B) illustrate the inspiration behind a calculated decision.
C) prove that political behaviors will never change.
D) identify the primary causes of the prime minister’s failure.Keen-eyed readers will recognize quickly that D is wrong because it suggests
that the prime minister failed, whereas the passage is talking about his success.
But A, B, and C all seem like reasonable possibilities. A is a tempting Impostor,
for the PM’s style is certainly being described as showy, but is it a
condemnation? Not really, because the sentence asserts that his critics came to
admire his tactics. C might seem correct because a continuance is being
demonstrated. But the language of that answer (“prove” and “never”) is way too
extreme. This leaves us with B, which is hidden, in the classic SAT style, in the
language of abstraction. Again, just approaching questions carefully and
thoughtfully can keep you safe from most Impostors.
The Math Test includes Impostors that are the answers students would get if
they used the wrong method to solve a problem. The Serpent makes sure that if
you screw up in the way it hopes you will, the wrong answer you get is one of
the answer choices. For instance, the first question on one SAT Math section
reads:
If x + y = 2, then x + y – 4 = ?
A) –2
B) 0
C) 2
D) 6
The correct answer is A, but the Evil Testing Serpent made sure that C was one
of the choices in case some frazzled student left the minus sign out of the
answer. It also made sure that D was there just in case some confused young
scholar added the 4 instead of subtracting it. He also made sure that B was there
in case a space case decided that x and y were each equal to 2. So, in this
example, the Impostors are B, C, and D.
GUESSING, THE SAT, AND THE SPECTER OF
WORLD DESTRUCTION
A PULITZER PRIZE–WINNING PLAY