READ THROUGH THE QUESTION
Okay, this may seem a little too obvious. Of course you’re going to read the question. How else can you solve the problem? In
reality, this is not quite as obvious as it seems. The point here is that you need to read the entire question carefully before you start
solving the problem. When you do not read the question carefully, it’s incredibly easy to make careless mistakes. Consider the
following problem:
EXAMPLEIt’s crucial that you pay close attention to precisely what the question is asking. Question 51 contains a classic trap that’s very easy
to fall into if you don’t read the question carefully. Did you notice how easy it would be to solve for x^2 instead of x? Yes, this would
be careless, but it’s easy to be careless when you’re working quickly. By the way, the answer is (B), 6.
There are other reasons to read the whole question before you start solving the problem. One is that you may save yourself some
work. If you start to answer too quickly, you may assume that a problem is more difficult than it actually is. Similarly, you might
assume that the problem is less difficult than it actually is and skip a necessary step or two.
Another reason to read carefully before answering is that you probably shouldn’t solve every problem on your first pass. A big part
of taking control of your SHSAT experience is deciding which problems to answer and which to save for later.
51. For what positive value of x does