Last minute tips before Saturday’s SAT

Hopefully students who will take Saturday’s test have been working through enough practice questions that the following tips about time-efficiency are meaningful.  The test, at three and half hours, is physically and mentally exhausting.  If there are short-cuts that don’t hamper your strategy, you should take them.  Here are some ways you can quickly (and still accurately) answer a variety of questions.

1)  Math

With the warning that you must avoid being “that kid who skipped a question, then mis-bubbled the rest”, I urge you to skip the “I, II, III”, “EXCEPT” and “NOT” questions.  The reason is that your goal must be to collect as many points as possible in the limited time you have.  Since this type of question takes more time and is worth just the same as that straight-forward circle question that’s coming next, just skip it.  The same goes for “EXCEPT” and “NOT” critical reading questions.  Your mantra, throughout this test, must be: “collect, collect, collect”.

Another math tip pertains to the section that has grid-ins starting at question 9.  Hopefully you know that the other math sections go in order of difficulty.  This one does too, but it starts over at the grid-ins.  This means that 7 and 8 will be med/hard, then 9, 10, 11 will be easy.  So skip 7 and 8, and move on to easy points.  (Also, if time is running out during the grid-ins, just fill in the blanks with a number like “5″.  There’s no wrong-answer penalty on 9-18 there.)

2)  Critical Reading

This section features sentence completions, short passages, short dual passages, long passages and long dual passages.  The sentence completions are in order of difficulty, so I would skip the last one and move on to the passages unless you have superior logic/vocab skills.

There is a speedy way to read the longer passages effectively:  only slow down and take notes for certain parts.  These lines include the first and last sentence of each paragraph.  There are often questions about the content or strategy used in those spots.  Then use your finger and stop to a crawl when you see a word like “thus”, “therefore”, “because”, etc… since the author will be making a claim there.  Paraphrase with abbreviations next to those claims.  Then put your finger back in place and speed through more lines.  Stop and underline when you see quotes or when you notice figurative language like metaphors or similes.  That will prepare you for the questions about those devices that are sure to come.  Finally, if the author’s tone or attitude is expressed through a complimentary adjective or harsh metaphor, write an “A” with a circle plus a phrase like “angry at these scientists” or “doubts the guy who said that quote”.  The questions, after all, are more about what the author is doing or suggesting, not about the scientific jargon being used.

3)  Writing

To save time on the first part of the writing multiple choice, try to fix the sentence in your head before you look at the answer choices.  Then match to that answer.  Another tip is to check the shortest answer option; if it’s grammatically correct, there’s no reason the check the others- that’s the winner!  And finally, if “being” is included in an answer choice, eliminate that choice.  Unless it’s for “human being”, it is the form of “to be” that the SAT writers despise.  So if you see “being that he was the first one there…” just cross it out immediately.  And once again there is an order of difficulty, but it starts over with the different types of questions.  So 11 and 29 are the hardest in this section.  (The last “fixing paragraphs” part does not have such an order, but typically the ones about adding information are considered “hard”.)

Good luck on Saturday!  Make sure your calculator is either charged or has fresh batteries!

Unhappy With Your SAT Experience? Give the ACT a Try

Since 2007, all four-year colleges and universities have accepted ACT scores as their applicants’ standardized test submission.  This probably comes as a surprise to some of you since I still hear parents ask if their teens “can take the ACT instead of the SAT”.  We here on the East Coast have historically favored SAT prep; but for students who prefer straight-forward questions, that may be a mistake. (Make sure to check the more competitive schools’ websites for statements like this from Yale College: “Bear in mind, however, that some Yale departments may use the SAT and/or SAT Subject Tests for course placement.”).

I tutor both SAT and ACT prep.  It’s not that the ACT is easier for everybody.  The math section, for instance, asks questions involving trigonometry, (SAT only goes to Algebra 2), and does not provide a math formulas “cheat sheet” as the SAT does. There is also a Science section that tests one’s ability to analyze complex data and reasoning.  Plus, some students report feeling more time pressure during the ACT than during the SAT test.  Both exams are three and half hours long.  Both have an essay.  (It’s optional on the ACTs, unless you are applying to competitive schools.  Again, check with admissions.)

One way the ACT writers distinguish themselves from the College Board writers is by creating essay prompts concerning issues about which students could form a quick opinion.   For example, one ACT question was “Should a C average be required to apply for a driver’s license?”  I can see the 16-year-olds twitching with ready responses!

On the contrary, the College Board recently created this prompt: “Are people likely to be dissatisfied rather than content once they have achieved their goals?”

Would your teen be able to walk into a test site and adopt a meditative mindset to answer that type of question? If you’re not sure, check out the College Board essay website.  Print one out, set a timer and see if s/he can write an argument with focused reasoning.  One can teach the skills for success on both types of essays, but their styles appeal to different students.

Additionally, the ACT’s multi-choice questions don’t have as many distractions as the SAT’s questions.  Here are examples of function questions from both tests:

SAT:

A certain function “f” has the property that f(x+y) = f(x) + f(y) for all values of x and y.  Which of the following statements must be true when a=b?

I. f(a+b)= 2f(a)

II. f(a+b) = [f(a) times f(a)]

III.  f(b) +f(b) = f(2a)

A) None

B. I only

C.  I and III only

D.  II and III only

E.  I, II, and III

ACT:

If x = 2t -9 and y =5-t, which of the following expresses y in terms of x?

A. y = (1-x)/2

B.  y = (19-x)/2

C.  y= 14-2x

D. y= 5-x

E. y=1-x

(answers: C and A)

I chose these two examples because they had a similar position at the end of a math section, meaning that they were both considered “hard” questions. (By the way, the ACT *does* have the occasional question that includes a roman numeral piece in addition to the A-E answer choices.) Notice how the SAT question included a change in variables from the “given” to the answer choices.  Clearly a student could demonstrate knowledge of the rules of functions without this additional switch, and they should have left it as f(x) and f(y).   The College Board writers would defend this move as a test of “flexible thinking”; I would respond that such elements are distractions with little assessment value.

Finally, if a student’s vocabulary is weak, the ACT is the better choice since there are NO sentence completions.   I wouldn’t call the vocabulary in the ACT readings “simple”,  but the student is spared head-scratchers like the following from an SAT Critical Reading section:

8.  The judges for the chili competition were ____, noting subtle differences between dishes that most people would not detect.

A) obscure   B)  deferential   C) discriminating   D)  sanctimonious  E) unrelenting

The answer is C, but most students avoid choosing it because they know “discrimination” has a negative meaning.  ”Discriminating”, on the other hand, describes a person with refined taste.  Is this another example of an unnecessary twist?  There are plenty of college level words that don’t mirror common words with opposite tones;  the confusion detracts from the assessment of higher vocabulary.

There are just a few more SATs and ACTs remaining in this school year.  If your teen will be taking the tests next year, the summer would be a good season to introduce the tests and peruse some prep books.  (In addition to the official test prep books, I like McGraw-Hill “SAT” and Barron’s “ACT 36″).  For more information and for practice tests, please visit the College Board and ACT websites.

One Choice A Student Makes on the SAT Essay That Sets Him/Her Apart

Do you want to stand out in the eyes of the SAT Essay graders?  Follow this simple step: do NOT read the boxed introduction above the actual assignment.

The boxed introduction describes different topics that would serve to answer the assignment.  So guess what the majority of writers are going to write about- exactly the same topics that are in that box.  But you don’t HAVE to, and that’s something a lot of students don’t know.

Here’s an example of what the essay page looks like:

(boxed)Knowledge is power. In agriculture, medicine, and industry, for example, knowledge has liberated us from hunger, disease, and tedious labor. Today, however, our knowledge has become so powerful that it is beyond our control. We know how to do many things, but we do not know where, when, or even whether this know-how should be used.

(under the box)Assignment: Can knowledge be a burden rather than a benefit?

So my tip is simple:  ignore the box and you will be less likely to bore the graders with the same concepts, (in this case: hunger, disease, labor), that other students are writing about.  When a student’s ideas are new, they are interesting, and therefore the grader will judge you as being creative and intellectual.  Be sure to brainstorm and outline your essay first, and of course be sure to answer the assignment with a clear yes or no answer.

Best of luck on the March 9 SATs!

I want a higher SAT CR score- can I skim the passage and skip to the questions?

The Critical Reading passages sections of the SAT are arguably the most dreaded.  Others might say they shiver at the thought of the last two questions in a math section, but at least we can skip a math question and lose only that: one question.  One can’t skip one of those lengthy passages without losing a sizable fraction of the questions in that section.

The Princeton Review guidebook writers, who like to say that they have “cracked” the SAT, (as well as the other standardized admissions tests), have a focus on getting into the mind of ETS (the SAT writers), and plotting to beat them by using unconventional approaches.  I’m a fan of their clear explanations of how to plug-in answers on the math sections.  And on these CR passages, they have shined a spotlight on process of elimination, which I also think is a successful strategy.

I cannot agree, however, with their idea that one should “just skim” the readings and head to the questions.  They describe a plan of attack where a student will follow the order of the questions, knowing they mimic the order of the paragraphs, and hunt for the answer to each question.  I think this can lead to correct answers on “word in context” questions, (e.g.: in line 10, “success” most nearly means…); but overall tone and the purpose questions need to be attacked with a knowledge of how the passage as a whole works.   If a student is planning to accurately answer every question in the CR passages section, the Princeton Review strategy will fall short.

For my students who are aiming for a CR score higher than 600, I teach the strategy of annotated reading.  The student reads with the following goals in mind:

1) to determine the purpose and the central idea of the entire passage, and to note them at in the space below the reading

2)  to jot one little abbreviated note at the side of each paragraph that indicates what the author was proving/examining/developing there

3) to underline rhetorical devices such as figurative language, humor, quotes

4) to star any sentence that is a statement of the author’s opinion

Yes, this takes time.  All this work and one hasn’t even looked at the questions yet.  The beauty of this strategy is that these steps are in anticipation of what will be asked.  Any time I read a paragraph with words such as “this opinion is clearly backwards”, an alarm goes off and I make sure to put a star there.   If a car is described as “a wheezy, dying prehistoric toothsome creature”, another alarm goes off.  The test questions will be about *what the author is doing*.  So when a student has written these notes, the purpose, main idea, author’s attitude, “in order to”, and tone questions can be answered without uninformed, often inaccurate, hunting.

A serious student should be preparing at least eight weeks in advance to score well on the SATs.  During this time, s/he needs to learn strategies such as the passage annotations described above and put them to practice by taking the tests in the College Board’s “Real SATs” book.  After a few practice passages, (it doesn’t really take eight weeks for many students to get better at this), the skill of reading and taking notes with an ear for “what is the author doing” will improve both in accuracy and speed.

The SAT prep students will be reading college-level material soon.  We should be promoting the skill of critical reading: having an eye to an author’s devices and their strengths and weaknesses.  Beyond a high Critical Reading score, it will help students stand out in class participation as well as write sophisticated essays.

Check out my Day-Before-The-SAT Post

http://wp.me/p2wQZD-5

One Japanese Method of Multiplication

An interesting use of line intersections as a way to multiply numbers- but does it take too long in some cases?

Review of Direct Hits’s “Core Vocabulary of the SAT”

I’ve obtained a copy of “Core Vocabulary” and I’m enthusiastically recommending it to my students. I want this portable book to be a mainstay of their backpacks- ready to be perused during school downtime. (That still exists, doesn’t it?)
The book has chapters that include 100 of what the writers call “core SAT words”; these offer examinations of three words per page, complete with definition and extensive example sentences. The writers thought to dip into pop-culture for the subjects of their sentences, so one will read about “Harry Potter”, “The Avengers”, and “The Office” for example. Then in other vocab-in-context sentences, there are topics taken from high school lit and history classes. I also appreciate that synonyms are mentioned and other SAT vocab words are used in the new word’s sample sentence.
The writers include a chapter devoted to words that can be used to describe a personality. I find this helpful when tutoring students because so many of the Sentence Completion questions involve determining the attributes of a person. In another chapter, more SAT words are defined as part of a history lesson on the origins of that word. Those kinds of descriptive explanations help a student’s brain process the word better- now there’s a story to it that can be imagined as one thinks about that word.
The next two chapters are also helpful; one chapter aggregates words connected by common affixes like “de-” and “-ous”. Then chapter six ventures into the passages section of Critical Reading. The writers describe the attitude or tone implied by higher vocabulary words. Knowing these will help decipher the tougher paragraphs in the Critical Reading section.

All in all, a very thoughtful and student-friendly book that I will recommend to my SAT prep students.