SHSAT

Introduction In recent years, New York City lawmakers have attempted to transform the admission process for specialized high schools, selective public high schools, by moving away from the SHSAT (Specialized High School Admissions Test). COVID-19 precautions have further complicated the testing process. In October 2020, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the chancellor initially failed to […]

Throughout New York City sits nine of the cities most elite public high schools. These high schools, aptly named Specialized High schools, provide academic instruction to the city’s brightest students. These high schools each have focused specializations and educate students using the most effective instructional methods. Since these schools are public high schools, any student […]

Just as you will be seeing revisions on the SHSAT that have rely on grammar basics like Subject/Verb Agreement and Articles, you also will need to remember how to structure sentences using conjunctions.  Conjunctions (such as ‘and’) connect words, phrases, and sentences.  Conjunctions function in three ways:  to coordinate ideas, to pair ideas, and to […]

You’ll remember from your elementary school days that articles help a writer tell the reader whether they are talking about something general (“tell me about a superhero”) or something specific (“tell me about the superhero with the most anger issues”).  Good writing will make use of both kinds of articles, and good revisions will make […]

So far, our revision prep for punctuation has focused on the comma, which makes sense.  Misuse of commas is the single most common mistake made in writing, and SHSAT writers will take advantage of those mistakes and see if you can identify them.  But, there are many other punctuation mistakes that are made in writing.  […]

When you are revising for punctuation on the SHSAT, the most important guide to remember is that most punctuation errors are from either the wrong punctuation or from too much punctuation. The biggest culprit is the comma!  You might feel the need to use a comma every time you see an “and,” “but,” or “or”. […]

So far, we’ve looked at how verbs agree with each other in sentences (See Verb Tense, part 1 and part 2).  But it’s important to remember that verbs also have to agree with their subjects.  To level up your SHSAT game, dust up on your basic rules, and remember how to best revise for subject/verb […]

Lots of the revisions you have to make on the ELA section of the new SHSAT exam revolve around knowing how to use verbs.  We’ve looked at the Good & the Messy versions of the present tense and the past tense (see Verb Tense, Part 1), but now we’ll tackle the future tense as well […]