Students focus on reading, writing, and math topics critical to high PSAT scores. Classes meet for 1.5 hours each day. Classes coach test-taking strategies for physical and social science reading passages; classic and contemporary fiction passages; historical and original documents; and grammar, editing, and writing passages. In-depth preparation for PSAT reading comprehension emphasizes reading approaches tailored to passage types (science, social science, fiction, and original documents).
A thorough review of, and enriched instruction in, grammar and writing topics necessary for exceptional scores on the Writing and Language Test. The course also covers all topics tested on the math no-calculator and calculator tests. Students learn the fundamentals of data analysis, algebra, and geometry. They also are introduced to more advanced math topics. On-line practice tests and reviews are available on a weekly basis as a separate option.
Sample of passage and questions are based on passage.
40One key question in the survey asked- "What matters most to you about your job?" It then listed thirty-eight factors from which respondents could check one or more. Just from glancing at the initial results, one bottom line is clear- money is an 45 important but insufficient motivator (see "Job factors" graph). Base pay ranked fourth as a factor, selected by 38.5 percent of respondents. Nearly twice as many selected "challenge of job/responsibility," making it the top-ranked factor. Interestingly, the so ability to share in the financial upside through stock options did not even make the top twenty- fewer than 10 percent of all people selected it. When we sorted the thirty-eight individual job factors in the Information Week survey into eleven 55 broad clusters, challenge remained by far the top-ranked factor, followed by flexibility and job stability (see "Key categories" graph). Compensation was again fourth, followed by peer respect, technology and location; and further down the list 60 were company orientation, organizational culture, career orientation and benefits. The things that matter to IT workers tend to stay fairly constant as economic conditions change. To determine this, I compared the Information Week
65 surveys for two consecutive years. The surveys are taken early in the year and the one for 2000 was done before the high-tech downturn, when the stock-option dream was supposedly hottest. The 2001 survey came after the NASDAQ crash had 70 supposedly wiped out the dream. The same three general attributes—a challenging job, a flexible workplace and job stability—topped the list in both years. Only a small, percentage of people in each survey, the roughly 10 percent cited above, ranked 75 stock options as being very important. Both before and after the crash, pay was generally important, but not nearly so much as intrinsic rewards. What people value and desire in their work is not contingent on the stock market or the rise and fall of the tech sector.
In the fourth paragraph (lines 53-61), the author describes how he and his research partner created the "Key categories" graph by reorganizing the data in the "Job factors" graph. Which statement best describes an effect of presenting the data differently in the "Key categories" graph than in the "Job factors" graph?
A) "Challenge" appears to be more significant among the responses in the "Key categories" graph than it does in the "Job factors" graph.
B) "Challenge" appears to have been selected by a greater percentage of respondents in the "Key categories" graph than in the "Job factors" graph.
C) Financial compensation appears to be unrepresented among responses in the "Key categories" graph, despite its prominence in the "Job factors" graph.
D) The difference between the most popular response and the least popular response appears to be smaller in the "Key categories" graph than it appears to be in the "Job factors" graph.
The author suggests which of the following about the compensation packages that employers offered to IT workers in the late 1990s?
A) Those packages largely failed to lure IT, workers, in the numbers that employers had hoped.
B) IT workers tended to reject those packages for jobs that presented greater professional challenges.
C) The costs of those packages to employers were generally not worth the increases in employee productivity.
D) Those packages included an incentive that had relatively little effect on IT workers' job satisfaction.