Sitting for the SAT

Updated on: Monday, November 29, 2010

SAT is a big milestone in every student’s life. If you want to pursue your higher education in the USA, there is no way you can avoid the SAT. So be well-prepared to write the test. One point to keep in mind is that colleges get to see all the previous scores, so although you can always retake the SAT, messing up once will certainly not look good.

As far as study material is concerned, this is the same level as your Class XII. But do note that because the test is used by colleges and universities all over the United States, students from India who will be taking the test should not be at a disadvantage in terms of material. Another point to remember is that the US does not follow the metric system, Celsius, and other logical measurement units — do brush up on these. Spellings will be different too, as in color as opposed to colour.

Reading Comprehension
The extract is taken from a book written sixty years ago by a British scientist in which he considers the relationship between science and society.

The pioneers of the teaching of science imagined that its introduction into education would remove the conventionality, artificiality, and backward-lookingness which were characteristics of classical studies, but they were gravely disappointed. So, too, in their time had the humanists thought that the study of the classical authors in the original would banish at once the dull pedantry and superstition of mediaeval scholasticism. The professional schoolmaster was a match for both of them, and has almost managed to make the understanding of chemical reactions as dull and as dogmatic an affair as the reading of Virgil’s Aeneid.

The chief claim for the use of science in education is that it teaches a child something about the actual universe in which he is living, in making him acquainted with the results of scientific discovery, and at the same time teaches him how to think logically and inductively by studying scientific method. A certain limited success has been reached in the first of these aims, but practically none at all in the second. Those privileged members of the community who have been through a secondary or public school education may be expected to know something about the elementary physics and chemistry of a hundred years ago, but they probably know hardly more than any bright boy can pick up from an interest in wireless or scientific hobbies out of school hours.

As to the learning of scientific method, the whole thing is palpably a farce. Actually, for the convenience of teachers and the requirements of the examination system, it is necessary that the pupils not only do not learn scientific method but learn precisely the reverse, that is, to believe exactly what they are told and to reproduce it when asked, whether it seems nonsense to them or not. The way in which educated people respond to such quackeries as spiritualism or astrology, not to say more dangerous ones such as racial theories or currency myths, shows that fifty years of education in the method of science in Britain or Germany has produced no visible effect whatever. The only way of learning the method of science is the long and bitter way of personal experience, and, until the educational or social systems are altered to make this possible, the best we can expect is the production of a minority of people who are able to acquire some of the techniques of science and a still smaller minority who are able to use and develop them.

Adapted from: The Social Function of Science, John D Bernal (1939)

1. The author implies that the ‘professional schoolmaster’ (line 15) has
A. no interest in teaching science
B. thwarted attempts to enliven education
C. aided true learning
D. supported the humanists
E. been a pioneer in both science and humanities.

2. The author’s attitude to secondary and public school education in the sciences is
A. ambivalent
B. neutral
C. supportive
D. satirical
E. contemptuous

3. The word ‘palpably’ (line 48) most nearly means
A. empirically
B. obviously
C. tentatively
D. markedly
E. ridiculously

4. The author blames all of the following for the failure to impart scientific method through the education system except
A. poor teaching
B. examination methods
C. lack of direct experience
D. the social and education
systems
E. lack of interest on the part of students

5. If the author were to study current education in science to see how things have changed since he wrote the piece, he would probably be most interested in the answer to which of the following questions?
A. Do students know more about the world about them?
B. Do students spend more time in laboratories?
C. Can students apply their knowledge logically?
D. Have textbooks improved?
E. Do they respect their teachers?

6. Astrology (line 61) is mentioned as an example of
A. a science that needs to be better understood
B. a belief which no educated people hold
C. something unsupportable to those who have absorbed the methods of science
D. the gravest danger to society
E. an acknowledged failure of science

7. All of the following can be inferred from the text except
A. at the time of writing, not all children received a secondary school education
B. the author finds chemical reactions interesting
C. science teaching has imparted some knowledge of facts to some children
D. the author believes that many teachers are authoritarian
E. it is relatively easy to learn scientific method.

Sentence Completion
1. Today Wegener’s theory is ____; however, he died an outsider treated with ____ by the scientific establishment.
A. unsupported - approval
B. dismissed - contempt
C. accepted - approbation
D. unchallenged - disdain
E. unrivalled - reverence

2. The revolution in art has not lost its steam; it ____ on as fiercely as ever.
A. trudges
B. meanders
C. edges
D. ambles
E. rages

3. Each occupation has its own ____ ; bankers, lawyers and computer professionals, for example, all use among themselves language which outsiders have difficulty following.
A. merits
B. disadvantages
C. rewards
D. jargon
E. problems

4. ____ by nature, Jones spoke very little even to his own family members.
A. garrulous
B. equivocal
C. taciturn
D. arrogant
E. gregarious

5. Biological clocks are of such ____ adaptive value to living organisms, that we would expect most organisms to ____ them.
A. clear - avoid
B. meager - evolve
C. significant - eschew
D. obvious - possess
E. ambivalent - develop

Writing
Identification of sentence errors
1. Illiteracy is an enormous problem, (A) it affects (B) millions of people worldwide, (C) and is an impediment to (D) social progress. No error (E).
A. B. C. D. E.

2. The company president has taken (A) steps to ensure that she (B) can handle the pressure and anxiety associated with (C) the job, including (D) joining a yoga class and enlisting the support of a network of friends. No error (E).
A. B. C. D. E.

3. If you are sure that (A) you are in the right, (B) you would not (C) mind an independent examination of (D) the case. No error (E).
A. B. C. D. E.

4. The union insisted (A) on an increase in their (B) members’ (C) starting pay, and threatened to call a strike i

Sitting for the SAT

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