magoosh blog | high school
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author: elise gout

elise gout
elise writes articles for the magoosh sat blog to help teenagers during an exciting time in their lives. despite residing in southern california, where she attends san dieguito academy high school, she has no surfing abilities whatsoever; it’s actually rather sad. she is your typical senior high school girl who sword fights daily, and is pretty much convinced that bananas are a food sent from heaven. elise will attend columbia university next fall to study environmental science.

  • boost your vocabulary, boost your act score: part 1

    developing a rich vocabulary has many benefits: you can better convey what you mean, you can command respect for your well-expressed ideas, and you can even appear more romantically appealing (there is even a term now for people who are attracted to intelligence.) if landing that job interview or that date are not on your…

  • new sat reading: the nonfiction passages

    after the literature passage on the new sat, you’ll see two history/social studies passages and two science passages–typically alternated. these passages should be approached a little differently than the fiction passage. here’s what you need to know:

  • new sat reading: words in context questions

    the old sat tested a lot of difficult vocabulary. no more. now the focus is on “high-utility academic words and phrases” which basically means words that are used in multiple subjects and genres and words that have multiple meanings.