9月SAT亚太考试回忆难度如何？

2020年算是SAT考试命运多舛的一年，多地考试接连取消，作为十年来参加考试人数最少的几次SAT考试之一，今年9月26号的SAT亚太考试不复往年香港亚博考场等地的热闹景象。

但是，不管怎么说，一切还是在往好的方向发展，SAT考生们也应当继续保证复习强度，为未来的SAT考试做好准备。9.26号这场SAT考试整体来看难度适中，且部分重复了今年8月29号的北美卷中的一套，少数考场重复了2018年12月亚太考卷。

SAT阅读部分

阅读部分篇小说类文章是节选于James Baldwin的《Another country》，该篇文章是关于种族、政治、以及男性女性间的情感。

“Set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France, among other locales, Another Country is a novel of passions--sexual, racial, political, artistic--that is stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality, depicting men and women, blacks and whites, stripped of their masks of gender and race by love and hatred at the most elemental and sublime. In a small set of friends, Baldwin imbues the best and worst intentions of liberal America in the early 1970s.”

阅读部分第二篇是关于人们运动后出现的出现的肌肉酸痛，以及局部肌肉劳损而产生的乳酸堆积等等。该篇文章的生词较多，且有大量的专业名词，例如有氧运动（aerobics）、乳酸（lactic acid）、葡萄糖（glucose）等等。（该文有图表）

阅读第三篇是关于geography and its naming，这篇主要是关于在地理上命名一些的原则和方法（地区、海域特征、相关人物、方位等等），文章背景比较偏，有一定的难度。

阅读第四篇是Herbert Hoover（胡佛总统）的一篇演说，主要内容是关于政党和人民自由权利的问题。他先阐述了一战后美国当时的处境，分析了机遇，同时强调了危机，尤其是违法行为普遍存在，并呼吁司法改革。同时，他也列举了一些美国政府对私营企业的政策。这篇文章涉及到多样主题，学生在做题时很难短时间理清文章的逻辑链，是属于一篇中等偏难的文章。

阅读第五篇是关于自然科学类的双篇文章，主要内容是关于地球生物物种的。篇文章先提出一个观点：由于物种灭绝的速度太快，以至于一些物种还没来得及命名就灭绝了，紧接着反驳上述观点。第二篇反驳了篇的观点，强调科学家发现并命名新物种的能力在提高，同时每年物种灭绝的数量远远高于篇中所认为的。

SAT文法部分

文法部分篇是关于geography（这次考试地质类出现频率蛮高的哦~），主要是阐述地理学科和其它学科之间的交叉和关系，难度属于中等。

文法部分第二篇是关于Predictive analytics, 主要内容是基于大数据（样本研究对象 ），结合人的行为模式，进行合理预测，该篇文章考点不难，属于easy-medium难度。

文法部分第三篇是关于一种小说流派的，即通过一些现代手法，去改写之前的古典小说，将相同主题置于一个与之前完全不同的背景之下。

这次考试中的词汇辨析较难，对同学们语义度的考察要求很高，例如ensure、assure、insure之间的差别，这题应该是有不少同学的失分项，尤其是ensure和assure这两个词的辨析。

Ensure：to make sure that something happens or is definite，即确保某事会发生

Insure：to buy insurance so that you will receive money if your property gets damaged or stolen, or if you get ill/sick or die. 即投保

Assure：to tell sb that something is definitely true or is definitely going to happen, especially when they have doubts about it 使人确信某事会发生；make yourself certain about something 弄清、查明

SAT数学部分

数学部分依旧无太大变化，考点与以往考试相同，代数部分、应用题、数据分析和几何依旧是考察重点，例如这次数学题中出现了速度和行程问题。

但整体来说，SAT数学难度并不大，同学们复习时要注意弄懂相关知识考点、熟悉专业名词、并提高自己的阅读速度和语义理解的度，考前注意模考，把握好做题pace，数学800分不是梦！

写作部分

这次的写作题目为“Cash Incentives Won’t Make Us Healthier”，文章分段较多，题材新颖，论据非常丰富，分论点清晰。修辞手法的使用也是同学们在短时间内可以识别出来的，难度适中

写作原文如下：

Adapted from Alfie Kohn, “Cash Incentives Won’t Make Us Healthier” 2009 by USA TODAY. Originally published May 21, 2009.

P1 In its first salvo at reforming health care, Congress is  reportedly considering legislation that would do two things: help employers to set up wellness programs and encourage the use of financial incentives to promote healthier living.

P2 The first idea is terrific. The second one is terrible.

P3 Programs that reward employees who lose weight or stop smoking are already fairly common. A National Business Group on Health (NBGH)survey found that 30-40 percent of companies now offer such incentives.

P4 Some critics say this amounts to corporate intrusion into employees’ private lives.  But there’s amore fundamental problem: Paying people to become healthy simply doesn’t work,  at least not in the long run. Regardless of whether the goal is to increase quality of life or hold down costs, incentives are mostly ineffective—and may even be counterproductive.

P5 In 2007, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported that “published research does not support the idea that financial incentives  are effective at getting people to stop smoking.” The following year, an academic review of the available data agreed: “Smokers may quit while they . . . receive rewards for quitting, but do no better than unassisted quitters once the rewards stop.”

P6 Likewise, an NBGH summary of weight-loss research in 2007concluded that the promise of a reward may induce people to join a program but there is “no lasting effect” in terms of slimming down.

P7 Have newer studies had better luck with incentives, as press reports suggest? Last December, researchers supposedly found that people lost more weight if paid to do so.  But the small, poorly designed study showed no statistically significant difference at the final weigh-in. A study of incentives and smoking published earlier this year produced a similar discrepancy between breathless news accounts and unimpressive actual findings.

P8 By contrast, three better-designed experiments—in which various kinds of training and support were provided for quitting smoking—discovered that the effectiveness of these interventions was reduced if a reward was offered for kicking the habit. In some cases, people promised money actually fared worse than those who weren’t in a program at all!

P9 If these results seem surprising, it may be because of how we tend to think about motivation—namely, as something that goes up when we’re offered a dollar, an A, or a “Good job!” If you want this whole test paper, please add my wechat account whose name is time global. But psychologists now realize that there are different types of motivation—and the type matters more than the amount.

P10 “Extrinsic” motivation (to get a reward or avoid a punishment) is much less effective than “intrinsic” (a commitment to doing something for its own sake). What’s more, the two are often inversely related. Scores of studies confirm that the more we’re rewarded for doing something—at work, at school, or at home—the more we’re apt to lose interest in whatever we had to do to get the reward.

P11 Thus, a study in last November’s Developmental Psychology showed, as did two previous experiments, that children who are rewarded for helping or sharing subsequently become less helpful. Similarly, the more that students are led to focus on getting good grades, the less interesting they come to find the learning itself. They also think less deeply on average than students who aren’t graded.

P12 Adjusting the size, type, or scheduling of the incentive doesn’t help because the problem is with the ouated theory of motivation on which all rewards are based. Unfortunately, that psychological theory is still accepted by most economists—including those in the trendy field of behavioral economics—who, in turn, influence public policy.

P13 Sure, bribes and threats can produce temporary compliance. Offer a reward to adults for going to the gym, or to children for picking up a book, and it may work—for a while. But they come to think of themselves as extrinsically motivated, so when the reward is no longer available there’s no reason to continue. Indeed, they may wind up less interested in exercising or reading than they were before.

P14 Rewards have been called “sugar-coated control.” We like the money—or the candy or the praise—but we resent being manipulated with it. Also, rewards are based only on observable behaviors. They ignore the reasons we may turn to food or cigarettes for solace.

P15 “Smoking, drinking, overeating, or not exercising often represent coping strategies for some kind of underlying distress,” Dr. Jonathan Robison, a health educator, observes. Incentive programs not only ignore those problems but may produce “a cycle of repeated failure.”

P16 Better answers: First, address people’s motives and deeper concerns rather than just trying to change their behavior. Second, help people to get some control over their lives. Finally, build on their relationships with others to promote change. Couples and friends tend to lose weight together more effectively than do individuals.

P17 Health can be a tough sell. But it’s clearly something that incentives can’t buy.