Another SAT Math question meant to be solved quickly:
Watch the video and/or check the comments for my answer. Did you also see the three grammatical errors in the question?
Tuesday, August 26, 2025
1 comment:
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Grammar errors:
ReplyDelete1. comma (introductory phrase): "In the following figure,"
2. missing article: "is the center of THE circle"
3. comma splice: The comma after circle should be a semicolon.
I think this problem wasn't written by a native speaker of English. The actual SAT is much more rigorously proofread.
Math problem:
The circle has a radius of 8, so its area is πr^2, or 64π. The quarter circle must therefore have 1/4 that area, or 16π. So whatever the correct answer is, it's 16π minus something. We could stop there and pick B.
Because I'm a nerd, though, we'll finish the math. To get the area of the shaded region, we have to subtract the right triangle's area from the quarter circle. It's an isosceles right triangle for which the area = (1/2)bh. In both cases, b and h are both 8, so (1/2)(8)(8) = (1/2)(64) = 32. So the shaded area must be
16π - 32. The answer is B.
With SAT questions, you can eliminate multiple-choice answers as you go, though, so I'd recommend deducing B early, as I did at first before giving in to my nerdish impulses.