Sort of Academic
Ah! Wonderlic!
I am a sixty year old woman with nothing obvious in common with a pro football player. My forty yard dash could be timed with a clogged hour glass, my bench press might not exceed a full load of laundry, and most embarrassingly, I throw like a girl. But today I have found some common…
Read MoreSymbolic Gestures
In college, I was convinced that symbolism would be my downfall. I’d never graduate. It all started in high school when I was a new sophomore in an all-girls boarding school. Mr. Shohet, my English teacher, seemed like an aggressive, angry sort, perhaps a frustrated author who resented having to teach callow over-privileged teenagers. He…
Read MoreThe SexAT, Circa 781
Several years ago when I was preparing to take the SAT, I proposed the idea of the SexAT, a new test prep book specifically designed to appeal to high schoolers. I would take existing SAT questions and simply reformat them into something more interesting and relevant. Here’s how I would revise one of the hated…
Read MoreThink Fast, Think Slow
Next to my bed is a large stack of books, most of which I will never read. I pick them up on occasional prowls through the local bookstore, or buy them based on a book review. The problem is that I am far more ambitious when I buy books than when I want to read…
Read MoreDeal or No Deal
The game show “Deal or No Deal” premiered in 2005, and NBC took advantage of its faddish popularity by airing it at least twice a week in primetime. By 2008, it died of overexposure, joining Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and other burn out cases on the obscure Game Show Network. In its heyday,…
Read MoreDrunkard’s Walk
Every now and then when I am doing errands, I stop at the local bookstore to see what’s new. I freely admit that I judge a book by its cover – the title, the graphics and any blurbs. I also like to stroke the cover – a nice grainy feel may be the tipping point…
Read MoreUnfinished Business
I have been on a math kick recently, having rediscovered math in last year’s experiment in retaking the SATs after a 40 year hiatus. (See prior posts filed under “SAT Experience.”) A previous essay described my quest to finally understand why you can’t divide by zero (Grokking It), but now I realize that I have one…
Read MoreGrokking It
Grok: to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science. ——– Last year’s experience of retaking the SATs reminded me of a mathematical mystery left over from high school, namely why…
Read MoreChapter 4. SAT: The Reveal
(For the complete SAT experience see other 3 chapters and a YouTube song parody about the SAT test!) It has been one month since I took the SATs and while awaiting my scores I have been interested to learn more about its history. It turns out that the SAT test was an outgrowth of the…
Read MoreInfinity Plus One
I just caught a snippet of the little boy’s conversation as he excitedly told the librarian, “It is going to last forever, like 140 million bazillion years.” Ah, yes, I do recall that troublesome challenge of turning the philosophic concept of forever into a concrete number. In my grade school days, we would said “infinity…
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