Panel of Experts

Mathematicians at UCLA have discovered a 13-MILLION-digit prime number. It took a network of 75 computers to discover the number. To read more about this humongous number click here. The article is brief, but pretty interesting.

SmartTeaching.org recently posted “The Ultimate Guide to the SAT:100 Helpful Sites and Resources.” I hope some of our visitors find it useful. Good luck!

I just wanted to congratulate minireb123, along with mickhick and Luo, for their amazingly high (i.e., sick!) WordSmith Challenge scores. Over the winter holidays this year, I promise to clean up the WordSmith database in order to remove all minor glitches in the Challenge. In the meantime, I hope ePrep visitors continue to have fun with the WordSmith Challenge as they work to develop (and show off) their “large and varied working vocabularies.”

Most students know the distributive property:

a(b + c) = ab + ac

Here’s an example that involves distributing, however, that I’ve seen many students mess up.

The wrong way:

(x + 3) - (3x + 4) = x + 3 - 3x + 4 = -2x + 7

The right way:

(x + 3) - (3x + 4) = x + 3 - 3x - 4 = -2x - 1

For some reason, when there is a negative outside the parenthesis, many students (under the pressure of a timed test) forget to distribute the negative. If you stay conscious of this common pitfall, you are sure to avoid an “avoidable” error on the SAT. Good luck!

Confused about I/me? Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

Here is a simple rule that might get you out of a confusing situation on the SAT:

When it’s the object of a preposition, choose “me.” Examples follow:

above me
below me
for me
from me
to me
at me
between you and me
among Jessica, Tim, and me
over Carlos and me
under Sandy and me

If you keep this in mind, you will surely score higher on the SAT and become a better writer. Good luck!

Between & Among:

Use “between” when there are two actors and “among” whenever there are more than two. Examples follow:

Let’s keep this a secret between me and you.

Let’s keep this a secret among the three of us.

If you learn this lesson well, you will improve your writing and score higher on the SAT. Good luck!