Back from the Cold (and the Beach)
MJTP families:
It's been a little while since my last newsletter, so let me catch you up.
If you're in Florida, you already know — we had actual snow south of Tampa a few weeks ago. I don't do cold. Never have. My wife and I were basically hibernating until the sun finally came back, and as soon as it did, we drove straight out to Anna Maria Island.
We spent the whole day out there, today. And of course, we completely forgot how to be Floridians and came home with the worst sunburn either of us has had in years. Should've known better.
On to the stuff that matters.
The March 14th SAT Is Close
We're inside a month now. It's always a long time coming, off the hiatus from early December. If your student is taking the March 14th SAT, this is the stretch where focused preparation pays off the most. The single best thing they can do right now take their full-length practice tests under real conditions — timed, no phone, no extra breaks. The SAT rewards sustained attention, and that's something you have to practice, not just hope for on test day.
Review our strategies, review your missed question patterns, test, rinse, repeat.
Desmos & Geometry Group Classes
I wanted to float something and see if there's interest. One of my current students has been doing really well tutoring group math classes through SchoolHouse, and she's right on the edge of a perfect 800 in SAT Math. She wants to put together a short series of group sessions — two to four classes — covering Desmos and Geometry specifically.
The Desmos piece would walk through everything students need to know about using the built-in graphing calculator on the digital SAT. Then we'd follow that with a session dedicated to geometry formulas, tips, and the kinds of problems that tend to trip people up.
We're thinking Sunday nights, and the cost would be around $100 for the series.
If that sounds useful for your student, just reply to this email and we'll get you the details once we nail down the schedule.
Can You Beat the SAT? Try This One.
Here's a real SAT-style question for you. Parents, give it a shot — it's a good example of the Command of Evidence - Quantitative questions that show up on the digital SAT. These aren't hard because the math is complicated. They're hard because you have to read carefully, pull the right numbers from a table, and check whether the answer choice actually says something true.
Growth Rates for Herbivorous Dinosaurs
| Dinosaur | Estimated Adult Mass (kg) | Maximum Annual Growth Rate (kg per year) | Time to Reach Adult Size (years of growth) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apatosaurus | 20,000–40,000 | 2,000 | 20–25 |
| Triceratops | 6,000–10,000 | 1,300 | 15–20 |
| Maiasaura | 2,000–4,000 | 730 | 7–8 |
| Stegosaurus | 2,500–5,000 | 500 | 12–15 |
| Corythosaurus | 3,000–7,000 | 800 | 8–10 |
| Orodromeus | 40–60 | 20 | 4–6 |
Herbivorous dinosaurs of various species exhibited growth rates that paleontologists have extrapolated with considerable confidence, in part by relying on fossil evidence. Some of these species could grow by hundreds or thousands of kilograms per year, but at times a herbivorous dinosaur would necessarily exhibit a yearly growth rate well below its maximum annual growth rate, as indicated by growth rate estimates for ______
Which choice most effectively uses accurate information from the table to complete the statement?
A) apatosaurus, which would have reached a mass lower than its maximum estimated adult mass if it had grown at its maximum annual rate for its minimum in years of growth.
B) triceratops, which would have reached a mass lower than its maximum estimated adult mass if it had grown at its minimum annual rate for its maximum in years of growth.
C) maiasaura, which would have reached a mass greater than its maximum estimated adult mass if it had grown at its maximum annual rate for its minimum in years of growth.
D) stegosaurus, which would have reached a mass greater than its maximum estimated adult mass if it had grown at its minimum annual rate for its minimum in years of growth.
Take a minute with it. Grab a calculator if you want. I'll put the answer below.
Click here to reveal the answer
The Answer: C — Maiasaura Here's why. The question is asking you to find a dinosaur where the table proves it must have been growing below its max rate at least some of the time. To do that, you multiply the max growth rate by the minimum number of years and see what happens. For Maiasaura: 730 kg/year × 7 years = 5,110 kg. But its maximum estimated adult mass is only 4,000 kg. So even in the fewest possible years of growth, growing at max speed the whole time would overshoot the actual adult size. That means it couldn't have been growing at max rate every year. It had to have been growing slower during some of those years. That's exactly what the passage is saying. Why not A? Apatosaurus: 2,000 × 20 = 40,000 — which exactly matches its max adult mass. The choice says it would be lower, but 40,000 isn't lower than 40,000. The claim doesn't hold. Why not B or D? Both reference a "minimum annual rate," but the table only gives maximum annual growth rates. There's no minimum rate to work with, so those claims can't be verified from the data. This is a classic SAT trap. The question isn't testing whether you can do multiplication — it's testing whether you read each answer choice precisely enough to catch what it's actually claiming and then check it against the table. That's the kind of careful reading that separates a good score from a great one.
That's it for this week. If you have questions about the March SAT, the Desmos classes, or anything else, just reply and I'm happy to help.
— Mr. John
