fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2082 ]

[ SECRET POST #2082 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2082 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Fate/Zero]

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[ ----- SPOILERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]

05. [SPOILERS for Journey Into Mystery/Everything Burns]

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06. [SPOILERS for Avengers]

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07. [SPOILERS for Sweeney Todd]

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08. [SPOILERS]

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[ ----- TRIGGERY SECRETS AHEAD ----- ]

09. [WARNING for depression/suicide]

[Wilby Wonderful (2004)]

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10. [WARNING for abuse]

[True Blood]

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11. [WARNING for rape]

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12. [WARNING for suicide/self-harm]

[Alex Gaskarth/All Time Low]

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13. [WARNING for abuse]

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14. [WARNING for abuse/bullying]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 000 secrets from Secret Submission Post #297.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ],.
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

- If you've taken the SATs, what did you use to prepare? How well did it help you?

-Does invalid criticism exist, in your opinion?

Regarding invalid criticism:

I think that while opinions are generally not subject to valid/invalid conversations, they can be biased, uninformed, misinformed, and generally not worth being taken into consideration (you may qualify that as 'invalid'). As criticisms follow opinions, the same can be said of them.

Regarding the SATs. I took them in High School and my school had a voluntary class you could take that was all about SAT prep. It helped quite a bit.

Take the PSAT and get one of those practice books for tests, they sell them at Barnes and Noble.

Uh, other than that I don't have too many suggestions. I'm one of those assholes that didn't really study and I did fine.

Ditto.

i took the ACT instead of the SAT but i ended up getting amazing marks on it. all i really did was pick up some practice books from barnes & noble and take a few of their sample tests. it ended up being wicked easy, only problem i had was that i ran out of time on the writing portion

it was so weird because i was the only person over 18 in the room ;__;

I liked the ACT better. The SAT is kind of weird.

how's the SAT different than the ACT? i've always wondered about that.

Re: 2 Things, F!S

morieris - 2012-09-15 01:47 (UTC) - Expand

"- If you've taken the SATs, what did you use to prepare? How well did it help you?"

Nothing. Didn't study for 'em at all, beyond taking the PSATs. It worked very well.

"-Does invalid criticism exist, in your opinion?"

Absolutely. Criticism can be invalid if it is not accurate to the work - if it sees things that aren't there in the work, if it lacks fidelity to the facts - or if it misidentifies what is good and bad, if it sees what is a positive as a negative. IMO.

I took the PSATs.

Yes. Telling me I need more superheroes in my story that has nothing to do with superheroes is invalid.

1. how high are you aiming? practice tests. loads and loads of them. kaplan and princeton review are pretty decent brands. and i don't know if this unsolicited advice is coming too late but the psat is actually the most important test you'll take in your high school career. national merit status = colleges throwing money at you and begging you to come there.

2. yes. if you're a medical student volunteering at a lab for a summer, please do not critique the methods of someone who has been running the protocol for years. generally anyone who doesn't have the experience to back up their criticism gets the major-side eye from me.

1. I would like at least 600 for the Reading and Writing. & whatever else that wasn't math. I got 540 on each of them when I took it two years ago.

I actually took the psat after the sat, and I have no idea how that ended up...

hmm it's been 5 years since i've taken them so i don't know what's changed but it's critical reading, math, and writing right? each out of 800?

in your case, if your finances can support it, i might suggest an sat class (kaplan & princeton review should offer them if you live in a relatively populated area) just because they'll probably cover more of the basic stuff--and since you're paying for them, you'll probably be inclined to go to class to learn/be forced to learn at a sedate pace instead of cramming all at once. if not / if the test is coming up too soon, i think the next best thing is to read test prep books and take as many practice tests as you can and make sure to go back over the stuff you miss so you learn from old mistakes. are you finishing each section?

(if you'd prefer, feel free to pm me. i used to be a huge gunner in high school so i probably know way too much about leaping through hoops to get into college. /o\)

Edited (what is grammar) 2012-09-15 00:22 (UTC)

Re: 2 Things, F!S

morieris - 2012-09-15 00:36 (UTC) - Expand

generally anyone who doesn't have the experience to back up their criticism gets the major-side eye from me.

and i'd majorly side-eye anyone who imagined that having a lot of experience with something made them immune from errors, or that only the input of other experts is worth having.

yes please twist my words some more and continue to judge, internet stranger.

Re: 2 Things, F!S

(Anonymous) - 2012-09-15 23:31 (UTC) - Expand

Re: 2 Things, F!S

augustbird - 2012-09-15 23:40 (UTC) - Expand

For the SAT, I took the PSAT and did a bit of studying. Tbqh while I did well on the SAT I did better on the ACT and therefore NEVER used my SAT scores. I applied multiple places, from the state university I'm currently at to pretty selective schools (NYU was my top choice that I got into) and nowhere required both SAT AND ACT (though they did want SAT subject tests). So, doing it again, I'd find one test that gels better with you and stick with that.

If you can afford them, Kaplan/Princeton/whatever courses are good: not so much because of the content (which you can get from the prep books themselves, and they're cheaper), but because you do practice tests in much more similar conditions (timed, with other people, in a classroom, with a proctor, etc), and get to work with other people, and also with people who have taken the test, usually pretty recently, and can help you out. Also, it's really important to review answers when you do practice tests, and in the courses, you'll actually be forced to do that and think through why you got answers right and wrong, and why the wrong answers are wrong (which is just as important as why the right answers are right).

The prep books alone are fine, but if you don't have great willpower (I don't), just studying off of them is so insular, and it's hard to get a gauge on how you're doing. Like, doing a practice test in your room just isn't the same: there's distractions, it's hard to set out a four hour (I think? It's been a while since I took one, I may be conflating my LSAT experience) chunk of time when You Shall Not Be Disturbed during which to do it, etc, etc.

If you don't have the money to do a course, sometimes schools themselves offer free ones. If that's not an option, then definitely get the books, definitely do the practice tests (as many as possible), and definitely do them somewhere other than at home. Treat it like a class on its own.

- A massive practice test book. And also I took an SAT prep class a few times to bring my math scores within range of the rest.

- Yes, if it's uninformed.

If someone criticized by saying something that simply wasn't true--such as "I'll never vote Republican, because all Republicans eat babies. That's why they oppose abortion--they're hungry", then yes. I'd say that's a pretty invalid criticism of the Republican Party.

There's also such a thing as goddamn stupid criticism, which might be about something true, but doesn't matter at all--such as "I think your character's story would be more moving if her hair wasn't blue and she killed her best friend tragically under a starry sky painted by VanGo car detailers". Finally, everyone likes different things, so unless something is so objectively terrible that no one genuinely likes it except for hipsters (My Immortal, for example), every critiqued thing is probably liked by someone for PRECISELY the same reason it was critiqued by another person. See Sherlock vs. Elementary for examples.

...Hmmm, got off topic. All criticism is a matter of opinion was my point, and that criticism that is untrue or off topic ("Your Sherlock fanfic's portrayal of Citizen Kane needed more Rosebud" when there was no Citizen Kane in the story at all) is invalid.

"I'll never vote Republican, because all Republicans eat babies. That's why they oppose abortion--they're hungry"

ahahahahahaha damn

I think you're more or less right though.

- Other than taking the PSAT, I didn't really do much except relax the night before and some concentration exercises in between test sections, but I'm...pretty good at test-taking, I guess. I probably could've done better if I took a class or something but I just didn't see the point, and I did okay.

- Yes. Everybody has an opinion and a lot of them are stupid. It's your responsibility to decide which ones are worth listening to and which ones end up in the trash pile.

Edited 2012-09-15 04:10 (UTC)

1. I am a jackass who happens to be really good at taking standardized tests. Beyond the PSATs I did nothing, and got a crazy result. I will sprinkle some mojo on you if you ask nice. :p

2. Hell yes. Opinions and criticism can't be "invalid" in the sense that they're not true, but they can absolutely be not worth taking into consideration. Or they can be worth taking into consideration and then rejecting. Etc.

To prepare? I kinda just...took the test. I didn't really think about it beforehand...

I took a private SAT prep class for the general math/verbal/writing SAT (this was around 2 years after the writing section was introduced), and did a bunch of practice tests. I also learned a bunch of helpful stuff on how the multiple-choice format factors into the math section. I couldn't tell you what at this late date, but it was helpful- I'm dyscalculic and just all-around bad at math of all kinds.

I didn't take any prep classes for the SAT subject tests- I was in the AP classes for some of them, and others were just my strong subjects. We had some SAT and AP prep books for US and World History from when my older siblings took those, but they weren't as crucial as prep for the general SAT.

I took the ACT without writing. Now I'm going to preface this by saying I'm like, amazingly good at multiple choice quizzes (I make up for it by being terrible at essays :(), but I took it the first time and got a 29, wasn't satisfied, and used a website called number2.com to study for a couple hours each Saturday. When I retook it 6 months later I got a 35.

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