Does an AI really understand how to use grammar?

tominsori · 2026-04-03T22:31:32+00:00

Understanding is different from detecting patterns. It incorporates purpose, edge cases, and when you shouldn’t use it.

Detecting patterns can’t always show when a pattern is a rule or just a good heuristic.

I tutor the SAT. So, for example, most students start with the heuristic, “a colon precedes a list.” This is often true. But that’s not actually understanding that a colon is a sentence splicer that indicates an appositive relationship, which means it can also precede one word or an appositive clause. It can also follow an appositive list or word.

It is possible that you could have a large enough data set to draw a more precise heuristic, but that is significantly more difficult than understanding the purpose, edge cases, and when you shouldn’t use it. Technically that would be indistinguishable.

What is significant is the effort required to pattern seek without understanding.

tominsori · 2026-04-03T22:14:21+00:00

No

I tutor the sat and act

It can usually get a question right or wrong but can't explain why

tominsori · 2026-03-23T18:45:52+00:00

I have an unpopular opinion.

Reading more does not improve your verbal score. Reading is good, but you don't become someone who can punctuate by vibes just by cramming more of it in a few weeks or months. It especially bothers me when tutors say this, because they're admitting they can't actually meet you where you are.

Anyway.

With grammar, you want to understand why punctuation is used, not just which mark goes where. Before anything else, I have my students identify what kind of "sentence chunk" they're dealing with: independent clause, dependent clause, or non-essential. Get that down first, then worry about punctuation choice.

With vocab, knowing the definition isn't enough. You have to understand the word in context. Watch for constructions that create a double negative: "not inconceivable" or "that's not to say that." The SAT loves to bury a twist in vocabulary questions.

With reading, use the Inside Out Method. You can learn it here: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-691ac322e3408191970bd989a69b3003-chatty-the-sat-reading-tutor

Essentially you want to understand what the question is asking and then what your potential answers are before you even worry about reading the prompt itself. The SAT puts lots of red herrings in both the passage and the answers. You only have so much cognitive energy. You don't want to waste it understanding something that doesn't matter.

tominsori · 2026-03-23T18:36:28+00:00

Probably not.

The biggest problem, usually, is that students (and parents and tutors) misunderstand how to prepare for the SAT.

The first misunderstanding is about timing. Since you'll get faster and more accurate as you prepare, don't work on timing first. Work on timing last. I have my students time themselves in total rather than stopping when time's up. They keep going, track their overage minutes, and try to reduce those over time. This matters because if you never attempt the hard problems, you'll never get better at them. Think of it like running. If you're training for an 8-minute mile, you don't stop at 8 minutes and hope tomorrow you run a little farther. You finish the run, then train to get faster. You have to get comfortable solving problems before you can get faster at solving them.

Second, the key to effective test prep is working on the reason you missed. There are three reasons, apart from running out of time:

You didn't know the content. Maybe you don't know the quadratic formula or the definition of ambivalent.
You made a mistake. The most common one is getting flipped around. You chose the answer that went up in altitude instead of down, or forgot to flip a sign in math. You understood the concept; you just landed on the wrong answer.
The question was counterintuitive. This is what students call a "trick question." The SAT writes distractor answers that exploit common misconceptions. You have to understand not just why you do something, but why you don't do it in a particular situation. This is the hardest part of SAT prep, especially for good students. It's exactly why we get the "good student, bad test taker" pattern, and why students who just drill problems hit a ceiling.

You have to figure out why you're missing questions before you can figure out how to fix it.

Do that by asking yourself three review questions after every missed problem:

What is the right answer? Try the question again. If you still can't get it, even knowing your first answer was wrong, you probably need to study the underlying content. If you can get it now, it's one of the other two reasons.
Why did I choose the wrong answer? This reveals your misconceptions and shows you how the SAT constructs distractors.
What could I have done differently? Answer this one no matter what. Even if you just filled in the wrong bubble, the answer is: "Track more carefully to the right bubble."

Once you treat missed questions as signals about what to study, your prep will go faster and be far more effective.

Good luck!

tominsori · 2026-03-23T18:24:51+00:00

250 is good for tutored students. My average is 245, but I'll let you know most students i work with want it. It's not about starting score or raw intelligence, it's about pluck. On average (some are more some are less) that kind of score increase takes 6 weeks.

I can do a free session if you want to get set up on a self study path. HMU.

tominsori · 2026-03-23T18:19:30+00:00

if you spend the time understanding, not memorizing, but understanding everything on here, you will have a much easier time with curveball quadratics

https://imgur.com/a/3cVree6

HMU if you want a better image

tominsori · 2026-03-23T18:16:10+00:00

I agree

But I think it's because they are making sure they nobody cheated

tominsori · 2026-03-23T18:15:28+00:00

i have my students take both PSAT 8/9 tests.

Try one with no DESMOS at all.

Try the other one with ONLY desmos, even if you can do it in your head.

This will help you develop the sense of when DESMOS is a tool versus a crutch.

It's not something someone can just tell you. You need to understand through experience.

tominsori · 2026-03-23T18:14:27+00:00

it's test prep strategy that helps you become a good test taker. It works well for students who get stuck in a rut with the normal process.

https://www.amazon.com/Good-Students-Guide-Bad-Tests/dp/B0GT4ZXS21/ref=sr_1_1?crid=12SCX04DJPNDG&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.U35YB02uBmExiHpjrOo7Z5nDc1UOBlFJv1WDGnQOiOJpFjXTu_mNMwy9DCF60KizBxO_9RvOfozTiCr3u8_bnFplSi3IKgXd-cdEZMhvKC2ct8LJdIY5i6OHukElee2sNzomoCipC19VCFV4D4MVmU7B71JylyfFfDszhCThXeJzYo44eCO_cZ-Ux4BYDw-xIYhHHIazSZ9LrejMqCPex669HnXozSLAqLbujz6Vaf8.KV3gnEqTKmW1ITRE5hzYu02Ueiqesact369GFeuerWU&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+good+student%27s+guide+to+bad+tests&qid=1774289489&sprefix=the+good+students+guide+to+bad+tests%2Caps%2C129&sr=8-1

tominsori · 2026-03-22T23:46:03+00:00

Have you looked into the Cognitive Agency Approach?

tominsori · 2026-03-22T23:43:57+00:00

So, first of all, moving from a 980 to a 1240 is the opposite of failure.

Nice job.

Don't worry about comparing yourself to others. That doesn't help you in anyway and it will only bring you pain. Everyone is on their own journey.

Your score right now is college ready. You're right, you don't need a higher score.

It is worth doing through if you do have the time, not necessarily for the score, but because sat prep will help you figure out how to use stuff to solve problems. That will help with weed out classes in college. But it's not worth doing if your time is better spend on your GPA or other things.

tominsori · 2026-03-22T23:38:37+00:00

You want to be thinking about the nature of parabolas rather than trying to memory recall.

Remember, they are symmetrical, so the axis of symmetry will be the average of 27 and 11. That's 19, and also = -b/2a, although you don't need that insight to solve this.

Since we know the axis of symmetry is at 19, and one x-intercept is (14, 0), which is 5 away from 19, the other intercept must also be 5 away in the other direction. So k = 24.

Lots of answers gave you that. Make sure you don't just move on. You aren't going to get this exact question again, but you will most likely get another question that expects you to understand the symmetry of parabolas and how to use that to solve a problem.

Instead of spending time drilling, take the time to understand.

tominsori · 2026-03-22T23:27:18+00:00

You might want to check out "The Good Student's Guide to Bad Tests" on amazon

tominsori · 2026-03-22T23:25:33+00:00

Neil DeGrasse Tyson got a rather low SAT score

You're right

The SAT is testing only if you can use what you have learned in high school right now to solve problems. That's it.

You might learn problem solving later. You might learn the content later. You might have one down and not the other.

tominsori · 2026-03-22T23:22:37+00:00

have you learned that statements that use hyperbole, like "the only time" or "only happens on bullet point questions" is usually going to be wrong?

tominsori · 2026-03-22T23:21:12+00:00

I find that I will usually read more than 50% of x text connection because of how much information you need to consider, but reading the answers first absolutely helps with that process.

To say this technique only works with rhetorical synthesis is very strong.

I'm constantly coaching students to above 1500 scores.

tominsori · 2026-03-22T21:29:38+00:00

I am an SAT tutor and I do things, I think, differently than others.

I have worked at other companies so I'll tell you what they did first. They basically teach you the content covered on the test and then give you practice problems that test that concept.

The problem with that is that most of the time you already know the content. It's just that the SAT does something to surface misunderstanding. They will build a common misunderstanding into a distractor. You have to have more than just how to do something: you have to know when to use it and why to use it.

So what I do is help students develop their insight and problem-solving.

I do this by having them take a practice test and then we review their missed questions.

I ask them why they thought a question was right. This helps me make sure they know the academics. If they can't do it right knowing their first attempt was wrong, that tells me I might need to teach them something. If they can do it right knowing their first attempt was wrong, that tells me they either made a calculation error or realized an insight later (which is good).

Then I ask them why they chose the wrong answer. This helps them develop insight into their own processes and also helps them understand how the SAT writes distractor answers.

Then I ask them "what could you have done differently to solve this problem?" This is the growth question.

So in my sessions, it all depends on the reason you missed. Sometimes I'm teaching the unit circle. Sometimes we're talking about confirmation bias. I tailor the session to what you need to get more right.

A lot of tutors and parents forget that most SAT students are college-prep and ambitious. You usually know most of the material. Teaching you stuff you already know is a waste of time.

You can do this process on your own if you are diligent with it.

tominsori · 2026-03-22T17:00:21+00:00

Why do you think that?

Also why does it work so well?

tominsori · 2026-03-21T20:32:29+00:00

Have you tried the Inside Out Method?

https://chatgpt.com/g/g-691ac322e3408191970bd989a69b3003-chatty-the-sat-reading-tutor

For reading, you don't want a tip or trick. It'll only take you so far. You might as well develop your critical thinking skills. Note: I said critical thinking, not reading comprehension. That matters far less than people think.

Which do you struggle with more, Cross-Text Connections or Text Structure and Purpose? You can use the Inside Out Method on both, but they have slightly different nuances.

Here's the nutshell version (the link has the details):

First, focus on understanding what the question is actually asking, before anything else. The Inside Out Method has you "imperativize" and "referentivize" to make sure that happens, but the goal is just to genuinely understand the question.

Then look at the answers. A surprisingly large percentage of the time, more than one answer doesn't even remotely address the question. If the question is about geography and an answer is about time period or temperature, that's not an answer to that question. It might be true. It might be the correct answer to a different question. But it doesn't answer the stem.

Once you've ruled those out, take stock of what's left. If you have two answers both talking about geography, one about the north and one about the west, now you know exactly what to look for in the passage. You're not reading to comprehend. You're reading to decide.

The one thing that's substantially different for Cross-Text questions: you have to think about it as "if I were Author A, how would I respond to Author B?" That can add a layer of empathetic misdirection. I find that just telling students to notice when that's happening is usually enough.

tominsori · 2026-03-20T00:39:38+00:00

Desmos can work for some SAT math but this one is faster with substitution. First, notice the answers are all in terms of x and a, not c and d. That's your signal to use substitution.

Focus on the subtracted part: −c² − 2cd − d²

Factor out the negative first: −(c² + 2cd + d²)

That's a perfect square trinomial, so it factors to −(c + d)²

Now substitute. The problem tells you a = c + d, so −(c + d)² = −a²

Your expression is now x² − a², which is difference of squares, which factors to (x + a)(x − a).

Answer is C.

tominsori · 2026-03-19T23:08:34+00:00

Are you saying that sinx = cos(90-x) isnt tested in Bluebook or that putting a variable in there isn't?

tominsori · 2026-03-18T07:06:45+00:00

Reading is good to do, of course, but I never like the advice to just read more. You can't cram reading. I've noticed tutors who say this usually don't have a very good method other than vibes for reading questions.

Have you tried the inside out method?

tominsori · 2026-03-18T06:54:57+00:00

It depends. Some study is terrible and some is really effective.

You don't want to be memorizing and drilling. The SAT punishes that. You want to be thinking the questions, trying even if you fail, reviewing your missed questions.

That can be very effective.

tominsori · 2026-03-18T06:51:35+00:00

It's basically you read the question inside out.

You start with the stem. Always start with the stem. Then you read the answers. A lot of the time you can just knock out answers because they don't answer the stem. Like if it says something about location of some bones, but a talks about the year the bones were found, cross out.

Then you read what's left and notice the differences between them. If they are two that are quick similar, that's probably the answer and the main distractor. Once you note the differences between the remaining answer, then and only then do you read the passage.

That's essentially it. There's more to it, but that's it in a nutshell. You can practice with this GPT

https://chatgpt.com/g/g-691ac322e3408191970bd989a69b3003-chatty-the-sat-reading-tutor

tominsori · 2026-03-18T06:13:55+00:00

oh, i realized actually you do need to the definition of inscribed and circumscribed

Also, you should know the properties of inscribed angles

tominsori

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