Vantage Test Prep Solutions

SAT or ACT?

Need help with selecting a test?

The SAT and the ACT may appear to be similar on the surface, but each test requires a different set of test taking strategies and techniques. To learn whether the SAT or the ACT caters to your strengths or to find out which test you would prefer, answer the following set of questions.

The following is a simple test of 41 question that will help determine which test best fits you.

01. Directional Analysis

1. Are you good at justifying your answer when challenged by someone?

Yes No

2. Do you excel at higher level math?

Yes No

3. Are you more logical than intuitive? (especially when you encounter a problem)

Logical Intuitive

4. Do you use strategies and knowledge to solve problems?

Yes No

5. Are you comfortable learning difficult vocab words?

Yes No

6. Do you dread doing math without a calculator?

Yes No

7. Do you excel in science?

Yes No

8. Are you relatively a fast problem solver in class?

Yes No

9. Do you know how to set up a scientific experiment?

Yes No

10. Do you often use expressions like 'in a nutshell' or 'simply put' or 'at the end of the day'?

'In a nutshell' or 'simply put' 'At the end of the day'

02. Tendency Analysis

1. Is Tetris a strategy game or a speed game?

Strategy Speed

2. Are you a trickster or truth-teller?

Trickster Truth-teller

3. Do you usually think of every possible scenario when finding an answer?

Yes, I'm complex No. I see answer rather simply.

4. Do you panic under time pressure?

Yes No

5. Do you consider yourself careful or decisive?

Careful Decisive

03. Thinking Pattern (Reading)

	This passage is adapted from Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome, originally published in 1911. Mattie Silver is Ethan’s household employee.
	Mattie Silver had lived under Ethan’s roof for a year, and from
	early morning till they met at supper he had frequent chances of
	seeing her; but no moments in her company were comparable to
	those when, her arm in his, and her light step flying to keep time
5	with his long stride, they walked back through the night to the farm.
	He had taken to the girl from the first day, when he had driven over
	to the Flats to meet her, and she had smiled and waved to him from
	the train, crying out, “You must be Ethan!” as she jumped down with
	her bundles, housework while he reflected, looking over her slight
10	person: “She don’t look much on housework, but she ain’t a fretter,
	anyhow.” But it was not only that the coming to his house of a bit of
	hopeful young life was like the lighting of a fire on a cold
	hearth. The girl was more than the bright serviceable creature he
	had thought her. She had an eye to see and an ear to hear: he
15	could show her things and tell her things, and taste the bliss of
	feeling that all he imparted left long reverberations and echoes he
	could wake at will.
	It was during their night walks back to the farm that he felt most
	intensely the sweetness of this communion. He had always been
20	more sensitive than the people about him to the appeal of natural
	beauty. His unfinished studies had given form to this sensibility and
	even in his unhappiest moments field and sky spoke to him with a
	deep and powerful persuasion. But hitherto the emotion had
	remained in him as a silent ache, veiling with sadness the beauty
25	that evoked it. He did not even know whether any one else in the
	world felt as he did, or whether he was the sole victim of this
	mournful privilege. Then he learned that one other spirit had
	trembled with the same touch of wonder: that at his side, living
	under his roof and eating his bread, was a creature to whom he
30	could say: "That’s Orion down yonder; the big fellow to the
	right is Aldebaran, and the bunch of little ones—like bees
	swarming—they’re the Pleiades..." or whom he could hold
	entranced before a ledge of granite thrusting up through the fern
	while he unrolled the huge panorama of the ice age, and the long
35	dim stretches of succeeding time. The fact that admiration for his
	learning mingled with Mattie’s wonder at what he taught was not
	the least part of his pleasure. And there were other sensations, less
	definable but more exquisite, which drew them together with a
	shock of silent joy: the cold red of sunset behind winter hills, the
40	flight of cloud-flocks over slopes of golden stubble, or the intensely
	blue shadows of hemlocks on sunlit snow. When she said to him
	once: “It looks just as if it was painted!” it seemed to Ethan that the
	art of definition could go no farther, and that words had at last been
	found to utter his secret soul....
45	As he stood in the darkness outside the church these memories
	came back with the poignancy of vanished things. Watching Mattie
	whirl down the floor from hand to hand he wondered how he could
	ever have thought that his dull talk interested her. To him, who was
	never gay but in her presence, her gaiety seemed plain proof of
50	indifference. The face she lifted to her dancers was the samewhich,
	when she saw him, always looked like a window that has
	caught the sunset. He even noticed two or three gestures which, in
	his fatuity, he had thought she kept for him: a way of throwing her
	head back when she was amused, as if to taste her laugh before
55	she let it out, and a trick of sinking her lids slowly when anything
	charmed or moved her.

1. Over the course of the passage, the main focus of the narrative shifts from the

A. reservations a character has about a person he has just met to a growing appreciation that character has of the person’s worth.
B. ambivalence a character feels about his sensitive nature to the character's recognition of the advantages of having profound emotions.
C. intensity of feeling a character has for another person to the character’s concern that that intensity is not reciprocated.
D. value a character attaches to the wonders of the natural world to a rejection of that sort of beauty in favor of human artistry.

2. In the context of the passage, the author’s use of the phrase "her light step flying to keep time with his long stride" (line 4-5) is primarily meant to convey the idea that

A. Ethan and Mattie share a powerful enthusiasm.
B. Mattie strives to match the speed at which Ethan works.
C. Mattie and Ethan playfully compete with each other.
D. Ethan walks at a pace that frustrates Mattie.

3. The author includes the descriptions of the sunset, the clouds, and the hemlock shadows (lines 39–41) primarily to

A. suggest the peacefulness of the natural world.
B. emphasize the acuteness of two characters' sensations.
C. foreshadow the declining fortunes of two characters.
D. offer a sense of how fleeting time can be.

4. The description in the first paragraph indicates that what Ethan values most about Mattie is her

A. fitness for farm labor.
B. vivacious youth.
C. receptive nature.
D. freedom from worry.

5. Which choice provides the best evidence for the answer to the previous question?

A. Lines 1–5 ("Mattie...farm")
B. Lines 6–11 ("He had...anyhow")
C. Lines 11–13 ("But it...hearth")
D. Lines 14–17 ("She had...will")

	PROSE FICTION: This passage IS adapted from the short story "Tattoo" by Rai a Mai (©2006 by University of Hawai'i Press)
	The first time I heard about tattoo, I was still a
	little girl. My grandmother was telling me that the last
	woman in Polynesia to have the face entirely tattooed
	in those days was living in Hiva'Oa
5	"She would often come down to the village by the
	shore. Maybe because she loved the-ocean ... Her
	body, I could not tell because she was always wrapped
	in tapa cloth. I used to play with the other village chil-
10	dren at the shore. And she would come and just sit
	there, under the sun, for hours. She would stare silently
	at the sea. Not moving. Not talking. Not smiling. Not
	looking at anyone. Her eyes on the sea, as if captivated
	by these ever-rolling waves. Her body leaning with
15	intensity toward the ocean, as if her whole being was
	listening to something we could not hear.
	"I like people who can sit under the sun without
	moving and without talking, their eyes filled with
	dreams from another world ...
20	"I was probably about your age when my parents
	decided to migrate to the Marquesas Islands. You know,
	child, the people over there have skin different from
	ours. Mine is black. This is Pa'umotu skin! Yours is
	white because you have in you the mixed blood of your
26	ancestors. But theirs is a beautiful reddish color, like
	ahi mono'i, made from sandalwood and powder. The
	way they speak is also different. When they speak, you
	hear a song. They sound like the white birds that fly
	over the cliffs along the shoreline just before·the rain.
30	"Yes ... I do like people who can sit under the sun
	without moving and without talking, their eyes filled
	with dreams from another world ...
	"So when we played tiipa, I would hide behind a
	rock not too far away from the tattoo lady and I would
35	imitate her. I would sit against the rock and feel the
	pleasure of the sunrays trapped in the rock warming my
	back. I: d close my eyes, breathe deeply, and feel the
	sunrays on my eyelids. Then I would open my eyes
	again and just stare at the sea ... I tried to hear what
45	she was hearing ...
	"But you see, child, I didn't have any tattoo
	around my eyes, and I couldn't see what she saw. I
	didn't have any tattoo around my lips and on my chin,
45	have any tattoo on my forehead, and I couldn't concen-
	trate on the ocean's language.
	"Sometimes the tattoo lady would lift her hands up
	toward the sky. And from her hands would dance a few
	words among the clouds from Heaven. See, child, her
50	hands were beautifully tattooed on the side of the palm
	and along the small fingers. At times, she would catch a
	word and bring it back to her chest, as if to bury it in
	her heart.
	"I would see, then, tears run along the tattoo on
55	her face ...
	"So I went to see my father and told him that I
	wanted a tattoo somewhere on my body. I said that
	I wanted to be able to hear what others couldn't hear. I
	said that I wanted to catch the words from among the
60	clouds from Heaven.
	"My father looked at me, opened his mouth. But
	no word came out of it. Then he closed his mouth again
	and just looked at me. He drew me against him and sat
	me on his lap. With his arms wrapped around me, he
65	chanted. He sang like the white birds that fly over the
	cliffs along the shoreline just before the rain.
	"Then he said, 'We used to tell our story on our
	body. And people and heavens would know who we
	were. They would recognize us. But nowadays, stories
70	and words are written in books. The words are caught
	directly from our memories and written with ink on
	paper. You don't need to catch the words in the clouds
	from Heaven any longer. They are here!' And he
	pointed a finger to my forehead.
75	"So you see, child," my grandmother went on,
	"today no one has Polynesian tattoo on their body any-
	more. Well ... some men bring back tattoo from the
	army. But theirs tell not of war; they speak of love and
	broken hearts. They draw a heart pierced by an arrow
	... They draw the name of a woman they fell in love
	with ... They are unfinished designs. In fact, nobody
	knows how to tattoo the way our ancestors did. They have
	forgotten.
	"Our word tatau has traveled all over the world
85	and is known by all the nations. It has become such a
	part of everyone's language that people have forgotten
	that originally this word was a Polynesian word: tatau!
	Tatau has disappeared from our memories ...
	"And you know what? I was never able to catch
90	any words: neither in books nor from among the clouds
	from Heaven."
	As I listened to my grandmother, I looked at her
	naked black hands and I felt the desire for words to
	grow inside me.

6. In the passage, the narrator's grandmother states that one reason she spent time at the shore was to:

A. watch the white birds.
B. play with other children.
C. learn about the Pa'umotu people.
D. practice singing in the language of the Marquesas Islands.

7. The passage's repetition in lines 65-66 of the simile used in lines 28-29 creates a direct connection between the Marquesas Islanders' speech and the:

A. staring the tattoo lady does by the ocean.
B. longing the narrator has for words.
C. singing of the narrator's grandmother.
D. chanting of the narrator's great-grandfather.

8. In the passage, the narrator's grandmother suggests that having a tattoo would have allowed her to do all of the following EXCEPT:

A. sit still for long periods of time under the sun.
B. hear things others could not.
C. speak to others in a calm voice.
D. catch words from the clouds.

9. As it is used twice in line 1, the word I directly refers to the:

A. narrator.
B. narrator's grandmother.
C. narrator's great-grandfather.
D. tattoo lady.

10. In the passage, the narrator's grandmother speculates that the tattoo lady came down to the village by the shore because the tattoo lady:

A. loved the ocean.
B. liked to watch the children play.
C. wanted to be where there was silence.
D. had previously lived far from the ocean.

04. Thinking Pattern (Math)

1. The gas mileage for Peter’s car is 21 miles per gallon when the car travels at an average speed of 50 miles per hour. The car’s gas tank has 17 gallons of gas at the beginning of a trip. If Peter’s car travels at an average speed of 50 miles per hour, which of the following functions

models the number of gallons of gas remaining in the tank

hours after the trip begins?

2. At a primate reserve, the mean age of all the male primates is 15 years, and the mean age of all female primates is 19 years. Which of the following must be true about the mean age

= 17
B.

> 17
C.

< 17
D. 15 <

< 19

3. A typical image taken of the surface of Mars by a camera is 11.2 gigabits in size. A tracking station on Earth can receive data from the spacecraft at a data rate of 3 megabits per second for a maximum of 11 hours each day. If 1 gigabit equals 1,024 megabits, what is the maximum number of typical images that the tracking station could receive from the camera each day?

A. 3
B. 10
C. 56
D. 144

4. The function

is defined by

,where

is a constant. In the

-plane, the graph of

intersects the

-axis at the three points (−4, 0), and

, and (

, 0). What is the value of

A. -18
B. -2
C. 2
D. 10

5. An architect drew the sketch below while designing a house roof. The dimensions shown are for the interior of the triangle. Solve for the cosine of

Write the answer as a fration:

6. A dog eats 7 cans of food in 3 days. At this rate, how many cans of food does the dog eat in 3 +

days?

7. Given that sin A =

and

, what are all possible values of cos A?

only
B.

and

only
D.

only
E.

and

8. Which of the following values is a zero of

A. 3
B. 2
C.

D. -4
E. -6

9. The system of equations below has multiple solutions, all of which satisfy the equation

. If it can be determined,
what is the value of

A. -6
B. 9
C. 14
D. 18
E. Cannot be determined from the given information.

10. An organization promoting good nutritional habits collected data on fat calories in foods from 9 fast- food restaurants. The values represent the number of fat calories in a small order of french fries at each of these fast-food restaurants: 160, 106, 104, 113, 160, 103, 161, 89, 96.
The organization collects data from 2 additional restaurants and includes the new data in the list. The number of fat calories in a small order of french fries at each of the 2 additional restaurants is designed by

and

, respectively. Which of the following expressions gives the average of this larger list of values?

05. Thinking Pattern (Science)

1. In Experiment 1, which of the bacterial species fermented lactose?

F. Species B only
G. Species C only
H. Species B and Species D only
J. Species C and Species D only

2. Suppose that in Experiment 2 both Species B and Species C had been added to a large test tube containing sucrose broth and to a large test tube containing lactose broth. Which of the following would most likely depict the results?

A. ㅡ ㅡ + +
B. + + ㅡ ㅡ
C. + + + +
D. ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ ㅡ

3. Suppose a scientist isolates a bacterial species that is 1 of the 4 species used in Experiment 1. She adds the species to sucrose broth and observes that neither acid nor CO2 is produced. She then adds the species to lactose broth and observes that both acid and CO2 are produced. Based on the results of Experiment 1, the species is most likely:

F. Species A.
G. Species B.
H. Species C.
J. Species D.

4. What is the evidence from Experiments 1 and 2 that Species C and Species D acted synergistically in Experiment 2 ?

A. No acid was produced when each species was alone in the sucrose broth, but acid was produced when the 2 species were together in the sucrose broth.
B. No acid was produced when each species was alone in the lactose broth, but acid was produced when the 2 species were together in the sucrose broth.
C. No CO2 was produced when each species was alone in the sucrose broth, but CO2 was produced when the 2 species were together in the sucrose broth.
D. No CO2 was produced when each species was alone in the lactose broth, but CO2 was produced when the 2 species were together in the lactose broth.

5. Which of the following figures best illustrates the results of Experiment 1 for Species D in the sucrose broth?

6. Is the hypothesis that Species A and Species C acted synergistically supported by the results of Experiment 2 ?

A. Yes, because both acid and CO2 were produced from sucrose.
B. Yes, because both acid and CO2 were produced from lactose.
C. No, because only acid, not CO2, was produced from both sucrose and lactose.
D. No, because neither acid nor CO2 was produced from lactose.

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Review My Results

Upon analysis of your thinking pattern, tendency, and academic direction, it appears that you are most suited for the NEW SAT. Each of the analysis are weighed differently to produce the final result. Therefore, the conclusion that you are best suited for the New SAT may not be immediately clear. Also, upon more in-depth analysis and consultation, the results may come out differently. If you would like further details, please call and set up an appointment with Exeter Academy.

Upon analysis of your thinking pattern, tendency, and academic direction, it appears that you are most suited for the ACT. Each of the analysis are weighed differently to produce the final result. Therefore, the conclusion that you are best suited for the ACT may not be immediately clear. Also, upon more in-depth analysis and consultation, the results may come out differently. If you would like further details, please call and set up an appointment with Exeter Academy.

Upon analysis of your thinking pattern, tendency, and academic direction, it appears that you are equally suited for the ACT and the NEW SAT. Each of the analysis are weighed differently to produce the final result. Therefore, the conclusion that you are best suited for the ACT may not be immediately clear. Also, upon more in-depth analysis and consultation, the results may come out differently. If you would like further details, please call and set up an appointment.

Directional Analysis

Tendency Analysis

Thinking Pattern

Which Test Is Better