May 5

Reached home at around 8 PM. Between food, IPL, and a wash - completed the target for today - 20 SC, 20 PS, 2 RC passages from OG 10th ed. Satisfactory start - need to keep it up and perhaps up the numbers next week onwards.

SC -> 18/20.

Messed-up Q239 and Q251.

Q239 Organized in 1966 by the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Breeding Bird Survey uses annual roadside counts along established routes for monitoring of population changes of as many as, or of more than 250 bird species, including 180 songbirds.

(A) for monitoring of population changes of as many as, or of

(B) to monitor population changes of as many, or

(C) to monitor changes in the populations of

(D) that monitors population changes of

(E) that monitors changes in populations of as many as, or

Q251 The gyrfalcon, an Arctic bird of prey, has survived a close brush with extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than when the use of DDT was sharply restricted in the early 1970’s.

(A) extinction; its numbers are now five times greater than

(B) extinction; its numbers are now five times more than

(C) extinction, their numbers now fivefold what they were

(D) extinction, now with fivefold the numbers they had

(E) extinction, now with numbers five times greater than

- Watch the agreement of pronoun with noun.
- "five times greater than when" is okay; need not be "five times greater than they were when", which probably has a completely different meaning ("five times greater than how much greater they were when") - ???.

PS -> 19/20.

Simple calculation mistake in squares of 21 & 19 - Q 245. Grrr...

RC -> Passages 1 & 2 -> 12/12.

Good going here although P1 was really scary and I had to rush through reading the second half. Its tricky to know when to let go of really trying to understand the passage and go to the questions instead and work backwards from there.

Remember: The eye of the tiger.