The new SAT: College Board offers a glimpse at the questions students might face
WASHINGTON — Calculate the foreign exchange rate a vacationing American would pay in India. Estimate from a random sample the number of 18- to 34-year-olds who voted for a candidate. These are sample questions from the newly redesigned SAT, which aims for more real-world applications and analysis from students.
The College Board released the sample test questions on Wednesday, offering clues to how the revised college entrance exam, taken last year by 1.7 million students, will look when it rolls out in 2016.
One of the biggest changes is that relatively obscure vocabulary words such as “punctilious” and “lachrymose” are unlikely to appear on the test. Test takers will see words more likely to be used in classrooms or in the workplace, like “synthesis.”
Instead of a wide range, the math section will concentrate on areas that “matter most for college and career readiness and success,” the College Board said.
The essay section is becoming optional. And it now will require a student to read a passage and explain how the author constructed an argument instead of offering the student’s own point of view on a specific issue.
Convicted robber was never told to report to prison, lived productive life for 13 years
ST. LOUIS — After he was convicted of armed robbery in 2000, Cornealious Anderson was sentenced to 13 years behind bars and told to await instructions on when and where to report to prison. But those instructions never came.
So Anderson didn’t report. He spent the next 13 years turning his life around — getting married, raising three kids, learning a trade. He made no effort to conceal his identity or whereabouts. Anderson paid taxes and traffic tickets, renewed his driver’s license and registered his businesses.
Not until last year did the Missouri Department of Corrections discover the clerical error that kept him free. Now he’s fighting for release, saying authorities missed their chance to incarcerate him.
Sub makes 2nd dive in plane search; Chinese families walk out on Malaysian officials
PERTH, Australia — As a robotic submarine dived into the ocean to look for lost Flight 370, angry Chinese relatives stormed out of a teleconference meeting Wednesday to protest the Malaysian government for not addressing them in person.
The Bluefin 21 sub surfaced early for the second time in as many missions, this time after experiencing technical difficulties. It was sent back into the water after its data were downloaded but there’s been no sign of the plane, according to the search coordinator.
North Korea asks British government to act over barber’s Kim Jong Un ‘Bad Hair Day?’ poster
LONDON — North Korea has made a diplomatic appeal to the British government to get a London salon out of its hair.
The country’s diplomats have complained to the Foreign Office about a hairdressing salon that put up a poster poking fun at distinctively coiffed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The Foreign Office confirmed Wednesday it had received a letter from the North Korean embassy objecting to the poster, and was considering its response.
The Evening Standard newspaper reported the letter urged Britain to take “necessary action to stop the provocation.”
Staff at M&M Hair Academy say they were visited by diplomats from the embassy after putting up a poster last week featuring a picture of Kim — who sports a distinctive short-back-and-sides ‘do — and the slogan “Bad Hair Day?”
By wire sources