(D) cot θ
(E) tan θThe answer to this problem is E.
Know That You Can Skip Questions Entirely
You might think that to get a great score, you need to answer nearly every question
correctly. But don’t stress out—this isn’t the case at all. It’s perfectly acceptable to
skip some questions entirely, and, in fact, if you do this you’ll have more time to
answer questions that are easier for you—ones you have a better chance of getting
right.
Perhaps some statistics will show you that it’s okay to skip questions. The average
score on the SAT Physics Subject Test is about 650 (on the familiar 200 to 800
scale). Scoring above 700 would put you in the top third of all test takers. You
could skip about 30—that’s right, 30—questions and still get a 700. If your goal is
a 750, which would place you in the top fifth of all test takers, you could skip about
20 questions. And you could skip about 10 questions and still earn the top score of
- Takes some of the pressure off, doesn’t it?
Of course, to get those scores while skipping all of those questions, you would
need to answer all the others correctly. It’s probably more than likely that you’d get
a few wrong. So let’s look at a more realistic sample-test scenario. There are 75
questions on the SAT Physics Subject Test. As described before, you get 1 point for
each question you answer correctly, 0 points for any question you skip (and thus
leave blank), and point is subtracted for each question you answer incorrectly.
So, let’s say you skip 13 questions entirely, answer 50 questions correctly, and
answer 12 incorrectly. Your raw score would be 50 − (12) = 47, which would
convert to a scaled score of about 700 to 720. If you had skipped more questions,
17 instead of 13, and still answered 50 correctly (but 8 incorrectly), your raw
score would be even higher: 50 − (8) = 48, which would be converted to a
scaled score of about 720 or higher.