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On August 10 2010 15:32 Comeh wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 15:22 kzn wrote:
The new SAT is easy as fuck compared to the old one. If you've scored well, consistently, its highly unlikely (although not impossible) that all of them are fluke scores.
I wouldn't worry about it. Its not something that you can particularly practice for unless you flat out dont know what its testing, which is almost impossible if you went to school in the US.
And definitely do not go to a 2-handed backhand. Its flat out inferior for serious play. yeah No pros EVER use 2 handed backhand. *rolleyes* Rafael Nadal is terrible...>.>
And he's flat out worse than Federer.
One of the biggest reasons Roddick could never compete with Federer was that using a 2 handed backhand puts you at a default disadvantage against a 1 handed backhander in terms of covering the entire court.
Obviously the best option is to use both, if you can, but if you have to pick one 1 handed is the optimal choice.
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On August 10 2010 16:03 OneOther wrote:
The SAT is not any harder or easier compared to the old one. It's just a different scale of scores. For instance, if you are trying to go to a top 15 school, you still want to score a 2250+ to be safe, just as you needed 1500+ on the old one. Getting a 2250 is just as difficult as scoring 1500 (99%). Oh, and it's something you can most definitely practice for. Practicing raises your score. Period. You learn how to make fewer errors, how to solve problems faster (which is critical for the SAT), encounter various types of problems for each section, and other very valuable techniques.
That might have been what was intended but it is not the case. It might well be the case that there are as few people who score 2250 as there are who score 1500, but thats a matter of the grading curve, not the actual difficulty of the test.
And the new SAT doesn't even have the section that was commonly considered the most difficult of all sections in the old one.
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United States10774 Posts
On August 11 2010 03:06 kzn wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2010 15:32 Comeh wrote:On August 10 2010 15:22 kzn wrote:
The new SAT is easy as fuck compared to the old one. If you've scored well, consistently, its highly unlikely (although not impossible) that all of them are fluke scores.
I wouldn't worry about it. Its not something that you can particularly practice for unless you flat out dont know what its testing, which is almost impossible if you went to school in the US.
And definitely do not go to a 2-handed backhand. Its flat out inferior for serious play. yeah No pros EVER use 2 handed backhand. *rolleyes* Rafael Nadal is terrible...>.> And he's flat out worse than Federer. One of the biggest reasons Roddick could never compete with Federer was that using a 2 handed backhand puts you at a default disadvantage against a 1 handed backhander in terms of covering the entire court. Obviously the best option is to use both, if you can, but if you have to pick one 1 handed is the optimal choice.
Last time I checked, Nadal has a lobsided record against Federer and has more slams than Federer when they were the same age. And this is coming from a huge Federer fan who hates Nadal. Your argument makes no sense.
How does Nadal defeat Federer? Nadal hits high to Federer's one-handed backhand every time. It's an inherent weakness for every one-hander. There is no default disadvantage. There are advantages and disadvantages for each type that negate each other. That's why it depends on preference and comfort. Check how many of the top ten pros use two-handed backhands. Your Roddick/Federer is argument is immensely flawed. Having more coverage is an advantage for one-handers, but there are disadvantages that compensate for it e.g. being weak versus high ball, requiring more time for set-up, needing to follow through more, and such.
I'm almost starting to believe that you have never played tennis on a serious competitive level. I don't see how anyone with some experience like that can actually believe a two-handed backhand is in nature inferior to a one-hander.
That might have been what was intended but it is not the case. It might well be the case that there are as few people who score 2250 as there are who score 1500, but thats a matter of the grading curve, not the actual difficulty of the test.
And the new SAT doesn't even have the section that was commonly considered the most difficult of all sections in the old one.
That was the intention and that is exactly the case. That's how the SAT works - seeing how you compare to kids going to college the same year. Benchmarks and the difficulty of achieving your goals remain the same. It's just dumb to argue that the old one was "harder" because that's a subjective issue and I, for one, think the old one is easier because it focuses on a smaller array of topics.
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I never like blogs that turn TL into college confidential -.-;;;;;
The SAT is all about consistency, once you can handle the variations that come with each test, vocab, types of grammar questions, etc... you're golden
Those classes that you listed shouldn't be a problem if you don't have difficulties with basic math -except for the AP French (I never took that)
Also, congrats on the subtle brag blog "hey gais I want help on SAT I'm getting 2300 and I'm going to be a sophomore --;"
Btw, are you going to IvyMax in norcal or socal?
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whoops, clicked quote instead of edit D:
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First up, let's not argue a bunch about tennis. It's a sport that's meant to be enjoyed by us mere mortals, and we all have our own opinions, but arguing isn't appreciated. I tend to side with OneOther not because I'm sucking up to a mod, but the truth is that the one-hander isn't inherently "superior" or anything like that (neither is the two-hander, for that matter). There are pros and cons to each. One way to think of it: back then, everyone used a one-handed backhand, and it was the norm--does that mean the 1hbh is better? Nope! Nowadays, most people have begun to use the two-handed backhand--does that mean it's better? Ye--nope. "But Federer/Nadal uses the 1/2hbh!" That means nothing.
I'll try to lift some weights or something, but I'm also worried since my right arm is already a ton more buff than my left arm, so I'm not sure whether I should just work on upgrading my left arm from twig to stick. 
Also, I'm going to Ivymax in Norcal :D
@loser777: before I made the blog I was also thinking that it might turn out to be a brag blog (and I suppose it is ><"), but I decided to go through with it anyway :/
The weird thing is that each and every time I take the practice test, I have a feeling like a failed, and it's not an overachiever/super-high-standard type of feeling. I truly, logically think as if I'm doing badly. There will be several questions in which I think I screwed up on, I had to choose between two answers, or I feel as if I might have gone through too quickly (but I cannot exactly remember which, everything SEEMS fine when I look back, etc.). So far, I've been scoring high, but each time I still don't think I did that well. Then, when I go to the review session (where the Ivymax people go over all the questions people missed), I'll look at how people all around me missed those questions, and I somehow miraculously pulled through o-o;
I'm not sure if I should share my scores, but (as I've said before) I trust our community here <3 so here goes:
+ Show Spoiler [EPIC BRAG I suppose] +
1st Practice Test:
Critical Reading=750
Writing=680 (Essay was counted as a 4 b/c the essay wasn't graded yet, and they just assume it's a 4/12; I got a 6/12 :/
Mathematics=790
Total=2220
(I assumed this one was close to 2300 after the few extra points from the essay)
2nd Practice Test
Critical Reading=780
Writing=620 (Essay was counted as 4, I got a 12/12)
Mathematics=780
Total=2180
(I think the full essay score boosted it somewhere close to 2300 here ><)
3rd Practice Test
Critical Reading=730
Writing=800 (Essay score of 10 was put in, and I didn't get any of the questions wrong)
Mathematics=770
Total=2300 :D
There ya go. At first, I thought my Critical Reading was my beast part, but after the latest practice test, I think otherwise... During the 3rd practice test, however, I was already thinking that I would do the worst on its Critical Reading out of all the tests, and I'm not just saying this in retrospect.
Thanks again to everyone! My favorite player is Roger Federer, and I'll be rooting for him for his match against Chela! :3
Edit: as to the debate about the difference between the "old" and "new" SAT, my uber-smart Ivymax English teacher (a really cool lady who graduated from Harvard) stated that the "old" was literally a "Scholastic Aptitude Test"--that is, the test was directly designed to measure your inherent "aptitude" for something. Logically, then, you couldn't have studied for it. College Board said so, and they were essentially correct. The "new" SAT can, however, be studied for, and therein lies its (I believe) reduced level of difficulty.
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On August 11 2010 05:10 OneOther wrote:
That was the intention and that is exactly the case. That's how the SAT works - seeing how you compare to kids going to college the same year. Benchmarks and the difficulty of achieving your goals remain the same. It's just dumb to argue that the old one was "harder" because that's a subjective issue and I, for one, think the old one is easier because it focuses on a smaller array of topics.
The point I'm making is they could create a test that merely involved thousands of basic addition problems and still maintain that kind of "difficulty".
And of course its subjective now because nobody has actually looked into it, but the data I'm aware of suggests that the older one was a more accurate test of aptitude than the current one in terms of predicting college performance, which suggests it was harder in an objective sense.
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The 1 hand backhand is all about the shoulder and chest muscle. Therefore, you need a shitload of footwork to get those muscles in a position where you can rip the shot wherever you want it.
When you make contact with the ball, make sure that instead of hitting the ball with your arm, you're hitting it with your shoulder and then using your shoulder and chest muscles to follow through with the shot.
Basically, if you want to break it down like an actual build, here it is:
1. Draw back your racket. You should be using your shoulder to do this. Your shoulder should sort of be parallel to the net, and your eye is focused ont he ball.
2. fuckload of footwork to get your body in position (this will take some time for you to adjust properly). Watch Federer if you want to see what footwork is like.
3. Step in with your lead foot and bend both of your knees as LOW AS YOU FUCKING CAN (This is one of the reasons why I never won any tournaments. I just got lazy with my legs)
4. Use your shoulder muscles (like we explained), and make contact with the ball. NOTE: When you make contact, it should be out in front of you, and not right near you. One of the biggest mistakes you can make with the one-hand is to hit the ball too late. It is better to hit EARLY than late.
5. Follow through. If you don't know what it means, it just means keep the ball on your racket as long as possible. If you hit the ball at the right time, it should be easy as hell. It's almost just using your racket to bounce the momentum back towards your opponent.
6. Roll up. At the very end of the shot, as you're finishing the contact and are about to let go, roll your racket up to generate some spin on the ball. This way, instead of flying back into the fence, you get some spin to let the ball drop into the court.
Ultimately, I will say this: The one-hand backhand is not designed for "power shots". It's a shot that utilizes the power of the opponent against them. You use swift and clean strokes to bounce balls into angles and corners that the two-hand backhand is unable to accomplish.
Think less about power, and think more about generating top spin on that ball, hitting the ball early, and placing the shots were you want it.
In tennis, power is nothing if you don't put it in the right places.
REMEMBER. Unlike what other posters said in this thread, to gain power is NOT to hit really fucking hard. The one-hand backhand is a move focused on technique and grace.
DO NOT HIT LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER. You will miss. Trust me. -_-x
I would comment on all that other shit, but I think tennis is the best advice I can give at this point.
I would also use images to help you...I'm lazy...maybe I'll make a thread about it someday. Hahahahahahahaha. ^^
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United States10774 Posts
On August 11 2010 05:58 kzn wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2010 05:10 OneOther wrote:
That was the intention and that is exactly the case. That's how the SAT works - seeing how you compare to kids going to college the same year. Benchmarks and the difficulty of achieving your goals remain the same. It's just dumb to argue that the old one was "harder" because that's a subjective issue and I, for one, think the old one is easier because it focuses on a smaller array of topics. The point I'm making is they could create a test that merely involved thousands of basic addition problems and still maintain that kind of "difficulty". And of course its subjective now because nobody has actually looked into it, but the data I'm aware of suggests that the older one was a more accurate test of aptitude than the current one in terms of predicting college performance, which suggests it was harder in an objective sense.
Source? I have no idea how you are making that kind of claim without even a mention of a source or reference. Even if you cited a source that the old one was more "accurate," how does that mean that it was "objectively harder?" Accuracy of predicting college performance does not have enough correlation to the test's actual difficulty for you to make that assumption. Do you just like to talk about things you don't really know about? I hope it's not my fault that I don't take your arguments with much trust after seeing what you have argued about tennis.
EDIT: Just realized you didn't even bother replying about tennis :o
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On August 11 2010 06:16 OneOther wrote:
Source? I have no idea how you are making that kind of claim without even a mention of a source or reference. Even if you cited a source that the old one was more "accurate," how does that mean that it was "objectively harder?" Accuracy of predicting college performance does not have enough correlation to the test's actual difficulty for you to make that assumption. Do you just like to talk about things you don't really know about? I hope it's not my fault that I don't take your arguments with much trust after seeing what you have argued about tennis.
I'm not actually a psychometrician. My "source" is talking with people I know who are college counselors and thus have to pay attention to this stuff. If you really want me to, I can try to find the source.
As far as how predictive capacity correlates with objective difficulty:
I hope we both agree that the SAT is intended to generate a metric with which to predict a person's future college performance. If thats true, the SAT will obviously be a more accurate predictor the more closely it mirrors the kind of challenges presented by a college education.
Now, if you assume that college is actually hard, it is a possibility (and I would argue a quite likely one) that a less accurate predictor is less difficult, although there is always the possibility that its just testing something else entirely and gets most of its difficulty from there instead.
EDIT: Just realized you didn't even bother replying about tennis :o
Because I'm not knowledgeable enough about it to continue arguing, so whatever.
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I'm quite sure that the SAT is designed to give colleges a bell curve with which to work; it isn't necessarily a predictor of performance in college (I thought).
I'll be back with a more constructive response later, as I must work my ass off for the time being. I might even need to request a temp ban or something because I lack self-control like Apple products lack flash support ;x
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I switched to a one-hander four years ago, and it's improved quite a bit. It takes about a year to actually get comfortable with it, and if you've been using one for a while, don't switch back, just so you can be consistent. For increased power (and accuracy, and just general performance) you have to do several things.
Two-handers can just hit the moonball if they want, or reach out a bit and hit an open stance backhand, simply because they have their other hand to support the racket, and don't rely on the same hitting motion for power. Since they're rotating through with their shoulders, they can do more of a back to front motion.
If a one-hander rotates his shoulders (especially before he hits the ball), he risks losing a significant amount of accuracy. That's why you see the stroke form like what Federer does (chest stays closed, racket goes from bottom to top). To get power from this motion, you absolutely need to hit the ball in the sweet spot, which is at waist level, a comfortable distance away from your body (out and in front). If you reach too far, you lose balance from your base, and then there's no power. If it's too close, you lose topspin. Therefore, you need better footwork than the two-handers to achieve the same result. Improving your footwork should show immediate results.
The muscle that a one-hand backhand puts the most strain on is the shoulder muscle of the hitting arm. Strengthen this muscle so that you have the stamina to keep on hitting backhands in long matches.
When you hit the ball, counterbalance your self with your other hand, extending it backwards. Also, DO NOT watch the ball after you hit it. Look at the ball all the way to your racket. Make a conscious effort to do this. Many tennis players and baseball players (the two athletes who have to hit a moving ball in mid air) watch the ball for as long as possible, but then ignore it for the last two feet that it travels. Those last two feet where you're not watching the ball are often what mess you up and make you shank. With your head looking over your shoulder (right shoulder for a right-hander) watch the ball as long as possible until you actually make contact. Then, keep your head in the same position that it's in. If you turn your head to see where the ball goes, you will probably end up rotating your body. This is okay if you do it late, but many people will rotate prematurely, which will make the ball go anywhere but where they want it to go.
So yeah, to repeat:
1.) Emphasis on footwork to get to the ball
2.) Strong base with good balance
3.) Make contact in the sweet spot of your stroke, swinging all the way up.
4.) Non-dominant hand moves back to counterbalance after it lets go of the racket's neck.
5.) Head hangs around for about half a second after you make contact, so that you don't risk rotating prematurely. Fight your urge to immediately watch the ball, just like you must fight your urge to stare at your army fighting in BW. You must trust your stroke form just as you must trust your micro.
EDIT: also, yeah, the point of a one-hand backhand is not to send the ball flying at ridiculous speeds. It's to hit the ball with significant topspin, and to use that topspin to get some crazy angles.
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On August 11 2010 11:24 Z3kk wrote:
I'm quite sure that the SAT is designed to give colleges a bell curve with which to work; it isn't necessarily a predictor of performance in college (I thought).
I'll be back with a more constructive response later, as I must work my ass off for the time being. I might even need to request a temp ban or something because I lack self-control like Apple products lack flash support ;x
To continue on about the SAT... keep track of the number of questions you miss... not just the score, since prep places tend to scale differently.
For example, when I took SAT classes at ELITE (similar to IvyMax), missing 5 or so questions in CR would land me a 760-780 in that subject. Missing 5 questions on the actual SAT, however, results in a 730-740. Of course, the actual SAT tends to be easier, but if you're the type of person who likes harder tests where you can miss more (as I was) as opposed to easier tests where you must miss fewer, you should be careful about this (oh silly me the "this" is ambiguous). The vocab can also be hit or miss if you slack off (like I did)... missing just one or two more questions than you usually do can have huge consequences -in the 20-30 point range.
This may not apply to you, but one of the most important things is to develop consistency in your writing -you need to have an example bank (not necessarily lengthy) of examples that you can toss out on the fly for essentially any subject. My lack of examples killed my essay grade, but thankfully I am a Grammar Nazi....
As for the math section, newer tests tend to have really lame curves (one question wrong = 770/760, etc)... so you need to learn to be a robot and NEVER EVER make ANY mistakes.
If you think you "guessed" your way to your score, listen to some of the reasons people gave for choosing the WRONG answer -you'll quickly realize that other choices -even the ones you tempted to choose, don't make sense at all.
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On August 11 2010 12:57 DTK-m2 wrote:Many tennis players and baseball players (the two athletes who have to hit a moving ball in mid air) watch the ball for as long as possible, but then ignore it for the last two feet that it travels. Those last two feet where you're not watching the ball are often what mess you up and make you shank.
Interestingly, it's actually been proven that a baseball player can't actually see the baseball for those couple feet before it hits the bat, simply because the eye can't physically change it's focus fast enough to keep track of the ball moving at that speed. Watching the ball hit the bat is simply an illusion, in the last fraction of a second you eye just can't catch up.
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EPT
