Video

I Should Know Not to Say This By Now….

 

.....but I feel like I'm making progress (oh god....will I never learn?).

2.5 weeks until I take the next SAT

This will make 5 out of 7 in 2011

I'm tagging along with Akil Bello this time around, so I have a friend -- just like all of the other kids taking the SAT.  (A real teenager would never go alone.)

Incidentally, the question I'm most frequently asked is, "What do the high schoolers think of you on test day?"

To which I respond, "They totally ignore me, even the ones who know me."

At first I thought they thought that I was "one of them."  Now I think they wait for me to go to the bathroom during a break before huddling...."Who's the old lady?"

Anyway, 2.5 weeks to go....here's quick video update....and more details about my process to come soon.

One Word: Hegemony

 
6 Comments | posted September 14th, 2011
 

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Video

A Radical Approach

I'm not sure if PWNtheSAT knew what he was in for when he agreed to take me on. Dare I say, I think we're both a little surprised by just how intractable a brain can be.

He is a good sport though and seems to take the challenge of "me" very seriously, so when I emailed him in despair about my obstinate scores, I got an email back:

Subject: A Radical Thought

And then he went on to list the five different types of SAT questions that he wanted me to write.  He finished by saying that I should "try to make the incorrect choices all seem tempting to a tester who might now know fully what he's doing."

I hated the idea (at first) -- but being an obsessive-type with an insatiable appetite for praise, I gave it a whirl.

Five questions in, I will confess that it's actually fun, and, I believe there is a method to this madness.

Et Voila, my first five questions:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
39 Comments | posted September 5th, 2011
 

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Video

I May Have Found The Focus

 

This is going to sound ridiculously obvious, but given that it took me 7 months to figure out, I'm just going to put it out there:

Find a quiet, remote place to spread out, organize, and concentrate.

I know, it's so simple, right?

Until a few weeks ago, I was trying to study in the middle of the house with kids tripping all over me.  I could never find a thing; I was disorganized, discombobulated so frustrated!

Typical scene, any given day:

Me: Pacing between the living room, kitchen, and dining room in search of some little sticky note where I'd written the solution to some long elusive problem.

Finally, I'd find it.  Thrilled, I'd stand at the kitchen counter trying to solve a similar problem.  And then, finally, on the cusp of "understanding," ........boom:

"Can you make me lunch?"

And then it'd be gone.....my thought......evaporated......just like that.

Now I have my own little rabbit hole, where I'm so happy, I might never come out.

 
10 Comments | posted August 13th, 2011
 

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