5 on ISEE verbal

I got a 5 on ISEE verbal. How do I improve this? Yes, studying Quizlet/doing problems, but specifically, which sets are helpful?

And also, how much would this bring my chances of getting into top NYC prep schools?

If you can afford it, the 504 Essential Words for SSAT & ISEE (Upper) by J Jonathan book really helped me. It got my ISEE verbal from a 70 to a 84 percentile and my SSAT verbal to a 98th percentile!

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I was mostly looking for quizlet sets/websites, etc. but thank you so much

you got a 5. i would be more open minded. you can buy it online for less than $10. assume you need a 7+.

Hmm. I didn’t do too much Quizlet but I did use ISEE upper level vocabulary by bmadison2012. Some of the sets are questionably easy so I preferred using textbooks like J Jonathan’s but I also really like vocabulary.com because there was a competitive/gaming aspect to it!

That is the exact Quizlet set that I used. I literally know all the words in it by heart, just that most of the words don’t appear in the ISEE, hence why I got a 5

Yeah… I got a six the first time with that set and was absolutely devastated because I memorized all the words. I think what really helped was the vocab.com because I liked the gaming aspect of it and I used sets such as prefixes/suffixes and SAT vocab drills.

my parents want me to do the piqosity 1200 terms set, but the way they formatted the website, it is impossible to memorize. on quizlet, there are the sets, but its literally 1200 terms in 1 quizlet, and i have no way of splitting it up…

How much analogy work have you done? Are you studying all of the definitions of the words? Does the quizlet use secondary definitions within analogies? Learning vocabulary definitions cold and then reciting those definitions is not what the test asks you to to do. You need all of the nuance of the word to answer the questions correctly. Using the print tool is almost almost better. The quizlet generally steals the vocabulary list but doesn’t have the actual strength of original material.

1200 terms! Wow! If I were you, I would comb through the list and boil it down to the words that I don’t know and work on those. Learning prefixes, suffixes, and root words can shorten the process and aid you if you don’t know a word during the test.

I really dislike the 1200 terms set and i feel that it is impossible to memorize. I have 3 weeks to prepare for my winter season ISEE, and I feel like if I bought a book that teaches slowly, I wont be able to finish it.

1200 is a lot. I wouldn’t want to do that either but with hard work I think you would be able to finish the book because there are 42 sets in the book and since you are applying to competitive schools I’m assuming you are a dedicated person. Each take about 30 minutes, 15 if you just do the matching. And if it helps, just don’t go over words you already know and start narrowing your list down each time you master a word. Pick and choose the hardest words for you from the set of 1200, if you don’t go the book route, and focus on those consistently. Maybe try and SAT vocabulary on Quizlet because those should be harder therefore preparing you for the easier ISEE and SSAT.

How much will a 5 actually affect my chances? My parents think that it will be basically an auto-reject

What was your math score?

Assume NYC top prep schools take 10% of the kids with average scores and they are likely standout athletes and/or underrepresented ethnicities.

Verbal - 58th percentile
Reading - 92nd percentile
Quantitative - 99th percentile
Mathematics - 99th percentile

I do not think anyone reasonable (which you are) gets an auto-reject. On the other hand, I would not expect to get into the top tier. If you are not full pay, odds are even lower than that…

If you are full pay, you may have 5-10% odds based on my experience.

Yeah, that’s what I assumed. I’m also an Asian male so I think that makes my chance a decent bit smaller.

I will try to get my verbal to 90+ though

i got the 504 terms book, yeah most of these terms i don’t recognize

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Yay! Good luck on the test.