to start finding patterns to your weaknesses. This might be a content area- like problems with math circle problems, or a specific grammar rule. Or it might be a personal habit of yours, like misreading the passage or eliminating the wrong answer. Focusing on your weaknesses is CRITICALbecause you have a limited amount of time to study, and you need to spend that precious time on the areas that will get you the biggest score improvement. I've worked with students who just love drilling their strong points because it's comfortable. Of course, this is a waste of time- you have to confront your demons and pick at where you're weak, which is uncomfortable and difficult. When I was studying for the SAT and MCAT, I kept track of my mistakes in an Excel spreadsheet. I found, for example, that I consistently missed Reading passage questions about inferencesbecause I was reading too far into what the author was saying. I then focused on drilling those specific types of questions until I had developed my own strategy for solving the questions. As another example, back when the SAT emphasized vocab more, I needed to study thousands of vocab words, any of which could show up on the test. I developed my own method onthe best way to study SAT vocab words- what I call the Waterfall Method. This method forces you to review words you don't know over 10x more than words you already know- efficient studying. You don't need to use this for the New 2016 SAT, but you may still find it helpful for any class you need to use flashcards for- foreign language, history, or English. Find the weak link in your chain. When you find your weakness, you need to find resources to drill that content area. If you're weak in Trigonometry questions, you need to find a lot of SAT Trig questions to really drill those skills. If you're weak in subject/verb agreement, you need to find grammar questions to drill. Doing all of this well is tough for many students, because you have to at once: Do practice questions Diagnose your weaknesses Find more practice questions Understand whether you're improving or not Adjust your plan continuously This is the backbone of every effective study method, but it takes a lot of mental energy to do well. This is actually why we started PrepScholar- we wanted to build an online prep program that would do all the heavy lifting for you, so that you can concentrate on learning.In our PrepScholar program, we detect your weaknesses andautomatically organize your quizzes by skill so that you can focus on learning and not on the higher-level activities of analyzing your own progress. By the way, a quick side point- be suspicious of any content-level strategies that promise you results. By content-level, I mean strategies that tell you how you must solve a type of question. At your level, you need to focus on what works best for you. For example, people approach reading passages differently. Some read the passage first, then answer questions. Some skim questions first, then go back to the passage. I know what works best for me, but that's not necessarily what works best for you. What you will have to do is aggregate strategies for your weaknesses, then test them out yourself to see if they work for you. Specific strategies for each weakness is out of scope of this article, but we'll post examples later. Step 5: Eliminate Careless Errors These types of mistakes are by far the most frustrating. You know the content, you know how to solve it, but because of a misreading of the question, you don't get the question right. This can already disqualify you from an 800 on Math. In my own SAT, I made careless errors because I was trying to finish early and save time for the end, so I would rush through questions too quickly. I hated myself every time I made a careless error. But when I focused on the two things below, I was able to claim back my lost points. #1: Double-check that you're answering the right question.The SAT is designed to ask you tricky questions.You might find the area of the square, but the question actually asks for the perimeter. To eliminate this, always underline what the question asks you to solve for. Don’t stop your work until you solve for the correct thing. Another strategy is to write what the question is looking for in your scratch area. For example, if it asks for seconds instead of minutes, write â€Å"= ____ seconds† and circle it before you start your work. This might sound like extra work, but how you defeat careless errors is by having a reliable, failproof system. #2: Be wary about choosing the "No Change" option.For Writing, a common careless error is choosing "(A) NO CHANGE"in grammar questions. That's because when you read the question, it seems grammatically correct to you because the grammar rule just isn't ringing a bell. Whenever this happens, make sure you double check the other answer choices to make sure that NO CHANGEis absolutely the best answer choice. You should check especially for grammar rules that are easy to overlook, like Subject-Verb Agreement and Misplaced Modifier. By analyzing your mistakes, you'll be able to find patterns in grammar rule weaknesses that you have. You can then build your own system for grammar rules that you often miss- for example, for Subject-Verb Agreement, identify the subject and the verb, and then make sure they match. Step 6: Develop AmazingStudy Habits If you're highly motivated and aiming for a top score, you're likely to spend at least 200 hours studying for the SAT. Your job is to get the most out of every hour you can. Learning how to study more effectively has huge returns on your time. Think about it- if you can learn some techniques to improve your study efficiency by 20%, this will effectively give you back 40 hours of your life. Here are my best recommendations on great study habits, all of which I follow myself. Habit 1: Create a Schedule and Force Yourself to Stick to It It's important to have a plan. You need to understand when you're going to do what, and then you need to follow that plan. Here are questions to ask yourself: How much time do I have until my next test? How much time will I spend studying every week? How many practice tests should I take before then? When will I take them? During each week, what specific times and days will I be studying? What will I actually be studying each day? Why? How should my schedule change based on the info I receive from practice tests? Do NOT approach SAT prep without a plan like this. You'll wander aimlessly from book to book, test to test, without actually focusing on what is going to get you results. We designed PrepScholar to take care of all this hard work for you. Every week, we create customized lesson plans so you know exactly what to study and when. We schedule practice tests for you at the best moments leading up to your test date. We ask you for your weekly study schedule,then text you reminders to study. We send you progress reports so you know how well you're doing and whether you need to study more. If you feel like you don't know how to create your own study schedule or aren't confident you can stick to one, you might like PrepScholar's SAT program. Habit 2: Eliminate All Distractions You have so many distractions at your fingertips- Snaps, texts,YouTube, games, and more. All of these are super fun and super easy to consume for hours on end. All of these will improve your SAT score by ZERO. If you're studying and you glance at your phone every 3 minutes, you are NOT STUDYING. The brain is actually terrible at multitasking, and every time you lose attention, you take minutes to go back to full concentration. I know how tempting it is to stay up to date with everything your friends are doing. There's major Fear of Missing Out. You don't want to miss a hilarious joke or be late to a scandalous story. The thing is, in the long term, these little interactions don't actually make a big difference. Think about the last time responding to a text within 3 minutes was VITAL to your friendship. You are not missing out on anything important if you text back an hour later.Maybe you'll call me an old man and just claim I don't get it, but a friend who gets mad at you for not replying within a few minutes doesn't sound like a good friend to me. I once sat in a coffee shop next to a girl who was trying to study chemistry. Every few minutes she would look at her phone, laugh, and return a text. She got through two pages in an hour- I kid you not. Instead, here's what you need to do: Go to a quiet place where you won't be interrupted. Wear earplugs if it helps. Turn your phone off or leave it another room. Don't listen to music where you actively have to listen to words. Don't study with friends. It's more fun but everyone does a crappy job of studying. If you're using a program like PrepScholar on a web browser, use tools like StayFocusd to keep yourself off of distractions. Treat this seriously.One hour spent studying at full concentration is better than three hours at 50% concentration. Habit 3: Have a Positive Mindset. Your Job Is to Grow. When you're trying to get a perfect 1600 SAT score, you'll get frustrated when you make mistakes. I was the same way, and I got mad at myself for making careless mistakes or for forgetting something I used to know. The important thing is to channel that frustration into learning and growth. Treat every mistake as a learning opportunity. Every mistake tells you exactly where your weakness is, and what you need to do to fix it. You are allowed to get upset, but not so much it paralyzes you. Instead, treat your primary goal as getting better- not as getting a specific score. Step 7: Get Fast Enough to Always Double Check Your Answers Now that you’re aiming for a top score, you need to finish each section ahead of time to give yourself time to double check your answers. A good rule of thumb is to finish the section with at least 5 minutes to spare. As you get better at the SAT, this will be easier to accomplish since you’ll solve each question in less time. When I took the SAT, I reliably finished each section with 5-10 minutes to spare. I would mark any questions that I felt I had to return to and double-check. I had enough time to review all my answers twice. The real time-killers are questions you get stuck on. It’s very easy to get sucked into a question for five minutes, frustrated that the SAT is taking a point away from you. Avoid this temptation. Follow this rule: if you’ve spent 30 seconds on a question and can’t see how you’re going to get to the answer, circle the question, and skip it. You’ll have time at the end to come back to it. For now, you need to work on the other questions.How do you double check effectively? It varies between sections. For math, you should try to re-solve the question quickly in a different way. For some questions, you’ll be able to plug the answer back in. For others, you’ll just need to check your steps you took the first time around.For writing, confirm that the sentence has the error you think it does. Again, for No Error answer choices, make sure you aren't missing something in the question.For reading, confirm that there is no other better answer ch oice than the one you picked. For passage questions, make sure you rule out four incorrect answers. For sentence completion questions, plug the words back into the blanks to make sure they fit perfectly. As you get better at the test, you'll have more time left. Aim for at least 5 minutes left after each section, and use that time to double-checkyour answers. Stay calm during the test, even if you get confused on a question. Step 8: Don't Get Inside Your Own Head During the Test If you're vying for a perfect 1600 score, you'll face pressure during the test. You know how little room for error there is. This means that if you're having trouble with a question, it's easy to psyche yourself out. "Oh no! I'm having trouble with this math question. If I don't get this right, my 800 in math is gone!" This will make you nervous, which makes you even less likely to answer the question, which makes you more nervous, and so forth. This vicious spiral can suck you down for the rest of the test. Controlling your mental status is important during the test. Just like a pro athlete or performer, you need to be confident about your skills. You already put in a ton of work, and you've learned most of what the College Board has to throw at you. The last thing you want to do now is ruin more of the test. So it's a single question you're unsure about- this doesn't affect your performance on any other question. Try your best and clear your head, then move on. Does All of This Really Work? I can say from personal experience that these are the principles that I used to excel in academics. If you follow these principles for your own classes and in college, you'll do an amazing job. I would also be hard-pressed to find any top scoring student who doesn't agree wholeheartedly with the advice above. This advice also works if you're not aiming for a 1600. If you want to improve from a 1200 to a 1500, you can use these principles to power your learning. These principles also work in life. As a startup founder, I adhere to lean principlesto constantly analyze where my weaknesses are, how to build them, and how to focus on what's really important for our company. While the SAT tests specific skills that you may not use in everyday life, the process of preparing for it can teach you a lot about yourself, your limits, and your ambitions. This sounds a little hokey, but take it from this old man, you can learn a lot about yourself. Finally, keep in mind that you don't need a 1600to get into top colleges! A 1520+ will make you more than competitive for top schools like the Ivy League. If you get a 1540, your time is better spent building up the rest of your application than eking out a few more points. Quick Plug:I've mentioned my company PrepScholar a few times. If you agree with what I say above, you'd like my course. I designed our SAT course around the principles above, knowing that most students don't have the energy or expertise to diagnose their own weaknesses. PrepScholar automatically figures out what you need to work on and focuses your learning by drilling your weak skills. It also builds in motivational features so you're up to date on your progress and commit to more study time. Check out our SAT program here. What's Next? If you liked this article, you'll also like my expert guides on getting an 800 in each of the SAT sections. Each one goes further into deeper details on how to ace each section. Check out: How to get an 800 in SAT Math How to get an 800 in SAT Reading How to get an 800 in SAT Writing Aiming to get into Harvard and the Ivy League? Read my How to Get Into Harvard guide. Youmight learn that you're headed straight to the rejection path. Finally, check out our online SAT prep program.We have a 160+ point money back guarantee: if you finish our course and don't improve by 160 points, you get all your money back, no questions asked. I designed the PrepScholar program around the principles in this article. Thousands of students have used PrepScholar to improve their score by hundreds of points, which is why I'm confident it'll work for you too. Try our program with a 5-day free trial today:

Flight Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Flight - Assignment Example Jill also claims that out of the few numbers of people trained on flying the airlines, only a small percentage are willing to be pilots. Despite there being a pilot shortage in the fight industry, there are also rules that limit the number of hours that a pilot can fly a plane before being replaced. Jill argues that the pilot salaries are also a limiting factor towards increasing the number of pilots (Schramm retrieved from http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/7/north-dakota-airports-prepare-for-pilot-shortage/?page=all). The shortage has led to flight cancellations since more often there are no available pilots to fly the plane. Solsvig, an aircraft manager at the North Dakota airport claimed that the only way to solve the problem was to replace the small aircrafts with larger planes so that one pilot can serve many passengers. However, he also said that using larger planes would mean that flight frequency would be reduced. According to Allen, a pilot in the Dakota airport, the salaries of pilots need to be increased in order to draw more people into training to be pilots (Schramm retrieved from http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/7/north-dakota-airports-prepare-for-pilot-shortage/?page=all). The training is also a discouraging factor and should be reduced to attract new trainees. According to the Minneapolis forum, all airports should invest more in pilot training and reduce the education requirements of pilots so as to give a chance for many people to train as pilots. Guy Norris claims that current pilot shortage is caused by lack of collaboration between the industry, the government and the academic institutions training pilots. The vice president of Boeing Airport said that the lack of coaction  between the three parties is likely to cause the airline a problem in serving the increased numbers of

Food Marketing Related with Obesity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Food Marketing Related with Obesity - Essay Example This essay "Food Marketing Related with Obesity" outlines how the food advertising influenced the level of obesity. In the US, it is estimated that almost $2 billion is spent by the food and beverage industry annually towards marketing the beverages and food to the adolescents and children. The Institute of Medicine report advanced that the food and beverage advertising have effects on the food choices, diets, food purchase requests, and health of the children. According to Bouchard (62), â€Å"the food markets and its impacts have been established to vary by ethnicity†. For example, in America, the food marketing is more prevalent in the Latino and Black communities. Research indicates that every day, the Black children are exposed to twice as many high calorie advertised food commercials as White Children (Bouchard 62). The food products that are marketed most to the Blacks are the low nutrition high calorie foods and beverages. The Latinos are the main target for the marketers as a result of their relative spending power and population growth. It has been established that nearly 84 percent of children targeted marketing on Spanish-language TV promote food stuffs having low nutritional values. Within a three year period between 2010 and 2013, the research revealed that the overall advertising expenditures by the fast food restaurants on Spanish TV had increased by 8 percent. Moreover, the low income Latino neighborhoods bear nine t imes more outdoor sugar drinks and fast food advertising compared to the high-income White neighborhoods.

Chapter 2 - research methodology Essay Example for Free

Chapter 2 research methodology Essay Aim and Objectives. The aim of the research is to undertake an analysis of the Chinese banking industry systems, processes and products through a case study of Bank of China and HSBC, London. Objectives. The research objectives are as follows :- 1. Assess the overall state of the Chinese banking systems, processes and products. 2. Evaluate implementation of systems, practices and processes of the modern banking industry. 3. Evaluate areas for further growth and development by Chinese banks. This chapter aims to illustrate the methodology of the research. It describes; common research philosophies, research approaches and the research strategy. Veal (2000) has described research as â€Å"systematic and careful inquiry and search for the truth† or an investigation into a subject to discover facts. What is Research? Research is a well defined area of study of a particular problem or issue in its totality or in specific to a particular area of concern. (Veal, 2000). Research should entail the following characteristics, which will be kept in mind by the author while evaluating the subject (Morgan, 2000):- (a) Systematic collection of data. (b) Analytical interpretation of data. (c) Developing a theory and conclusion. The Research Philosophy Modern research has three models; these are positivism, realism and interpretivism. (Cantrell, D. C. (n. d. )). Positivism Positivism entails a scientific stance for research and interpretation of data. Thus only those phenomenon which are observable and measurable are regarded as knowledge. Positivists maintain an independent and objective stance. (Cantrell, D. C. (n. d. )). Phenomenology (Interpretivism) This is opposite of the positivistic approach and is known as interpretivism or phenomenology. (Cantrell, D. C. (n. d. )). Though positivistic and interpretivism paradigm are two extremes, most researchers use elements of both practices, which is implied in realism. This approach is considered the most appropriate for the project as the writer will be carrying out a comparative analysis of the Chinese and the British Banking system with a case study of the Bank of China vis a vis HSBC, London. Since banking systems are not just financial and economic systems but involve social issues in the context of a broader socio-political environment, a realistic approach to research is considered the most suitable. Research Approach There are two strands, which can be adopted, deductive and inductive. The deductive approach is used when a hypothesis is developed and the research design has to test that hypothesis. The deductive approach is amplified by means of a diagram at Figure 1 (Trochim, 2000). Figure 1 On the other hand the inductive approach is related to qualitative data, as a sample used in a case study as contrasting to the large quantum of data which is used in the deductive approach. A theory is said to be developed from data collection in this approach. A diagram showing the inductive approach is at Figure 2 below (Trochim, 2000):-Figure 2 The dynamic nature of the research will entail application of both approaches by the author as in practice almost all the research projects have elements of both the approaches in view of the importance of including both qualitative and quantitative findings. Research Data In general data contains information collected and recorded in note books, questionnaires, audiotapes, videotapes, models, photographs, films and test responses. (Veal, 2000). Research data in this case will be the response of selected customers and managers of Bank of China and HSBC, London. based on a questionnaire.

Personal Writing: The Day Of Surprise :: essays research papers

Personal Writing: The Day of Surprise   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"That's so cool!† I exclaimed. In my hand was a Valentines Day card which folded to make a spaceship. I was in a Hallmark card shop with my father, looking at cards for the upcoming holiday.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"If I got you that card now, then it wouldn't be a surprise later,† my father logically stated.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"But it's neat! See, it folds into a spaceship.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"I'll get it for you but... just act surprised for your mother when you open the card.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Okay dad,† I answered as we walked up to the counter. My father paid for the card and we left the store.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  It was a week before Valentines Day in 1987. I was nine years old and intensely anxious. Expectation for February 14 had overcome every other thought I previously had. It might seem funny to some that I held that one day with such great esteem, but to me it was unlike any other holiday. On Valentines Day I felt loved by everyone. On that day, I would obtain the card that I had picked out from my father. Classmates would give everyone Valentine cards. Some extremely generous kids would even attach candy to the cards. It didn't matter if you hated each other, on Valentines Day everyone put aside their differences and even presented cards to the children nobody liked. That one day of love seemed to unify the worst of foes through love and forgiveness. I could hardly wait for that day to come.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  As the night before Valentines Day had rolled around, anticipation had escalated to an all time peak. Nevertheless, it was all set aside as my parents once again started to fight. My brother and I were sent to the car in the garage so that we would not witness them fighting. We knew the routine. I was scared and I could still hear angry voices dueling back and forth. My brother was a senior in high school and even he seemed frightened when they fought. Although he tried to hide his fear, I knew he was afraid when my father would go on a rampage. An hour passed by and my brother and I decided to go back inside.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The house was still. A pin could have dropped and we would of heard it. My father had gone to lay down in his bed. This action was suggested by the marriage counselor that my parents had been visiting. Whenever my father got angry, he was supposed to rest until he calmed down. The problem was that he

Iron Crowned Chapter 20

I didn't know what the flowers meant. Nothing like that had ever happened when I'd meditated in the Thorn Land. Over the next few days, I just kept thinking about what Rurik had said, that no other monarch save my father had ruled more than one kingdom in recent history. It had taken great power and magic for me to exert my dominance over the lands†¦. Were they feeding it back to me in return? I certainly felt stronger with them, but I'd never expected any sort of unconscious physical manifestation. What else was I capable of? What could I make the land do? I didn't mention the matter to anyone, not even Kiyo. He'd seen the red flowers but brushed them off. If I told him about the Thorn Land, I feared he'd grow upset about the thought of my magic increasing. He grudgingly accepted what I already possessed but still feared it would turn me into my father, no heir needed. And although I'd felt physically better in the Otherworld, I grew weak again after a day or so back in Tucson. I didn't mention this to Kiyo either, but Jasmine was around enough to pick up on it. â€Å"Are they calling to you again?† she asked over breakfast one day. She was devouring Pop-Tarts, another love we apparently shared. I was too worried to have an appetite and simply watched. â€Å"You look like crap.† â€Å"I don't know,† I said, drumming my fingers against a glass of water. â€Å"There's no precedent for this – at least not anymore. No one knows what to expect from me having two kingdoms.† â€Å"I bet Dorian would know.† I bet he would too, but I shook my head. â€Å"He's not all-knowing no matter how much he wants to be,† I countered. â€Å"And I'm done with him.† â€Å"Okay.† She didn't fight it. For a while, she'd kept telling me I'd made a mistake in breaking up with Dorian, but Kiyo had been growing on her. I still wasn't sure if she approved, but at least I didn't have to listen to teen advice about my love life anymore. â€Å"But you might just have to go back soon. I mean, think about it. You're bound to two lands in the Otherworld. Aren't the lands and the monarch one? Part of you's there. It makes sense you'd have to be there twice as much.† I winced at the idea, though it had been on my mind too. â€Å"If I were there any more, I'd be living there permanently.† She swallowed the last of some crust. â€Å"You may not have a choice.† Her flippant tone irritated me. â€Å"There's always a choice. I rule them. They don't rule me.† I stood up abruptly and briefly became dizzy. It felt like the lands were mocking me. Damn it, I thought. You will not call me back so quickly. I'm staying in this world for a while. I'll come and go when I please. â€Å"I just need to stop thinking about it. I'm going to see if Lara's got a job.† â€Å"Yeah,† said Jasmine dryly. â€Å"That'll fix everything.† Lara did have a job for me, several actually. Even though she was all but living with Tim – in my house – she still kept meticulous records and took all my calls. She looked disappointed that I only accepted one from her growing list of jobs, a small one at that: a simple haunting that would probably take about five minutes. She said nothing, but I knew that she worried if I didn't make any money, she wouldn't either. So, remembering Enrique's comment about needing help but not being able to trust anyone, I gave her his card with the suggestion she call about part-time work. â€Å"Are you firing me?† she asked. I smiled as I gathered up all my weapons. â€Å"No, but I want you to have a backup plan in case you get laid off.† Her eyes widened in alarm at the joke. Or, I suddenly wondered, was it a joke? I brought Jasmine with me to the job because I still felt uneasy about leaving her alone. Besides, she was finally getting her fill of the human world, and I had a feeling her insistence on me returning to the Otherworld was partly selfish. Later, after I'd finished the job, I kind of regretted bringing a witness. â€Å"Wow,† she said, as we drove home. â€Å"You got your ass kicked.† â€Å"I did not.† â€Å"Did too.† So. This was what it was like having a sister. â€Å"I banished it, didn't I? You saw it go to the Underworld.† â€Å"Yeah,† she admitted, â€Å"but it sure did take a long time. I felt like I could have done it, and I've never banished anything before.† I gritted my teeth, refraining from commenting that I still had her chains. The troubling thing was, I had kind of sucked. I'd been in no real danger – not with a ghost that minor – but it had beaten me up more than it should have. I was off my game, a little slower, a little weaker. I'd walked away with some bruises and now noticed as we drove that my shoulder itched. For a moment, I thought the ghost must have hit me there, but there was no pain. The stitches. I'd nearly forgotten about them, now that they'd finally been able to heal. My skin had probably started to grow over the threads. I needed them out. No one was at my house, much to my disappointment. I'd hoped Kiyo had stopped by and could remove the stitches. Trying to be optimistic, I decided he must be pulling a shift at the veterinary hospital and wasn't with Maiwenn. Thus far, I'd heard no official word from her about my new double-queen status. Other monarchs had weighed in, though. Some had responded by showering me with congratulatory gifts and groveling. Others had let me know – in an amiable way – about other monarchs they were pals with, monarchs with big armies. It turned out everyone did fear the Iron Crown. I called my regular doctor, hoping to get an appointment this week as backup, in case Kiyo stayed absent. To my pleasant surprise, they'd had a cancellation that afternoon and could remove the stitches right away. It was good news for me but an annoyance for Jasmine, who'd just gotten comfortable on the couch. â€Å"Oh, come on,† she said, stretching out. â€Å"We just got home. Can't you please leave me here? I promise not to conquer the world or get pregnant while you're gone.† â€Å"You know,† I said, â€Å"Lara and Tim had sex right where you're lying.† She jumped up. A half hour later, we arrived at my doctor's office. I left Jasmine in the waiting room, deeming her safe enough with her iPod and magazines for the five minutes it would take to remove my stitches. Maybe she'd read some contraception pamphlets to pass the time. â€Å"They did this in the ER?† the doctor asked when I was admitted to an examination room and had taken off my shirt. I'd been seeing Dr. Moore for a couple years now. She was a pleasant, mid-fortyish woman who had eventually learned not to ask too many questions about my injuries. She thought I was a â€Å"contractor† who practiced martial arts on the side. â€Å"Not exactly,† I said. â€Å"I tore the ones the ER did, so my boyfriend had to redo them.† She took hold of tweezers and a tiny pair of scissors and leaned over. â€Å"Well, his work's neat, and it didn't get infected. If I'd seen you when this happened, I would have confined you to your bed. I would have known better than to assume you wouldn't promptly rip these out.† â€Å"Yeah, I really pulled one over on the other doctor.† She snorted a small laugh and proceeded to pull the stitches out. They stung where they tugged the skin, but honestly, it was nothing compared to my normal wear and tear. â€Å"There you go,† she said, stepping back. â€Å"You'll have a scar.† I put my shirt back on and faced her. â€Å"Battle trophy.† She rolled her eyes, leaning against the wall with crossed arms. â€Å"You shouldn't joke about that.† â€Å"Sorry.† I picked up my purse, but her expression said we weren't done. â€Å"Eugenie †¦ I don't ask many questions, not any more than I need to treat you, but I'm worried about how often you come in with these kinds of injuries.† If only she knew how many I didn't come in for. â€Å"I – â€Å" â€Å"No, no,† she interrupted. â€Å"I don't need to know all the details of your life. I try not to judge – but you might need to. There are jobs out there that are physical in nature. That's life. But whatever you're doing †¦ maybe you should reevaluate it. To be blunt, you look terrible today.† â€Å"Oh, that.† Crap. I could hardly explain that it was the residual aftereffects of a magical battle in the Otherworld, during which I'd fought for dominion of a fairy kingdom and become its new master, thus doubling my reign. â€Å"I'm just, uh, coming down with something. Just kind of tired, you know.† She arched her eyebrows. Double crap. â€Å"Then let's do some quick blood and urine tests,† she said, straightening up. â€Å"Check your electrolytes, thyroid †¦Ã¢â‚¬  I fumbled for an excuse. I'd never been comfortable with those kinds of tests since discovering I had gentry blood. I was pretty sure human medicine couldn't detect that sort of thing, but I didn't want to take any chances. â€Å"I don't have time. My sister's waiting for me in the lobby.† â€Å"I'm sure she'll be okay,† said Dr. Moore. â€Å"This'll take five minutes.† â€Å"Fine.† I sat back on the table, defeated. â€Å"But can you send someone to make sure she's still out there? She's the sullen one.† Dr. Moore's nurse returned to send me to the bathroom and then drew blood when I came back. She was in the middle of telling me they would send the tests out to a lab, when Dr. Moore herself stuck her head back in. â€Å"Can we talk for a moment?† she asked. The nurse discreetly left, and once we were alone, I braced for another lecture about my lifestyle. â€Å"I really need to get back to my sister,† I told her. â€Å"You don't know what she's capable of.† â€Å"Eugenie.† Dr. Moore's voice was kind but firm. â€Å"Most of those tests we have to wait on, but there are a few we do right here with urine.† â€Å"And?† â€Å"And, you're pregnant.† I thought about this for a moment and then enlightened her. â€Å"No. I'm not.† Those eyebrows rose again. â€Å"Your test came back positive. Now, we can't tell how far just from a urine test, but based on – â€Å" â€Å"Your test is wrong!† I sprang up from the table. My world was starting to reel again. â€Å"I can't be pregnant!† To her credit, she took my outburst calmly, but that was probably part of her training. â€Å"The test is very accurate, and it would explain why you aren't feeling well.† â€Å"I can't be pregnant,† I repeated adamantly. There was a mistake here. A terrible, terrible mistake, and she needed to understand that. Until she did, I refused even to process what she was claiming. â€Å"I take my birth control pills. Every day. Same time. Just like I'm supposed to. I'm not going to lie: I do other stupid shit all the time. But not with pills. I take them perfectly. I did with the antibiotics too. I'm careless with stitches but not prescriptions.† That calm expression shifted to surprise. â€Å"Antibiotics? When were you taking antibiotics?† I pointed to my shoulder. â€Å"When I got this. The ER doctor gave me a prescription.† I frowned. â€Å"What? Why are you looking at me like that? I told you: I took them correctly, all of them.† â€Å"Antibiotics can negate birth control pills,† she said. â€Å"Didn't you know that?† â€Å"I †¦ What? No. That's not †¦ No.† A mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake. â€Å"Women taking both need to use some other form of contraception until the antibiotics have run their course.† A horrible, cold feeling began spreading over me. â€Å"How was I supposed to know that?† I asked in a small voice. â€Å"Your pharmacist should have told you when you got the antibiotics. The interaction would have shown up in your records.† I thought back to that night, how my mom and I had stopped at the place closest to the hospital. â€Å"I didn't go to my usual pharmacy†¦.† And I had gotten out of there as fast as I could, not bothering to talk to the pharmacist because I'd taken antibiotics lots of times in my life. I certainly hadn't bothered with the enclosed pamphlets. Dr. Moore seemed to think she'd gotten through to me. â€Å"Now, we can figure out how far along you are if you know when your last period – â€Å" â€Å"No,† I exclaimed. â€Å"No, no, no. I can't be pregnant! Don't you understand? I can't be. I can't have a baby. I can't!† I was shouting again and wondered if this place had security. â€Å"Calm down,† Dr. Moore said. â€Å"Everything will be all right.† No, no, it wouldn't. Everything wouldn't be all right. Nausea welled in me, nausea I'd felt for a few weeks or so – and that had nothing to do with inheriting the Rowan Land. After all this time, after all the planning and lofty talk, after all my fears about Jasmine †¦ it was me. Human medicine had screwed me over. No, I had screwed me over. I'd fucked up. My own carelessness had brought this about. Everything anyone had ever said about the Storm King prophecy began to run through my mind. Sformi, King's first grandson. An invasion of the human world. Led by his mother. Domination and blood. And I, I was bringing it about†¦. I was the instrument†¦. â€Å"Eugenie!† Dr. Moore was supporting me, and I had a feeling she'd said my name a few times. She glanced at the door and opened her mouth, about to call her nurse. â€Å"No!† I clutched at her white coat. â€Å"Don't. Listen to me.† My voice was raspy and desperate. â€Å"I can't. I can't have a baby. Don't you understand?† She peered at me through her glasses, regarding me knowingly. â€Å"Then you don't have to. There are options – â€Å" You can't have a boy, some voice inside me said. What if it's a girl? â€Å"Wait,† I interrupted her. â€Å"When can you tell the gender?† That got a shocked look. â€Å"You'd base an abortion on gender?† â€Å"I – no, wait.† Fuck. I couldn't think. I was panicked and scared and confused. I needed to get my head together. What did I do? I had to get rid of this baby, pure and simple. People did it all the time. It was easy in this day and age, right? â€Å"I meant, how long until you can tell gender and if †¦ if there's anything wrong.† I groped for something reasonable, something that wouldn't make me seem like a heartless woman who'd kill her son. â€Å"You can do those tests, right? Like, genetic tests? I †¦ I'm so afraid of having a baby and having there be something wrong. My family has a bad history. My cousins have had babies with birth defects, and I can't †¦ I can't handle that. I have to know. I have to know †¦ right away †¦ as early as possible because otherwise I'll †¦Ã¢â‚¬  The lies rolled easily off my lips. Anything. Anything to know the gender. Dr. Moore studied me again. I still sounded crazy and scattered, I knew, but a little less than before. â€Å"When was your last period?† she asked quietly. I turned to her wall calendar. The numbers swam before me. I couldn't focus. How the hell could I remember that when the fate of the world was on the line? I thought about my last period and tried to link it to some event, something that would trigger a date. â€Å"There.† I pointed. â€Å"It started on the fifth.† She nodded, doing mental calculations. â€Å"Which lines up with the antibiotics. You're almost nine weeks along, as the reckoning goes, though technically only seven since conception.† Seven. Seven weeks †¦ â€Å"You're almost in the range for chorionic villus sampling,† she said. Chorionic what? â€Å"They don't like to do it unless it's necessary, though. There are risks for the fetus. They almost never do it for someone your age, who's in good health†¦.† â€Å"But it can tell me?† I said urgently. â€Å"It can tell me what I need to know?† â€Å"It can tell you a lot. No test can tell you everything, but it can give you peace of mind †¦ especially if you really do have a bad family history †¦Ã¢â‚¬  Did I ever. â€Å"I do,† I said. â€Å"Please.† I held my breath, knowing she was wavering here. Finally, she turned to her filing cabinet, rifling through it until she found a carbon form. She scrawled something in doctor's handwriting on it and handed it over. â€Å"Here.† It was a referral to an OB-GYN's office nearby. The form had my name, some boxes checked, and a few illegible words. I did make out CVS and emergency. â€Å"Emergency?† I asked. I mean, it was, but I was surprised she'd nailed it. â€Å"It means you'll get scheduled in right away. Most of these tests are backed up – because they aren't done this early. Give it to my nurse when you leave.† She was writing something else as she spoke. â€Å"She'll call them and schedule you – but you need to be aware they may refuse it when you're there, based on their judgment. I meant it: this isn't routine.† My next words were hesitant. â€Å"Then why are you doing it?† â€Å"Because I believe that in pregnancy, the mother's health outweighs everything else.† Mother's health. I didn't like thinking of myself as a mother. Fuck. This shouldn't even be an issue at all! We should be discussing abortions. Why did I care about gender? I didn't want a baby. I wasn't ready for a baby. Certainly not one who'd fulfill a world-conquering prophecy. â€Å"In this case,† said Dr. Moore. â€Å"Your mental health is especially concerning. Which is what this is for.† She handed me the other piece of paper. It was a referral for a psychologist. â€Å"I don't need – â€Å" â€Å"Eugenie, shock over an unplanned pregnancy is normal. Expected. But it's clear †¦ you have some very serious issues around this.† She had no idea. â€Å"Have my nurse call for the test. Then schedule yourself a therapist appointment and a follow-up with me.† There was no way I could tell her I had no intention of going to therapy. I wasn't even sure about the follow-up. But I'd gotten away with something, and I knew it. I nodded meekly. â€Å"Thank you.† I left before she could change her mind. Jasmine's face was filled with irritation and impatience when I finally returned. â€Å"That took forever,† she said, tossing a magazine aside. â€Å"How deep were those stitches?† â€Å"Not that deep,† I murmured. I walked toward my car on autopilot, still stunned. â€Å"She was worried about how tired I was, that's all.† â€Å"Well, you can fix that when we go back to the Otherworld.† I started the car, staring off into space for a few ponderous moments as numbers floated around in my head. Nine weeks, seven weeks. Two days. That was how long until my test. Two days. I refocused on my surroundings so I wouldn't get us into an accident. â€Å"We aren't going to the Otherworld anytime soon,† I replied. Jasmine shot me a look that clearly expressed her feelings on that, but there must have been something in my own face that answered back because she didn't fight the issue anymore. When we returned to my house, I put my purse and paperwork in my bedroom before sitting with Jasmine in her usual spot on the couch. Mindless TV suddenly seemed like a good idea †¦ except, well, it didn't do a very good job of taking my mind off of my problems. Pregnant. Conqueror of worlds. Storm King's heir. Me. It was all on me: what had happened and what was to come. We hadn't been home long when Kiyo showed up. He gave me a cheerful grin and wore his white coat from work, meaning he must not have been cozying up with Maiwenn. Small blessing. His smile was enough to make Jasmine smile in return, but I couldn't muster one. There was nothing to smile about right now. Nothing good in this world. Nothing good in either world. He joined us on the couch, sandwiching me in between him and Jasmine, and caught hold of my hand. â€Å"Hey, how are you?† he asked. He peered at my face, even though I was pointedly not looking at him. â€Å"Are you okay?† â€Å"Fine,† I lied. â€Å"Tired.† Storm King's first grandson will conquer the human world. â€Å"She's been like that all day,† said Jasmine. â€Å"She needs to go back to the Otherworld but won't.† â€Å"Is that true?† he asked. â€Å"I didn't think you'd have a problem with that,† I said. â€Å"You've always wanted me to stay away.† â€Å"Yeah, but not if it's affecting you like this. You really look sick, Eug.† â€Å"She also got beat up by a ghost,† Jasmine added helpfully. â€Å"Hey!† I glared. â€Å"I did not!† Kiyo chuckled and pulled me closer. â€Å"Stop playing tough. Go to the Otherworld tomorrow. I'll come with you, so it won't be as bad.† He relaxed, and there was a finality in his voice that I didn't like. I didn't like his presumption. I also wasn't entirely sure I should be going to the Otherworld, in light of recent developments. Flowers. Flowers everywhere, everywhere I step. I'm the land, and the land is me. Where I bring life, the land does too†¦. Or death. I could bring death as well. It was my choice. Over and over. The words in my head were all I heard. I didn't hear the TV, or Kiyo and Jasmine's occasional comments. I didn't really hear when Kiyo said he'd make dinner and went to drop off his overnight bag in my bedroom. But I did hear him when he came raging back to the living room, waving my CVS referral form in the air. â€Å"Eugenie!† His voice was a roar, one that made Jasmine cringe and widen her eyes. â€Å"What the hell is this?† I stared up at him levelly, surprised I could be so calm in the face of that outrage, especially after the emotional upheaval I'd been through all day. My own despair and shock had never left, but now I was able to push it down and meet Kiyo's eyes, as I allowed myself to finally acknowledge the other thought that had been bouncing around in my mind. Because along with the choices I had and the consequences I faced, there was one other matter to consider. I'd looked at the numbers, at the calendar. I'd factored in the dates, the antibiotics, what had been done – or, perhaps most importantly, what hadn't been done. It was all very clear. There was no soap opera here. No talk show?Cworthy mystery. â€Å"Congratulations,† I told Kiyo. â€Å"You're going to be a father. Again.†