<p>For a lower-to-lower middle class family there are tremendous benefits if someone takes SAT in junior highschool. However any kid should take SAT as a fun rather than putting pressure on them. My son took the test and did very well. His best friend a girl did even better. They both end up going to top five elite boarding prep schools on full financial aid. If someone scores more than 700 in either math or verbal, they receive a free subscription to Imagine magazine. In addition, they are invited to some exclusive summer program on full financial aid (provided they need financial aid). I have been reading some parents on the CC who have given some vague idea about financial aid and motivated kids. My kids friend is receiving around $120,000 in financial aid. My kid is in the same boat. He has met many kids who are in top elite prep school after they received very good SATs but needed financial aid to go to prep school.</p>
<p>I agree that it is good practice to take the SAT in middle school if the student is interested. Imagine magazine is interesting and informative but I don't think you have to have a certain score to receive it for free, my daughter received it and she certainly didn't have a 700 in one section at 12 years old! ( this was a few years ago though)
But there are also other ways to practice if they don't qualify/aren't interested.
Both the Princeton Review and College board have tests and I am sure there are many other resources available.</p>
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<p>"Several of you mention your kids "walking out early." When did that start to be allowed at the SATs?"</p>
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<p>It may not be allowed for the high schoolers. The middle school testers are handled a little differently to make the experience age-appropriate.</p>
<p>When my son took that exam (actually it was first in 6th grade, though I mentioned 7th above), he was taking it along with the high schoolers. No way he could have left early. I know that on a couple of his SAT II's he finished early, checked over his answers, and sat there for a while til allowed to leave. At first it worried me to hear that he had stopped early. But then he said, "Well I got them all right, there wasn't anything more to do." (He was right.)</p>
<p>Marite - My son took the computerized SAT in 7th grade for JHU, then the paper version 2 months later for Duke TIP and got identical math scores and close verbal scores. We felt like the computer was a little easier for him subjectively because blackening in little circles was an issue at that age.</p>
<p>I think part of the reason that smart kids make a lot of careless errors on "the easy ones" may have to do with the sheer number of them on a paper test. That would be reduced on a computerized test so it might be easier to stay focused on each one. Also, the smart student is not going to get every easy one wrong. As soon as they get one problem right, the next problem will be harder. So as long as there are a reasonable number of problems in the pot, the computer should (in theory) be able to hone in on the students ability level even with a few careless errors. It would be interesting to take a bunch of potential high scorers and have them take both a paper and computer version of the same exam and compare results. </p>
<p>Of course, the whole idea of "harder" and "easier" problems may not apply to a particular kid. The computer rates the problems based on percentage of prior test-takers getting them right or wrong. But for an individual test-taker, it is going to have more to do with what they have been exposed to which is going to be unpredictable to an extent. If a smart 7th grader has had algebra 1 but not geometry, then "hard" algebra problems are going to be easier than "easy" geometry problems.</p>
<p>Marite, I share your concern about the computerized version and the consequences for the kids--my son like yours--who make silly errors on the easy questions. My own son missed being an NMS finalist because of a simple arithmetic error--this from a kid doing Calc BC on his own because he's exhausted the county's math offerings. The same thing has happened on every standardized math test, with the result that his IIC score is higher than his math SAT I. Fortunately, he managed to get careful enough to pull them all above 700, but it's a shame about the NMS deal--and I'd hate to have seen him set up for a computerized version that led him to easier questions as a result!</p>
<p>Hi, Marite, </p>
<p>You asked me a specific question, so I'll try to give a specific answer. </p>
<p>I wasn't in the testing room any of the three times my son took JHU-CTY tests for younger-age kids at a ProMetric test center, but all three times he got done earlier than I expected him to (= earlier than the information materials about the test had suggested that we should allow for). For the convenience of parents trying to gauge how well this description applies to their child, I will mention that my son seems to take after me in being fast out of the starting block and quick to zero in on an answer in MOST multiple-choice tests. (See below for details of exceptions :) .) So when my son got out early from the SCAT-II, PLUS, and Spatial Test Battery testing, I didn't know what to make of it. I eventually saw the score percentiles for each of his tests, of course, and his general testing profile is high on the math side and room to grow on the verbal side, but I don't know if he would have scored yet higher if he had only lingered a bit longer on each question, especially at the beginning. </p>
<p>Over the years, I have been trying to learn more about item-response theory, which is the theory on which this kind of selective computerized testing is based. For sure, every test-taker gets several easy questions at the beginning, but some may advance more rapidly into (statistically) harder questions depending on their early performance. It is true, and is ALWAYS true, that a machine-scored test can't distinguish between a slip-of-the-multiplication-tables mistake in calculation and a complete lack of conceptual understanding of a problem, both of which result in a wrong answer. That's why I'm glad my son's classroom math class has voluminous, elaborately graded homework in which showing the steps to a solution counts for much more than merely getting the correct answer. (In my son's course, a correct answer with no steps is at risk for getting NO credit, unless the steps are extremely trivial, but a wrong answer with good steps can get most of the credit allowed on the problem.) </p>
<p>As to motivation, my son, and I suspect yours, Marite, would rather do something hard than something easy. (Aside to other parents: this is one of the best reasons to do the talent search early testing on college entrance tests: for some kids who participate this is one of the first times in their school experience when they have the pleasure of being asked to do something really challenging.) Thus the earliest, easiest problems on a standardized test are usually not too interesting to my son. I try to modify the psychology of the situation by saying to him, "Usually, the first few questions will be pretty easy, and you may think they are too easy. But your challenge is not to rush through them so fast that you miss something about the question and make a mistake. Figure out ways to check your answers as you go." That, I hope, adds enough challenge to the easy part of the test to make it interesting. </p>
<p>There are a LOT of young people on the Art of Problem Solving Web site who say, with reference to math competition tests, "I knew all that stuff, but I just made some stupid mistakes." So, wouldn't you know, the site has an excellent article, "Stop Making Stupid Mistakes" </p>
<p><a href="http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/AoPS_R_A_Mistakes.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.artofproblemsolving.com/Resources/AoPS_R_A_Mistakes.php</a> </p>
<p>about how to avoid stupid mistakes in math competitions. I urge my son to reread that article every few months, and recommend it frequently over on AoPS. More generally, one can never know too much about "easy" math, which of course is the point made in Liping Ma's book Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics. </p>
<p>On the whole, because I know a kid who CONSISTENTLY gets off sequence when doing bubble tests (that is, he starts putting the answer for number 5 in the space for number 6, and so on down the line) even though he is very smart, I'm not sure whether the greater risk is in taking the pencil-and-paper test or the computerized test. For my son, with his "natural" tendency to answer speedily, a useful tip is to say, "Think about what the question is asking and reread it before choosing an answer." For some other students, and perhaps for my son on the verbal side, another useful strategy can be to guess more boldly. The SAT I has a rather wimpy penalty for guessing, and it usually improves one's score simply to make sure all the answer spaces are marked with a REASONABLE guess. I always finished standardized test sections with time to spare throughout my schooling, and USUALLY felt that I had found the exactly correct answer for each question, although I took no "above-level" tests in my youth. </p>
<p>Agreeing with several other parents who posted to this thread, the SAT I should never be a high-pressure experience. (I've heard of some astounding examples of parental pressure over the years, none of which I would desire to duplicate.) Rather, it should be a FUN experience, a chance to try out something new, and especially so at middle-school age.</p>
<p>I agree with you about learning to guess boldly, that is to go with your intuition especially (as the SAT testers themselves recommend) if you can eliminate one answer as wrong. I know that when my son first took the SAT in the Midwest Talent Search he said he didn't answer any question on which he wasn't sure of the answer. He still did very well, but that wasn't the best approach.</p>
<p>But the willingness to guess to some extent goes against your other advice about working through all problems and "showing your work," so to speak. My son is extremely intuitive in math. He doesn't like to, or for that matter, have to, work through all the steps on things. (That cost him a state championship in math competition one year, however, when he lost on a tie-breaker.) On a timed test like the SAT, you often only have to work through a problem enough to eliminate the wrong answers (and distractors).</p>
<p>I think each (successful) test taker has to develop a working strategy that's best for him or her. It does help to be as calm as possible. My son was a great test taker because he liked the challenge but ultimately knew he would do well and wasn't expecting or hoping for perfection (but came pretty close to that on his SAT's).</p>
<p>I believe the computerized SAT is no longer offered at Prometric centers and hasn't been for a couple years, at least.</p>
<p>This is a little off topic, but I think that for any computerized test you take at a Prometric center you can leave early if you are finished. My son took the GMAT there last spring, and people came and went as they pleased.</p>
<p>Tokenadult: Thanks for your very detailed analysis.
Mackinaw: Many high-math kids are intuitive and don't always know how to explain how they got to the solution. When my S was in 6th grade, the teacher would tell him he should explain his solutions to his fellow students (as an alternative to assigning my S more advanced math). My S used to complain that he was no good at explaining things that were obvious to him.
The next year, he began studying for AP-Calc. A kind teacher volunteered to help him via email. The best consequence of the preparation was that my S was forced to explain his solutions (for the Free Response Question). On the test, he found that the calculator-free FRQ was the most challenging and most interesting. Since then, all the math (and Physics) courses he has taken have involved proofs; it is not enough to have the correct solution. The student must prove why it is so.
It is so antithetical to the Multiple Choice pattern of so many standardized tests.</p>