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Build Math Confidence September 2014 Volume 64
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The SHSAT: What Should 8th Graders Know?
The Specialized High Schools Admissions Test is taken by about 30,000 students each year in New York City for less than 5,000 spots at 8 schools including Stuyvesant and Bronx Science. Before the Common Core, this test was an indicator of what sharp early 8th graders should know. Now it is a bit more complex as scientific notation which appears on the exam is an official Common Core 8th grade topic so it is more important than ever to study for this test as "You have to see it to know it".
The SHSAT is a timed 2.5 hour test with 95 questions: 50 Math, 45 Verbal. The verbal includes 5 scrambled paragraphs, 10 logical reasoning questions and 30 reading comprehension questions based on 5 reading passages. New York City has sample exams while this Barron's book has good exercises and workouts to help students prepare and succeed. This year the test will be held on Saturday October 25th and Sunday October 26th.
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You Can Learn Anything!
 OMG, this is what I have been saying for a long time...studying makes you smarter as your brain is like a muscle. Stanford professor Carol Dweck coined the phrase "growth mindset" to promote the idea that the way we think about learning affects our learning.I think I would slightly change this slogan to "you can improve yourself" as people may take "you can learn anything" literally and expect themselves or their kids to be neurosurgeons or astrophysicists. There has already been buy in with this idea with respect to athletics as ordinary people who are not athletes run marathons and compete in Ironman. Now we just need to promote the idea with respect to cognitive challenges.
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Brain Teaser
I traveled home in an old car that was leaking gas and could only be driven at a steady 30 miles per hour while getting gas mileage of 20 miles per gallon. At the start of the trip, there were exactly 10 gallons of fuel but the fuel tank lost fuel at the rate of half a gallon per hour. Just as I arrived home, the car stopped because it had run out of fuel and I had only just made it. How far did I drive?
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