the answer probably is, too; eliminate C. This leaves B as the best guess.
RULE 2: ON THE MATH TEST, THE PROBLEMS INCREASE IN DIFFICULTY AS YOU GO
ALONG.
The first problem in a Math section should be easy; the last problem should be
hard. This should be taken into account when you guess. If, on one of the
questions near the end of a subsection, the Serpent puts in an answer choice that
can be arrived at through a simple calculation, it is probably an Impostor. Look
at the following problem, which was the last in the section:
What is the ratio of the area of a rectangle with width w and length
2 w to the area of an isosceles right triangle with a hypotenuse of
length w?
A) 8 / 1
B) 4 / 1
C) 2 / 1
D) 1 / 4
If you do not know how to do this problem, or if you don’t have time to do it, or
if you have a personal grudge against the word hypotenuse, you should keep in
mind that this question is likely the hardest in the section, so you should
eliminate answer C because it is a simple ratio of the two numbers that are in the
problem (i.e., 2w/w, or w/2w). If that was all you had to do to solve this problem,
it would have been easy and therefore it wouldn’t have been the last question in
the section.
You could actually solve this problem by drawing the following sketch:
The sketch immediately shows you that 8 isosceles right triangles with
hypotenuse w fit in 1 rectangle with width w and length 2w. In other words, the
rectangle is 8 times as large as 1 triangle. So the answer is A.