Montgomery School

Looking to jump-start your Quantitative scores on the GRE? Here are five tips that are almost guaranteed to appear on Test Day. Watch out for them on your solo adaptive practice games on Grockit!

1. For n equations, you need n variables to solve.  The GRE will often present you with two or more equations with multiple variables. If there are 2 variables in an equation (for example, x and y), then there must be 2 equations that each contain those variables in order to solve. The two common ways to solve are Substitution and Combination.
2. Substitute carefully for Functions.  It’s helpful to think of (x, f(x)) as another way of writing (x, y). For many function questions, you can Pick Numbers or Substitute for the variables to solve! For example, if a question provides a Function such as f(x) = 3x + 2, and wants to know what f(x – 1) is when x = 3, first rewrite the function, substituting x – 1 in for x. We would get: f(x – 1) = 3(x – 1) + 2, or f(x – 1) = 3x – 3 + 2. That becomes f(x – 1) = 3x – 1. Now the question asks what f(x – 1) will be when x = 3. Substitute in x = 3 to solve. f(x – 1) = 3(3) – 1 becomes f(x – 1) = 9 – 1. The answer is f(x – 1) = 8.
3. Know your number properties. The GRE tests number properties heavily, and you must be comfortable with words like integers, rational numbers, primes, etc. The properties of odds and evens, integers, fractions, positives, and negatives will all appear in various questions on your GMAT test as well. Don’t ever make assumptions about unknown variables. Unless you are told otherwise by the limitations in the question, variables can be negative integers, negative fractions, zero, positive fractions, or positive integer. You may need to Pick Numbers from multiple categories, especially for Quantitative Comparisons questions.
4. Flip the inequality when you multiply or divide by a negative number.  Remember that when you multiply or divide by a negative number, you must reverse the direction of the inequality. The non-flipped version will almost always be one of the wrong answer choices (of course!).

-4x + 5 > 17

-4x > 12  (When we divide by the negative 4, the sign is flipped)

x < -3

5.     Remember that Quadratic equations have two solutions. You’ll need to be able to FOIL and Reverse-FOIL on the GRE. Get a quick refresh here with Grockit Tutor Jordan Schonig.

x² 7x + 6 = 0                        This is called the “quadratic.”

(x – 6) (x – 1) = 0            These are called the “factors.”

            x = 6, x = 1                        These are called the “roots” or the “solutions.”

For more help with any of these algebra concepts, jump into a Group Game in the GRE Grockit lobby to work with other students studying for this year’s test. Explain difficult concepts to others and get help from your peers!

At British Study Centres, we have weekend tours to UK and European Cities- one of these is the tour to Oxford, Windsor Eaton. I found it absolutely amazing and well organised. A full day was spent with many other students in one of the many beautiful places that this country can offer….The morning began with the coach trip to Windsor, where some of us visited the Castle, famous to be the oldest and largest inhabited castle in the world! In the meantime others preferred to take a look at the lovely city and to do some Christmas shopping! Another famous destination that we had the opportunity to see was Eton College, where princes William and Harry were educated.

On the coach again, we moved to the beautiful Oxford and its many attractions. Here, after an interesting guided tour of the city lasting about one hour, we had a lot of spare time to explore some of the Museums, like Ashmolean and Pitt River Museum, and take a look at the numerous University Colleges.

It was a really beautiful day full of culture, history but also fun. We saw the second largest library in the UK, in which J.R.R. Tolkien had the idea to write The Lord of The Rings and of course we also saw the building where Harry Potter was filmed!

This is a must-do trip!

-Roberta, Intern at British Study Centres Brighton

Its day six of my holiday break and I have finally acknowledged the large stack of paper on the floor next to my desk. I had been ignoring it, hoping it would magically grade itself, but alas, this has not been the case. Its still there, still huge, still daunting. In the meantime, I have cleaned the entire house, gone to the dump twice, moved our furniture around, stacked another cord of wood, winterized the chicken tractor, and killed seven mice in the attic, but now, its time. Time to grade the mid-year writing assessments.

While I was completing all of these other acts of procrastination, I was mentally composing another essay for an upcoming deadline, a piece has been freaking me out, both as a writer and a teacher. In order to be successful in this piece, I must come clean about my homework practices. For non-teachers, that may sound like an easy task, but its not. Homework is a time-honored tradition among teachers, a sacred cow best left undisturbed to chew its cud in the median. We go about our daily business in its shadow, so used to its presence right there in the middle of things that we dont even see it anymore. Even discussed delicately, teacher-to-teacher, it elicits fight-or-flight defensiveness in some and outright anger in others.

But its good to sharpen your Ticonderoga #2 and poke that cow from time to time, isnt it? Otherwise, how  do you know if its just resting or if its been dead for a while and you just had not noticed?

As I am writing about homework elsewhere, I am taking on another sacred cow at my school over here the writing assessment. These assessments make up the giant pile of menace stacked next to my desk, and as I dont want to get around to grading them, I thought Id spend some time poking them with a proverbial stick.

Twice a year, we give the students a prompt, two days to prepare an outline, two class periods to write a four-paragraph essay. Based on the responses I have read so far, this years questions went fairly well, and I actually like reading these essays once I am into the groove, but its an endless task. So, if I have to question why I give homework, I also have to question why I spend four full days a year of class time and hours at home spent grading on these writing assessments.

The students dont enjoy writing them, I hate grading themso whats the point?

In order to answer that question, I went over to my office and pulled out a couple of my students files. Because we give these assessments every year from the third grade on up, I can spread a students entire writing education out in one place. I can see how handwriting, vocabulary, and syntax evolve over the entire length of one students education. Most importantly, I can see their individual voices evolve as thinking becomes more complex, more sophisticated. Its fun to pull these files out when a student is frustrated with the slow pace of his or her learning, or an apparent backsliding in skills, and show them how far they have come in such a short time.

One of my favorite things about my job is the strategizing I get to do behind the scenes. As I teach my students for three straight years in Latin and/or English, I have the opportunity to do some real long-term planning for the future. I taught high school English before I moved to middle school, so I know what will be expected of them in a few short years. Many of them will go on to attend the very school I used to teach in, so I have very specific goals about where they need to be in terms of independence, organization and self-advocacy by the time they head off to high school.

In sixth grade, we coddle them as we ease them into the relative chaos of middle school class transitions and increased homework load. In seventh grade, however, I ease off a bit. I give them a little bit more rope and see what happens when they are expected to plan ahead or stay on top of a long-range assignment. In eighth grade, I really let them have their heads, and expect that they will know how to take charge of their education when no one else is looking out for them. Writing assessments are part of that process. I hand them the prompt and directions, and they are expected to prepare their notes or outline, find supporting evidence and plan their writing. I give them no other guidance than the prompt itself. Timed writing assignments will become a fact of life for them in the coming years, and its fascinating to see their progress as they master the task.

When I was first hired at my school, I was informed that the writing assessment was simply a part of what I did in English class, and I was too overwhelmed with the details of a my new position (including my first year teaching Latin, twenty years since I last cracked open a Latin text) to question any reasoning behind the tradition. But now, long settled-in and armed with perspective and experience, I think its good to question what I do the things I do. This weeks re-evaluation of my homework practices has been really enlightening - I have dropped some of the less effective assignments and shored up my reasoning behind the better ones. So much of what I do, particularly the most subjective aspects such as grading and assessments, leave me feeling uneasy at times, unsure of my standards, perspective, or reasoning.

In the end, some of those cows were long dead and really needed to get rolled out of the road, but I am quite fond of the ones that remain. When I return to school in the New Year, the students will notice a change. I will be more confident in my choices, and the road ahead will be much less congested. True, the writing assessments will remain, lying placidly in the middle of that road, but at least I will be able to explain why they are there.

This week Deke shares one of his most asked-for techniques, how to turn an ordinary portrait into a line drawing. It seems that when people encounter wonderful photo-realistic line drawings out in the wild, they immediately equate said photo-realism with Photoshop. And, if nature didnt endow you with the ability to draw, then applying some careful Photoshop effects to a well-chosen photo is indeed the way to go.

In this weeks free movie, youll see how to take a photographed portrait, apply the Photocopy filter and then adjust and finesse your drawing with the Levels command, Gaussian Blur, a little hand-work , and finally some advanced layer effects. The result is a technique that can work on any well-defined portrait. For example, check out how this unsuspecting photo booth poser in the upper image can become the proto-Nagel woman you see in the lower image below .

For members of lynda.com, Deke has an exclusive movie in the Online Training Library^® this week called Adding a crosshatch shading pattern that really sells the illustration effect. By the time you go through Dekes meticulous steps, youll take this dramatic photo on the left and turn it into the deadly line drawing on the right:

See you back next week with another technique from Deke!

Interested in more?
• The entire Deke’s Techniques collection on lynda.com
• Courses by Deke McClelland on lynda.com
• All Photoshop courses on lynda.com

Suggested courses to watch next:
• Photoshop CS5 One-on-One: Mastery
• Photoshop for Designers: Layer Effects
• Photoshop Masking & Compositing: Advanced Blending
• Illustrator Insider Training: Rethinking the Essentials

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I am thrilled to share this very special guest post from eleven year old Mallory; sixth grader and world-change agent.

You will be amazed and inspired as you hear her describe the day she made the decion to change the world.

In October 2011 I sat down to write my Christmas list for my parents, I looked around my room and I realized there was nothing I needed, nothing I wanted. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought about the children in Africa, and how they weren’t going to get Christmas presents, and there was a lot of things that they needed. So, I sent my mom an email with my Christmas list, one thing on it, to help Africa.

See, in August of 2010 the Ugandan Orphan Children’s Choir came to my church to perform, and I got to meet the children, and they were amazing. They were so loving, and just wanted to hug me and hold my hand. My mom had also started doing work for a couple of organizations that helped in Uganda, so she had taught me about the children there.

The day after I sent the email my Mom and I sat down and talked about what I wanted to do, and how I wanted to help. I contacted Amazima Ministries and Project Have Hope and I told them what I wanted to do, and I asked them how I could best help them. That is how Project Yesu was born.

My goals at first were simple, I wanted to raise $600 to sponsor 2 children, one from Amazima and one from Project Have Hope. When you sponsor a child, it pays for food, medicine and sends them to school. I also decided I wanted to send Christmas cards to the children in Uganda, I mean who doesn’t like to get a card, it makes you smile. So I drew two different card designs and I contacted a local printing company and asked them if they would donate the printing of 650 cards, they did.

So I started to tell people about Project Yesu, and my mom helped me start a blog so people could read about it. I met with my Children’s pastor and asked if our youth group could help me with the cards, because I wanted them to be personal, so I needed a lot of help to write out 650 cards. I also spoke to my youth group, and told them about Project Yesu and about the children in Uganda and asked them to help me raise money. Every week I set up a booth at my church to tell people about my project, and the word spread.  

In only 8 weeks I raised over $2,400 and I was able to sponsor 7 children. It was way more then I had originally planned on and it was great. I got to meet some wonderful people, and tell them my story. I was invited to go to WAYFM a Christian radio station because they learned about my project, and I was even on TV. The NBC station out of Nasvhille did a story on Project Yesu.

I read a quote one day from Mahatma Ghandi that said, “Be the change you want to see in the world”. That’s what I want to do, I want to be the change, I want to make a difference, I want to help people. Everyone thinks kids are selfish or that we’re just kids and we can’t do anything like this. I want to show people what a difference one person can make. If someone, because they heard about me, or met me, decides that they can be a change too, then it will spread from me, to that person, to another person and so on.

Kids have good ideas, and you know what? We don’t know all the reasons why it won’t work, we just know we what we want to do.  I know with Project Yesu, I am making a difference, not only in the lives of the seven children in Uganda who now have food, medicine and can go to school. But I am making a difference in the lives of my family, my friends, my teachers and even people I have never met before.

I want Project Yesu to continue to spread and grow, and to do that I need people like you, who are reading this post to spread the word and to help me. My goals for 2012 is to raise $4,500 who knows maybe I’ll double that this year or even triple that and be able to help more and more children in Uganda. I plan to travel to Uganda in December of 2012 to hand deliver the Christmas cards to the children, to meet my sponsored children and to love on the children of Uganda who have changed my life.

If you want to know more about Project Yesu, or how you can help you can find me on 

• Facebook  
• My site.

I am selling T-shirts and wristbands to raise funds, and I am also looking for families, groups, classrooms or anyone to be a part of the Be The Change campaign by collecting coins to donate towards Project Yesu.

So I have accepted the challenge to be the change….will you?