Since DS17 *may* have made the NM Semifinalist cutoff for VA but he didn't complete the reading section of the SAT he sat for last Saturday, we decided to go ahead and schedule him for the November 4 sitting. We feel he is fully trained at this point and now is the best time for him to complete his testing. One issue we have if we don't do this is that we are completely out of prep materials for him. So no further SAT prep beyond reviewing his October 7 test results when they come in and perhaps a bit of review of statistics on Khan Academy.

I get the impression that the OP may want to teach her child(ren) about the belief systems, assumptions, limitations and distortions which underpin the activities which are collectively known as science. Perhaps OP would like her child(ren) to understand that many (most?) scientists today subscribe to a worldview known as "scientism", which was so eloquently spelled out by Jim Baggott: Ironically, that quote is the first paragraph in his book "Fairwell to Reality," which is an expose about much of what is wrong in physics today. Perhaps Jim Baggott was never taught, and never realized, that scientism is a self-refuting belief system. Perhaps the OP would like her child(ren) to thoroughly understand what is behind Max Planck's quote: For instance, she may want her child(ren) to explore why so many scientists have faith in a very popular concept known as Friedmann-Lemaitre spacetime expansion even though the scientific evidence indicates that it does not exist. In fact, when engineers designed the GPS system, they designed the system to correct for three redshifts in the signals coming from the satellites to the ground: velocity-based redshifts, gravitation-based redshifts, and redshifts due to the expansion of spacetime. The first two redshifts were discovered by Doppler and Einstein, respectively, and have been demonstrated many times in scientific experiments, but the third was conjured up by astronomers and cosmologists to try to prop up their personal beliefs that we must not be at the center of the Universe. However, there is NO redshift in GPS signals due to Friedmann-Lemaitre spacetime expansion and thus there is no need for correction for it in the system that many people depend on today. Perhaps OP would like to understand why even though the existence of suns and planets and galaxies and all the scientific measurements done near Earth attest to the understanding that spacetime expansion simply doesn't exist HERE that very intelligent people insist that it must exist ELSEWHERE. And why do those same people reject successful explanations of what they see in the cosmos using only velocity-based and gravitation-based redshifts, which are both KNOWN to exist? And why do the textbooks not detail this contradiction between beliefs and measurements, but rather only teach the beliefs? I don't know OP, but those are the types of things I want my children to explore when they study science. As Richard Feynman is famous for saying: Without exploring the cracks that exist in our current understanding of the Universe in which we live, we can never advance that understanding and will forever be enslaved by untruth.

Where do you get these girls? I could maybe see one of the three boys I took in to the school this morning saying that, but not DD15. But who knows? Perhaps when we made her take the two knives she had out of her pockets before she could go there this morning gave her pause about school.

I asked DS17 if the math was harder on the PSAT than the SAT he took on Saturday: "Maybe a little."

MomsintheGarden just took over as the manager of a bookstore in August. Just sayin'... :leaving:

No. Yes. Yes. No, well maybe a little. Here is our current approach (number of each type of test we have is in parentheses): The lists of tests below are in order of highest quality to lowest quality, but I administer them in the OPPOSITE order, giving the lowest quality tests first and then increasing the quality as the students approach the actual test. That said, I DO mix things up some so that they don't take all six Ivy Global tests in a row, for instance. Plus, the twins complicate things since they cannot use the same book at the same time. 9th grade or younger: Each year I give them one or two of Barron's PSAT practice tests that we have on CD-ROM (2) and online (1). The goal is to get them used to the test format while not "wasting" the better test prep materials until later years. 10th grade: We focus on PSAT prep materials in 10th grade and use a combination of the following materials: 2015 or later College Board administered PSAT tests (3), 2015 or later College Board PSAT practice tests (2), Ivy Global PSAT practice Tests (4), and Barron's PSAT practice tests from books (6). We also had DD15 and DS15 take two of the SAT practice tests and put their answers into Khan Academy along with transferring their test results from 9th grade so that they could do directed online SAT prep with Khan Academy. MomsintheGarden also has them do the Khan Academy High School Statistics mission (not AP Statistics) to help in that area. They get credit for that on their high school transcript. 11th grade: We focus on SAT prep materials in 11th grade (to over-prep for the PSAT) and use a combination of the following materials: 2016 or later College Board SAT prep tests (8), 2016 or later College Board SAT tests from the Q&A service (1), Ivy Global SAT practice tests: (6). DS17 took an SAT on the Saturday before the PSAT as an additional practice test. Also, MomsintheGarden had DS17 start preparing for AP English Language and Composition immediately following the PSAT in 10th grade. Her thinking was that having him read quality literature would help him with is reading comprehension skills and also that preparation would help him learn how to critically analyzed literature. (He didn't end up taking that AP last year because the AP Chemistry test was too consuming, but he will take it this year.) I will say that our children are all strong in the writing section due to their many years of Rod and Staff training as well as competition in the National Spelling Bee. That's not to say they don't miss questions there - they do - but it is often a matter of being more careful. Sometimes it is a challenging topic such as the proper use of dashes. Did I get them right in the earlier sentence? I'm still not sure! :tongue_smilie: This is quite a bit of practice, but I am happy with the results. When DS17 dropped down from doing SAT prep this year and took two PSAT practice tests, he got a 1500 on each of them (though he had seen them both a year ago). Regarding the quality of the Ivy Global tests, I have to say they are very high quality, but are just a bit below the quality that comes from the College Board. Here are some specifics: 1) In the Reading section, I sometimes found myself having difficulty justifying the answer Ivy Global listed as the correct one. Unfortunately, those tests do not have answer explanations available, so I did not have a good way to give feedback on reading unless I could see it myself. With the College Board SAT practice tests, I sometimes have the same problem, but I can always go to the PDF with the answer explanations for each test to find out why they chose a particular answer. DS17 consistently scored lower on the Ivy Global SAT Reading sections than he did on the College Board Reading sections. 2) I found the Writing section of Ivy Global to be very close to the College Board sections and DS17 tended to get similar scores on Ivy Global and College Board in this section. The same issue related to answer explanations applies in this section as well. 3) I found the Math sections to be a bit more challenging in the Ivy Global SAT practice tests than in the College Board SAT tests. Some problems were harder and/or more time consuming and DS17 did not complete several of the Math No Calculator sections in the Ivy Global tests. That's not a bad thing for a practice test, but it can make it difficult to gauge where the student stands. It can also be a bit demoralizing. Again, the lack of answer explanations was a bit of an issue. In the math sections, I can always get the answer, but sometimes I don't always find a fast way to do it. I recently posted one of their problems upthread to see if there was a quick way to do it and I got no reply. By way of contrast, challenging College Board math problems almost always have a fast way (and slower ways) that they can be solved and those different ways are discussed in the answers PDF file. This is precisely where DS17 was when he took the official PSAT in 10th grade. But when he started prepping for this year's test in June, everything was different: He often missed 0, 1, or 2 questions with an occasional time when he would miss something like 5 (these results were on SAT tests having 52 questions). But the lower scores were usually on the Ivy Global tests. Frankly, I think the prep for AP English Language and Composition really made a difference for him. MomsintheGarden also believes that his brain has simply matured during that time. BTW, I also gave DS17 the following goals for his official PSAT test: Miss two or fewer questions on Reading and miss no more than one question each on Writing, Math No Calculator and Math With Calculator. My thinking is that he needs SOMETHING to shoot for, but I don't think it is reasonable to expect a perfect score on ANY section since mistakes inevitably happen. The goal is to try to limit them to a suitable level. (Hopefully he did that today! :tongue_smilie: ) The twins (DD15 and DS15) have already consumed all of the PSAT prep materials we have, so they will be using SAT materials almost exclusively next year (except for one or two PSAT practice tests right before the official test).

Yes, if they ace the reading and writing sections, they have a bit of leeway on the math, but NOT vice versa. I'm sorry to hear about the Metzler book. (If it were one of my children, I might be inclined to think that sounded a bit like "I'm going to move the blame to Mom," but I certainly don't know your daughter...) As I had stated upthread, I stopped DS17 from proceeding with it since his reading and writing scores were so high during test prep this year, not because of the content of the book. The simple fact is that NONE of our children have ever been completely solid on the reading sections of these tests, including DD24, DS19 and the children who took the test today. This is PARTICULARLY true with test from vendors other than the College Board. I have gotten to the point where I just say "It's reading and it's from another vendor, so let's not bother going over your misses from this test." Still, DD24 and DS19 both did very well on their reading sections. I hope your daughter and all of our children did that today!

:hurray: Woohoo!! DS17 completed the ENTIRE test today and feels that he did well! He believes he is in the running for NM Semifinalist status! (This coming from a Guheert child, all of whom typically say they have "NO IDEA" how they did on any given test. :tongue_smilie: ) Of course we won't know how he did until December or January, but I must say that he did all that he could to give himself a shot at it. Well, we didn't have a wristwatch so I disabled the beeper in a timer and sent that in with him, but the test administrator would not let him use it. He didn't argue the point and instead used the room clock for timing. We are convinced that having him take the SAT on Saturday was a very good decision. While he was more than a bit disappointed about not completing the reading section of that test, the value of alerting him to that potential issue BEFORE the PSAT was very high indeed. He made SURE not to repeat that today. One other thing that came up today during the test was that I had inquired during the "pre-bubbling" session about whether we were allowed to bring trail mix containing peanuts and/or peanut-butter-filled pretzels, or whether the school is a nut-free zone. I was informed that the school was a latex-free zone but NOT a nut-free zone. As it turns out, my children took the PSAT in a "nut-free classroom" and were not permitted to have their snacks in that room. Fortunately, they DID allow them to eat their snacks in the hallway. This has been a long, challenging road for DS17, but hopefully he has achieved his goal. We won't know the answer to that for a couple of months. In any case, he is DONE with PSAT prep. But we will have his SAT scores next week and I will post them here. His SAT scores are certainly high enough for the scholarships at his school since they superscore, but we won't know if he needs to retake the SAT for NM finalist status until we learn how he did on both the PSAT and SAT this time around. Interestingly, the twins (DD15 and DS15) also felt that they did very well on today's test. I don't know if that means the overall average scores on this year's PSAT will be higher or not, but it does bring up a possibility that we have been contemplating: If one or both of them achieve NM Semifinalist status this year, we will consider advancing them one year to claim the available scholarships. This is less likely with the twins than with DS17 since they are less consistent on the reading and writing sections, but they certainly have it in them. We'll cross that bridge if/when we get to it.

Certainly for us it has. At many schools, merit scholarships based upon achieving NM Finalist status are worth significantly more than any SAT-based scholarships. In the case of DS17 and his target school, a NM Finalist will earn probably about $70,000 more worth of scholarships than will one based solely on the SAT (regardless of the SAT score). ETA: Funny thing: If we lived a mile from here to the northeast, achieving NM Finalist would be significantly easier than it is living here! In fact, DS17 likely would have achieved it last year under those conditions.

DS17 took the SAT this morning. It sounds like he did well, but he unfortunately did not complete the Reading section of the test. He thinks he guessed on seven questions due to running out of time. This is something that happened on the PSAT test last year, as well. It seems that he is used to being able to keep time using a clock during the practice sessions and he did not come up with a way to time himself properly in the actual testing situation. We are trying to find an appropriate timepiece for him to use and to make sure he knows how to use it before the PSAT on Wednesday. OTOH, he completed the other three sections of the test, including BOTH Math sections! Of those, he only struggled with one problem on the Math With Calculator section related to a circle. It sounds as if the circle was a red herring and he could have easily solved the problem with the Pythagorean Theorum, but that solution did not come to him. As long as his accuracy was good on the other problems, he should achieve a high math score. (His #1 school choice does superscore.) We've encouraged him not to worry about what happened in the Reading section since he usually finishes it in time. Hopefully we can come up with an appropriate timepiece that he can use. Did anyone else take the SAT today?

PSAT prep is done! DS17 will take the SAT on Saturday and the *official* PSAT next Wednesday. His abilities on these tests have improved immensely. He completed all of the last three official College Board practice tests that he has taken. He achieved the following scores on those tests: SAT #8: 1520, PSAT #1: 1500, PSAT #2 1500. At this point I will say that he is "ready" with full knowledge that the PSAT has very little room for missed questions if the goal is to achieve NM Finalist status in this state (VA). I've asked DS17 to relax between now and Saturday and rest in the confidence that he knows the materials well. Thanks again to all for the many forms of assistance provided in this thread! Hopefully others will benefit (or have benefited) from the discussions here. I will update as we receive his scores. Good luck to all the other 11th-grade students taking the PSAT next week!

Yes, PocketPedia is $3.99 on the App Store and bills itself as an add-on to BookPedia and DVDPedia, as you originally said. No problem with the price, but since LibraryThing is online and free for up to 200 entries, that may suit better. Hopefully everyone can browse all of the titles without giving full write access to all. I'll give that a try and see how it works out. Thanks again!

Those sound great! We do have a Mac here, so I will have a look. Thanks!

I half-way sawed off my left index finger with a chainsaw at the middle joint. The doctor sewed it back on, but movement is now limited and feeling in my finger is not normal. I think the worst part about the above accident was the chainsaw stories I heard while recovering from the surgery. The doctor required me to hold my finger above my head for a MONTH, so EVERYONE asked about it. I heard the most horrendous chainsaw stories from people once they learned how I hurt my finger. It's really hard to believe how many people have either had a chainsaw accident or know (or KNEW :ohmy:) someone who had one. MomsintheGarden had a similar accident with a bandsaw, but I don't think too many people recounted anecdotes about bandsaw accidents to her. :tongue_smilie:

I am running an adult Sunday-school class in which I would like to lend physical books and DVD movies to members of the class. This library will have about 100 books and about 100 movies available to lend. It would be nice if it would populate detailed information about each title, just like a movie or book database app does, but I need to have the features that would allow me to track who has what resource checked out of the library. The lending part can be fairly basic, but what I have now does not have anything in this regard. I suppose an online library of some sorts would be preferable since it would allow the members to browse the library and request a copy, but I'd be fine with a iOS app which runs on my iPad. Free is preferable, but I'm willing to pay a small license fee for access to such a thing. I'm fairly adept at Google Sheets and Google Forms, but I cannot see an easy way to make those work. I could write an app to do all that I need, but I'd much prefer to use something that already exists. Does anyone know of something which might work for this purpose? TIA!

Was the article written by a teddy bear manufacturer?

Mustard and raw onions here. I cannot eat most hot dogs due to the MSG (or MSG-producing ingredients) included. The all-beef hot dogs from Costco are great, though!

The official PSAT for DS17 is four weeks from today so I figure it's a good time for a status update. DS17 took the sixth and last test from the Ivy Global 6 Practice Tests book yesterday. He did well: Reading: 50/52 Writing: 42/44 Math No Calculator: 20/20 Math With Calculator: 34/38 in the allotted time, 36/38 after about 10 minutes longer. I believe that is close to NMF status, but not quite in our state. As you can see, his speed is much better than it was when I started this thread, but he is still fairly tight on Math With Calculator. In this case, he spent his time on a problem which he knew how to do, but he made some math errors while working on it. Looking forward DS17 will take the official College Board SAT Practice Test #8 next week. He will then take PSAT tests from the College Board the following two weeks. Unfortunately, I have no PSAT tests which he hasn't already seen, so those will not be new to him. Finally, he is taking the October 7, 2017, administration of the SAT as his final "practice" before the PSAT on October 11. I just pray that he has a good test day for the SAT so that he does not become discouraged. That decision was a trade-off between getting another official practice in with some risk of discouragement versus having an extra few weeks of prep to do for the SAT in November. He chose this approach, which I fully support. Hopefully he will be fully done with both the PSAT and the SAT on October 11! Since the math problems seem to be the most popular part of this thread, here is the problem which consumed DS17's time yesterday: He eventually got the right answer, but I don't see the shortcut which allows for a rapid solution. Normally with a problem of this type, there is a way to quickly solve for x + y. Does anyone see a way to do this quickly? TIA! I have to say that it has been interesting this year doing PSAT prep this year with DS17 along with his twin siblings DD15 and DS15. They are all so different! Neither of the twins have problems with speed on these tests. DS15 is what MomsintheGarden calls a "plodder". He is uber-consistent and works very hard. His scores reflect it. He achieved a NMF score last week and only missed by a bit this week because he missed six reading questions (not yet consistent there). DD15 is the opposite of consistent. For instance, yesterday she got a perfect score on Math No Calculator and then missed 10 out of 31 on Math With Calculator just a few minutes later. :willy_nilly: Thanks again to all who have provided their anecdotes, expertise and support in this thread! I hope that PSAT and/or SAT prep is going well for your children this year.

It seems a bit silly to me to reward these credit agencies with a windfall for being complete screwups.

I'd say Fuddrucker's is better than both Five Guys and In-And-Out Burger. If I had to pick between the two, I'd pick Five Guys.

I paid for our 2017 PSAT tests today. Unfortunately the practice exam which is included in the booklets is identical to the practice exam which was distributed in 2015. As a result, I have no new PSAT tests to give DS17. Just PSATs he has previously seen and some SAT exams.

This thread will document my efforts to use the pot from a 6-quart Instant Pot as an insert inside the 8-quart Instant Pot. Motivations: I have four main motivations for wanting to use the 6-quart pot within the 8-quart Instant Pot: - This should maximize the size of the insert that I can place within the 8-quart Instant Pot since the 6-quart pot nearly fills up the space. This is because of its lack of handles. - Using the 6-quart pot as an insert should allow me to steam potatoes and eggs and then mix the potato salad right in the pot and store it using a silicone lid (assuming Instant Pot ever decides to sell the 6-quart lids again :glare: ). Of course I can accomplish the same thing directly within the 8-quart pot, but that would require me to put water in with the potatoes. - The 6-quart pot is smaller than the 8-quart pot, making it a better size for serving and for fitting into the fridge. Note that you cannot completely fill the 8-quart pot anyway, so 6 quarts is sufficient. - The 6-quart pot and its lid are cheaper than the 8-quart pot. Goals: Here are my goals for this project: - Do not damage or destroy the 8-quart Instant Pot. - Do not injure or kill anyone because of an explosion. - Do not modify any of the items to make this work, although I will consider modifying the 6-quart pot if it is absolutely necessary. - Be able to cook just as many potatoes and eggs in the 6-quart insert as I would normally cook in the 8-quart pot. Test #1: Q: Does the 6-quart pot fit inside the 8-quart pot? A: It depends! Halftime Hope tried it with the pots from her 6- and 8-quart Instant Pots and it didn't work: With our pots, the 6-quart pot fits inside of the 8-quart pot and the rim of the 6-quart slides down about 3/4 inch below the rim of the 8-quart pot. As such, I can fit the 6-quart pot inside the 8-quart and I have plenty of room for the seal. However, as Halftime Hope said, there is NO space between the rim of the 6-quart pot and the sides of the 8-quart pot. None. You can (sorta) see the fit in the picture below (the seal is sitting on top of the 8-quart rim): I am not dissuaded by the tight fit since I'm hopeful that the pressure from the steam will expand the walls of the 8-quart pot enough and/or raise the level of the 6-quart pot enough to allow it to fill all of the space in both pots. But there is a risk that I can see here: If the 6-quart pot is lifted all the way up against the seal it is possible that either the pressure will not equalize inside the 6-quart pot and it could be crushed OR the seal to the 8-quart pot will be disturbed, venting steam out of the pot and preventing pressure from building up. Test #2: Q: How much water can be placed between the 8-quart pot and the 6-quart pot? A: More than three cups. My recipe for potato salad currently calls for two cups, but I tried three since some things call for three. With three cups of water, I can push the 6-quart pot all the way down onto the bottom of the 8-quart pot and no water is forced above the rim of the 6-quart. But the pot is quite a bit more buoyant with three cups of water than with two due to the increased pressure on the bottom due to the added height of water on the sides. Test #3: Q: Can I run the Instant Pot through a 4-minute, low-pressure cycle with two cups of water between the two pots and nothing in the 6-quart pot? A: No! When I tried this, the 6-quart pot rose up to the level of the seal causing steam to be vented directly out of the 8-quart pot around the seal and water to be accumulated in the lip that is there to catch water in case of this type of leak. This test was clearly a FAIL. Just as Halftime Hope had predicted, there does not seem to be sufficient space around the 6-quart pot to allow for the pressure to equalize on the inside and outside of the 6-quart pot. And this test is with just water. I suspect things could be much worse if sticky starch from the potatoes gets into that crack. So the question becomes this: Will adding mass to the 6-quart pot prevent it from floating up, or do vents need to be cut into the 6-quart pot to make it work? I decided to add a test with weights, just to see if that makes any difference. I suspect it won't, but it's worth trying. Test #4: Q: Can I run the Instant Pot through a 4-minute, low-pressure cycle with two cups of water between the two pots and two pounds of glass weights in the 6-quart pot? A: Yes. Amazingly, this test succeeded. The weights must have been just enough to keep the pot from floating up and disturbing the seal. During "cooking", there was a bit of rattling as the water vapor pushed past the rim of the 6-quart pot. I even did a "Quick Release" of the pressure and I did not sense anything that would make me think the 6-quart pot was being shoved up against the seal during venting. At the end of Test #4, very little water was inside the 6-quart pot with most of the water still in the 8-quart pot. This is not an unreasonable result, but it makes me wonder if enough water vapor will get to the potatoes when I actually try to cook them using this method Test #5: Q: Can I cook potatoes (and hard-boil eggs) with the 6-quart pot inside the 8-quart pot using my standard 2 cups of water, low pressure, 4 minutes and quick release of pressure? A: To be continued...

If the Saffir-Simpson scale went above 5, Hurricane Irma is now right about where 6 would start: 182 MPH or 158 knots.

Cat 5 now...

I will second the recommendation to ONLY take bioidentical hormones. MomsintheGarden developed a GIANT fibroid cyst not very many weeks after starting to take birth-control pills (long ago). Taking counterfeit hormones can be very dangerous.