site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3352 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for March 8, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

4
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

How much should I be studying for the SAT. I not from USA and my education is third worlder and I was also not the greatest student.

A high SAT is necessary, but not a sufficient condition to get into a top school. I would stop caring after 1550-1550. Until that point, it will continue counting.

If you are an Asian/Indian Male without a sob-story, then you will need a high SAT. More so than other races.

What are you typically scoring on practice tests for each subject?

What are your goals in terms of colleges/universities?

I have yet to take a practice test.

I'm trying to become a naval engineer in the marine merchant.

I would encourage using Khan Academy to take a diagnostic test, then practice tests which take an hour before a full length (3-5 hour) practice test.

The merchant marine absolutely does take immigrants, but there are always possible issues.

Both comments made already are correct; let me outline why. I spent a month or two studying hard for the SAT and the LSAT respectively during those respective periods. My standardized test scores ultimately got me $270k in merit scholarships I would absolutely not have gotten without them. So yeah, highest paid two months you'll ever get in your teens; in all likelihood.

Everything you can. Get the public example tests the college board publishes (there was a book of ten tests, might be more / different now. Used to be called the “blue book” or something). Do one or two and then study parts you arent good at. Take more, repeat. If you arent from the US, your local online retailer should have pirated copies and should not be expensive.

There are free guides and stuff online as well, so google around. I used a guide someone wrote on College Confidential. Helped a lot.

Practice means perfect. Triply so for SAT.

There will be no better return on hours spent studying in your entire academic career than for the hours you spend preparing for the SAT. You should prepare as if a substantial portion of your future depends on it... because it does.

edit: to be explicit, you should be fucking breathing, drinking and eating SAT practice exams from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to sleep, from now until the day of your exam.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats