I would argue that the "easy" check engine light RWE items on both the ACT and SAT are not necessarily hard concepts in and of them selves (a comma splice is easy to explain and typical examples are easy to see) but they are hard test questions. An easy concept can be very difficult to get right if it is surrounded by a moat and encapsulated in a labyrinth.
Example: The rules of commas in relation to descriptive nouns and appositives are easy to explain and demonstrate. But students are often tripped up when the "noun" is 8 words long, and their prior tendency was to sprinkle commas in whenever they needed to take a breath. It is difficult (but not impossible) to hide an exponent, but it is easy to hide a list item (when the list item is, eg, an entire independent clause).
Otherwise students would not commonly score about the same on English/writing as they do on math after a few tutoring sessions; they'd perfect the English/writing/RW in a few sessions.
I agree – ACT English (and SAT R/W) items can still be very difficult, and the source of the difficulty is different than the math's. In the case of something like subject/verb agreement, it can be hard to identify the subject and verb, and it's sometimes hard to explain exactly how to find them. In the case of exponents or percents, it's the sheer variety of question types, and the ways they can be combined with other types.
I still think it's easier to improve ACT English scores, but it definitely requires some work.
Great work, thanks.
I would argue that the "easy" check engine light RWE items on both the ACT and SAT are not necessarily hard concepts in and of them selves (a comma splice is easy to explain and typical examples are easy to see) but they are hard test questions. An easy concept can be very difficult to get right if it is surrounded by a moat and encapsulated in a labyrinth.
Example: The rules of commas in relation to descriptive nouns and appositives are easy to explain and demonstrate. But students are often tripped up when the "noun" is 8 words long, and their prior tendency was to sprinkle commas in whenever they needed to take a breath. It is difficult (but not impossible) to hide an exponent, but it is easy to hide a list item (when the list item is, eg, an entire independent clause).
Otherwise students would not commonly score about the same on English/writing as they do on math after a few tutoring sessions; they'd perfect the English/writing/RW in a few sessions.
I agree – ACT English (and SAT R/W) items can still be very difficult, and the source of the difficulty is different than the math's. In the case of something like subject/verb agreement, it can be hard to identify the subject and verb, and it's sometimes hard to explain exactly how to find them. In the case of exponents or percents, it's the sheer variety of question types, and the ways they can be combined with other types.
I still think it's easier to improve ACT English scores, but it definitely requires some work.