How to Choose a Building Lot for Your New House

How to Choose a Building Lot for Your New House Youre building a house. Which do you do first? 1. Select a style and a plan OR 2. Select a building lot? Both approaches have merit. If your heart is set on a Spanish style adobe home, a heavily treed lot may not make sense for you. Having an idea of the architectural style you prefer will determine the size and characteristics of your building site. You may run into problems, however, if you select a specific floor plan too soon. You can always design a home to suit a landscape, but you may not be able to alter a landscape to accommodate the specifications of predetermined house plans. The configuration of rooms, the placement of windows, the location of the driveway and many other design elements will be affected by the land you build on. The land itself has long been the inspiration for truly great homes. Consider Frank Lloyd Wrights Fallingwater. Constructed of concrete slabs, the house is anchored to a rugged stone hill in Mill Run, Pennsylvania. Compare Fallingwater with Mies van der Rohes Farnsworth House. Made almost entirely of transparent glass, this unearthly structure seems to float above a grassy plain in Plano, Illinois. Would the Farnsworth House seem as graceful and serene perched on a rocky hill? Would Fallingwater make such a powerful statement if it sat in a grass field? Probably not. Questions to Ask About Your Building Lot Once you have located a promising building site for your new home, spend some time on the building site. Walk the full length of the building site at different times of the day. If you are a follower of feng shui, you may want to think about the land in terms of its chi, or energy. If you prefer a more down-to-earth evaluation, think about ways the building site will influence the shape and style of your home. Ask yourself: What are the general characteristics of the land? Is it green and woodsy? Rocky and gray? Or, is it a vast open stretch with a golden hue? Will the prevailing colors of the landscape change with the seasons? Will the home you imagine blend with the landscape? Does the landscape suggest particular colors or materials you might include in the design of your home?Can other structures be clearly seen from the building lot? What is the prevailing architectural style? Will your proposed home fit the overall context of the neighborhood?Will the size of your proposed house be proportionate to the size of the lot? (You dont want to squeeze a mansion onto a postage stamp!)Is there a street or road? Should the house face toward or away from the road?Where should the driveway be located? Will there be enough room for cars and delivery trucks to turn around?Where are the most pleasing views? Where does the sun rise and set? Which views would you like to see from the living areas? From the kitchen ? From the bedrooms? Where should windows and doors be placed? If you are in a northern climate, how important is it to face the south? Will a southern exposure help you save on heating costs?Is the site flat? Are there hills or streams? Are there any other geological conditions that might affect the design or placement of your home?How much landscaping will be required? Will preparing the land for building and planting trees and shrubbery add to your final costs? The waterfall views at Fallingwater may look idyllic, but for most of us, building on a rocky hillside isnt practical. You want the site of your new home to be beautiful, but it must also be safe... and affordable. Before you make a final decision, youll need to consider a mind-boggling list of technical details. Check Your Building Lot For Common Problems As you narrow your search for an ideal building site, dont scrimp on getting expert advice on home building. Your builder can put you in touch with consultants with the legal and scientific expertise to offer building advice. Your consultants will investigate the characteristics of the land and explore zoning, building codes and other factors. Land Conditions Soil. Has the property been a victim of hazardous waste? Are there pollutants that may not be apparent to an untrained observer?Land Stability. Is the property is subject to land slides or sinkages?Water Drainage. Is the property located near a river? Are there hills or low spots which may make your home subject to water runoff? Err on the side of caution. Even Mies van der Rohe made a grievous mistake. He placed the Farnsworth House too close to a stream, and his masterpiece suffered serious flood damage as a result.Noise. Is there a nearby airport, highway, or railroad? How disruptive is it? Zoning, Building Codes and More Zoning. In five years, your beautiful views may be replaced by a highway or a housing development. Zoning regulations will indicate what may be legally constructed in the surrounding area.Building Codes. A variety of ordinances will affect the placement of your new home on the lot. Regulations will specify how close you can build to the property line, roads, streams, and lakes.Easements. Easements for electrical and telephone poles will limit the space you have for building your home.Public Utilities. Unless the property is in a development of suburban tract homes, there may not be easy access to electricity, gas, telephone, cable television or public water lines. Sewers. If there are no municipal sewers, youll need to know where you may legally place your septic system. Costs You may be tempted to skimp on the cost of your land so that you can spend more money on building your house. Dont. The cost of altering an unsuitable lot is likely to be more expensive than purchasing land that is meets your needs and your dreams. How much should you spend on a building lot? There are exceptions, but in most communities your land will represent 20% to 25% of your total building costs. Advice From Frank Lloyd Wright Building a house is often the easy part. Making decisions is stressful. In Wrights book The Natural House (Horizon, 1954), the master architect gives this advice on where to build: When selecting a site for your house, there is always the question of how close to the city you should be, and that depends on what kind of slave you are. The best thing to do is go as far out as you can get. Avoid the suburbs- dormitory towns- by all means. Go way out into the country- what you regard as too far- and when others follow, as they will (if procreation keeps up), move on.~p. 134

PSAT Practice Tests Free Questions and Full-Length Tests

PSAT Practice Tests Free Questions and Full-Length Tests SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Why buy a bunch of PSAT practice tests when you can find them online for free? To make your search as easy as possible, I've compiled all the best PSAT practice tests and sample questions available online. Read on for 10 downloadable official PSAT practice test PDFs,along with 10 bonus SAT practice tests. Since the College Board has only released two official practice tests for the current version of the PSAT, I'll also explain how you can modify older practice tests to effectively prepare for the test. Let's get right to it with the first official PSAT practice test PDF for you to download. Practice Tests for the PSAT Thoughthe PSAT changed in the fall of 2015, there still aren't a whole lot of updated PSAT practice materials available. The College Board currently offers two sample PSAT practice testswith answer keys. These arethe best resources out there so far for practice questions for the PSAT: Official PSAT Practice Test 1 - Score Your Test - Answer Explanations Official PSAT Practice Test 2 - Score Your Test - Answer Explanations Test-prep company Ivy Global has also made their version of a PSAT practice test PDFavailable on their website. Keep in mind that these are not official College Board questions.Although they resemblePSAT questions and are useful practice, they're not an exact representation of what you'll encounter on test day. As time goes on, more and more practice materials specific to the current version of thePSATwill be released. For now, you can use a combination of the above resources, older PSAT practice tests, and official SAT practice questions to prep effectively. Before we delve into these other test-prep materials, though, how can you use these two newer PSAT practice tests to study for the exam? How to Use Updated PSAT Practice Tests for PSAT Prep As I mentioned, the College Board's official practice tests are the best representation of what you'll see when you take the PSAT. Before taking them, you should review the content and format of the PSATso you have a sense of what skills to focus on and develop. When you actually take the practice tests, be sure to simulate testing conditions by timing yourself and making sure you're familiar with the test format and instructions. Like with the SAT, there's no score penalty for wrong answers,so make your best guess on every question. Since there are only two official PSAT practice tests currently available, I would recommend saving them until you have done some initial studying. Then you can see how effective your studying has been, analyze your results to get a clear sense of your strengths and weaknesses, and readjust your focus as needed. Want to improve your PSAT score by 150 points? We have the industry's leading PSAT prep program. Built by Harvard grads and SAT full scorers, the program learns your strengths and weaknesses through advanced statistics, then customizes your prep program to you so that you get the most effective prep possible. Check out our 5-day free trial today: Practice Tests for the Old (Pre-2015) PSAT Below, we've compiled eight PSAT practice test PDFs with answer keys that you can download and print out. These consist offour official College Board tests and four unofficial ones. They are scored out of 240 (with the Critical Reading, Math, and Writing sections each worth 80 points) and deducta 1/4 point for each wrong answer. Keep this different system in mind while scoring these old practice tests. Official PSAT Practice Test 1 Official PSAT Practice Test 2 Official PSAT Practice Test 3 Official PSAT Practice Test 4 Unofficial PSAT Practice Test 1 Unofficial PSAT Practice Test 2 Unofficial PSAT Practice Test 3 Unofficial PSAT Practice Test 4 As mentioned above, the PSAT no longer takes a1/4 point deduction for wrong answers; now, it uses rights-only scoring,meaning you get one point for each correct answer and no points for wrong or skipped answers. The current PSAT scores Math on a scale from 160 to 760, and Reading and Writing together on the same scale (160 to 760). Your composite PSAT score, therefore, will be between 320 and 1520. You'll also get individual test scores for Math, Reading, and Writing and Language between 8 and 38 (these are then converted into the scaled scores above from 160 to 760). Besides using adifferent scoring system on the old PSAT practice tests, what else can you do to make your practice testing relevant for the current PSAT? How to Use Old PSAT Practice Tests for PSAT Prep To adapt your studying, you mustfamiliarize yourself with the changes in question types and skills on the current PSAT. For instance,changes to the PSAT in 2015eliminated sentence completion questions in favor of passage-based vocabulary questions, whichask you to define more common words that have multiple meanings. The PSAT also wants you to be able to find evidence for your answers in a passage, graph, or chart. These questions will ask you to interpret details, main points, or data in the context of a passage or other information provided.As a result, you'll need to concentrate on passage-based Reading questions and Math questions that require you tointerpret data from charts and graphs. Generally speaking, the Reading and Math questions on old PSAT practice tests are still very useful for prepping for the current PSAT. That being said, note that the old PSAT was two hours and 10 minutes long, whereasthe current PSAT is a little longer at two hours and 45 minutes.To practice pacing yourself over this longer amount of time, you might add an extra section or two to your practice test. All these changes in content, skills, and scoring match the ones made to the SAT in 2016.Below, we've compiled 10 practice tests for the SATyou can use to prep! Plus, you'll find free SAT practice questions online. But wait, there's more! Practice Tests and Sample Questions for the SAT Like the PSAT, there still aren't a ton of practice materials out for the current version of the SAT, which was firstadministered in the spring of 2016. However, we've gathered 10 official SAT practice tests (with answer keys) that you can download and take: SAT Practice Test 1:Questions | Answers | Answer Explanations | Essay SAT Practice Test 2:Questions | Answers | Answer Explanations | Essay SAT Practice Test 3:Questions | Answers | Answer Explanations | Essay SAT Practice Test 4:Questions | Answers | Answer Explanations | Essay SAT Practice Test 5:Questions | Answers | Answer Explanations |Essay SAT Practice Test 6:Questions | Answers | Answer Explanations |Essay SAT Practice Test 7:Questions | Answers | Answer Explanations |Essay SAT Practice Test 8:Questions | Answers | Answer Explanations | Essay SAT Practice Test 9: Questions | Answers | Answer Explanations SAT Practice Test 10: Questions | Answers | Answer Explanations In addition to these practice tests, you can find some free sample questions on the College Board website. Thesesample questions are for both the PSAT and SAT. This speaks to how similar the two tests have become. Whatever studying you do for the PSAT will help you a great deal once you take the SAT. Finally, you can create an account with Khan Academy and find high-quality practice questions for the SAT. This website works in conjunction with the College Board to produce official SAT practice questions. Given that the PSAT and SAT are so similar, are there any modifications you need to make when using SAT practice questions to prep for the PSAT? How to Use SAT Practice Tests and Questions for PSAT Prep The questions on the SAT and PSAT are almost identical. SAT Math may get a bit more advanced into algebra and functions, but otherwise the questions are very similar. The one exception is that the PSAT does NOT have an optional Essay section. TheSAT is somewhat longer at three hours (plus the additional 50-minute optional essay). Also, although the two tests resemble each otherin both content and scoring, the SAT is slightly more difficult than the PSAT is. As I discussed above, the PSAT isscored on a scale of 320-1520, with a range of 160-760 for Math and 160-760 for Evidence-Based Reading and Writing, or EBRW. The SAT, on the other hand, isscored on a scale of 400-1600. The score range for Math is 200-800 and the score range for EBRW is also200-800. Your PSAT scores are meant to predict your SAT scores; however, the scoring scaledoesn't go up as high to account for the fact that the PSAT is a slightly easier test. While a high score on the PSAT predicts a high SAT score, it doesn't necessarily coincide with a perfect 1600. As with the PSAT practice tests, I recommend timing yourself and simulating real test conditions. After, take some time to understand any mistakes you made and determine your strengths and weaknesses. Since the PSAT and SAT are so similar, you may use one test as a diagnostic pre-test and one as a post-test tofigure out where you're starting out and to gauge your progress after significant studying. Given all these practice materials, new and old, you should have plenty of resources to help you achieve a strong score on the PSAT. Let's quickly review the steps you should take to prep for the PSAT. Down to the last piece of the puzzle ... Best Ways to Prep for the PSAT The best resource for PSAT practice questions are the two official PSAT practice tests released by the College Board and listed at the beginning of this guide. Official test questions are the gold standard when it comes to sample questions, as they are the best representation of what will be on the actual exam. Since the PSAT is so similar to the SAT, the practice tests and free online questions for the SAT can be very useful prep tools. These questions will help you get ready for both the PSAT and SAT. Finally, you can still use older PSAT practice tests effectively, as long as you familiarize yourself with the changes to the exam and focus your energies on the relevant content and skills. This understanding will also help you avoid wasting time on material and information that's no longer relevant, such as Sentence Completion questions. As long as you take the time to understand the exam and adapt your test prep accordingly, you can still use the abundance of practice material out there to prep for the PSAT. And as an added bonus, all this prep will help you out a great deal in the future when you take the SAT! What's Next? Are you aiming for top scores on the PSAT? Learn what it takes to become a National Merit Semifinalist and a National Merit Finalist. If your scores qualify you for National Merit distinction, you might be eligible for National Merit scholarships. Read more about how you can earn a National Merit scholarship. Planning to take the SAT, too?Check out this full guide to learn all about the test.