How Would You Do on the New SAT?
So essentially, the math questions are being revised to involve more reading comprehension and less actual math?<p>I can&#x27;t help noticing that most of those questions contained at least one bit of completely irrelevant information.  Each of those questions could be worded less ambiguously and more concisely--to test math skill, rather than reading skill.  You can trick more students into getting a wrong answer by inserting red herrings and ambiguous sentences into the question, but in doing so, you are no longer strictly testing their math skills.  There is no particular need to ask these questions as story paragraphs rather than lists of known facts.<p>The following are the <i>same</i> math problems, with dramatically simplified wording.  If you find them easier to understand than the originals, that is because I have removed the part of the problem that involves translating the text into facts relevant to the question.<p><pre><code>  1. Armand spent 5 hours texting at a rate of m texts&#x2F;hour.
     Tyrone spent 4 hours texting at a rate of n texts&#x2F;hour.
     What expression represents the total number of texts sent?

  2. P = 108 - 23d models the weekly workload of an employee.
     P is the number of work units remaining for this week.
     d is the number of days the employee has spent working this week.
     What does the value 108 represent?

  3. h = 3a + 28.6 models height (h) in inches at an age (a) in years.
     How much taller does the modeled subject grow per year?

  4. A vendor sells salads for $6.50 and drinks for $2.00.
     The vendor sold 209 items for a total of $836.50.
     How many of the items were salads?

  5. Cultivar A of a fruit tree produces 20% more fruit than cultivar B.
     Cultivar A produces 144 fruits.
     How many fruits does cultivar B produce?</code></pre>