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<p>Wow! You are a really deep reader. I’m impressed. The way you just summarize dozens of pages into ten words is quite a feat and I hope you’re very proud of yourself.</p>
<p>ok, I will quote xiggi himself.</p>
<p>“Since I am not a professional tutor -and not even an amateur tutor- I do not keep track of score
improvements.”
Sorry, can’t take advice from a nobody… and someone who recommends terrible workbooks such as Gruber.</p>
<p>^If you don’t want to take advice from xiggi, DON’T. No one will really care. If you do a little background reading you will see that many of the people on this site choose to take some advice from xiggi. If you want to suggest a better approach feel free to make suggestions, especially if you can back them up. Actually, your argument about Gruber’s included some facts so you are moving in the right direction. </p>
<p>But please show a little more respect for the opinion of others. Also, it would be great if you would stop making broad overarching comments about situations when you have very few facts (i.e. your comments about firing guidance counselors and selling books to name a few).</p>
<p>I read that complete thread and even though I agree with some of study techniques @TomsRiverParent suggests, I think he (TomTiverParent) was being very rude and unprofessional talking to that high school kid. People come to this site for advice, not to be told that that they are dumb. This was very unfortunate. That kid showed a lot of character by typing the above message instead of calling names or swearing.</p>
<p>I don’t know who this xiggi is, but for example if I were tutoring someone who scored a 750 on the math SAT, why would I use mainly real SATs? That student got maybe 3 wrong on the whole test. I would start with Barrons and probably move on to Math SAT 800 and Crush the Test. Barrons also has good study material, aside from problems. </p>
<p>It would be a total waste of time for someone who score 630 or above to have that student keep doing whole real SATs.</p>
<p>I checked out that Green guy’s website. He says he charges $850/hour for SAT tutoring. I will have to mention that to some of my clients so they will know what a good deal they are getting. I guess there are people in NYC for whom $5-30K for SAT tutoring is nothing compared to prep school, college, and professional school tuition and donations.</p>
<p>sattut… I agree totally.</p>
<p>This is quote from xiggi.
“Since I am not a professional tutor -and not even an amateur tutor- I do not keep track of score improvements.”</p>
<p>Not only that, xiggi recommended Gruber Math which is probably the worst workbook on the market.</p>
<p>Analogies can be misleading. “Use harder material to practice. It’s like training in the mountains for a race.” But maybe the SAT is more like a free-throw shooting contest. “I think I will practice on 11-foot rims and then on 12-foot rims. That way, on the day of the contest the 10-foot rims will seem easy.” But alas…it doesn’t work that way. Like a free-throw, the SAT requires the right touch.</p>
<p>So what should a 700 student do to climb to the next level? Yes, real practice with real material. They don’t need any other book (not even mine!) but they do need real tests. Even though they only miss a few each test, practicing with authentic material helps to develop that touch. When you practice with real material, you calibrate yourself. You learn how hard to think on a #7, a #14 and a #19. And you become faster at it, without ever trying to rush. Also, in your practice, if there are gaps in your math knowledge, you will find them and patch them. If you practice with harder material, you discover (and waste time patching) gaps that are not relevant. </p>
<p>Finally, by practicing with real material, you see the themes that get tested again and again. By the time you take your real test, you have a familiarity with those themes. A problem that requires level-5 insight is much easier when you have wrestled with that issue before. So hit the blue book, hit the released tests, hit the on-line course if you are a big spender (though really, a dozen practice tests is enough). But stay away from the 13-foot rims.</p>
<p>But a 700 student is rarely going to get any but the level 4 and 5s wrong. So you could argue against studying harder than level 5 problems, but it doesn’t make much sense to keep taking easy problems the student knows how to do. Yes, I would take some timed whole real tests.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone is suggesting to take fully timed tests with non-college board practice tests.
The issue is doing extra problems (homework if you will) between the fully timed tests. Level 4/5 type questions if you are already 600+.<br>
I still stand by using Barrons or other like material that is known to be harder than CB tests.</p>
<p>Oh, I don’t know about that – there are plenty of students walking around with 740’s because they missed a couple of easy or medium questions. And often, it was from overthinking, which is the kind of thing “calibrating” helps with. I even know a 2390 scorer who screwed up about 0 not being positive. (Maybe he should have read my book more thoroughly – that one is in there.) And again, more practice even at the lower range of difficulty leads to an effortless increase in speed which leads to an extra couple of minutes to think about the nasty ones.</p>
<p>But I do agree that there comes a point where taking yet another full practice test is an obsessive waste of time. At that point, you might as well go take the thing. But nowhere in there do you reach a point where it is productive to practice with fake tests.</p>
<p>I don’t know what the thing about fake tests is. I agree there are some advantages to using real problems. However, for example, the Barrons general book has problems with squares inscribed in circles and circles inscribed in squares. It helps to know all the things like that. </p>
<p>They also have problems categorized by topic. So if someone getting like 630 is weak on certain topics, I can just give them relatively hard problems in those topics. Also, some people are used to studying one topic at a time in school and don’t learn well jumping around between problems on different areas of math.</p>
<p>When I am tutoring, I focus on teaching the student the material on the SAT, 30/60/90 triangles, laws of exponents, etc. They can also study those on their own from books like Barrons. Then I give them problems mostly in their weaker areas where I expect they will get about half right. That is also important in tutoring as it gives me problems they got wrong to go over and make sure they understand the math behind them and can do similar problems.</p>
<p>There is a small amount of math on the SAT. My approach is to make sure the student knows that math and the standard type of problems. </p>
<p>I think that is more effective than just taking real SATs over and over. Maybe that guy who charges $850/hour has a better approach.</p>
<p>“Just taking real SATs over and over” is not the whole battle. But that’s exactly what lots of students do. Then they post threads here asking what to do next, now that they have “finished the blue book”. But the improvement comes from the time you spend analyzing the test after you take it. I am assuming that we are talking about a student who has already reviewed the math content and already learned the tricks and strategies. .Now that student needs to take real tests and then analyze…what did I miss? Why? What did I get right but take too long? How else could I have done that? And did I have any knowledge gaps…</p>
<p>pckeller,
I don’t think anyone disagrees with that approach.
But before doing another fully time test, I recommend doing extra problems in the areas the student has missed the question as homework to master the sub-subject area. Those practice problems coming from Barron’s for instance.
That is where I differ from ALL CB material only crowd.
Many kids are scoring very high using non-CB material so it can’t be all that bad for additional practice problems.
If it were that bad, Barrons, McGrawHill, etc would be out of the SAT workbook business.</p>
<p>I certainly think that there is value in a book that presents the relevant material in a concise way! And one that teaches the techniques…it would be strange for me to argue against that. And I can even see the use of a “work” book for a kid who needs lots of angle problems, say. But those companies are selling books of practice tests! You mention McGraw hill. I can’t see why people buy that book! I think it’s desperation because they “used up” the blue book (having started their SAT prep in utero). But lots of companies of all types stay in business selling useless products that seem to meet a perceived need. </p>
<p>^You do a great job of articulating this issue. Thank you for your contributions.</p>
<p>Rather than doing 50 problems and getting 3 wrong to go over, it might make more sense to do 20 hard problems all in a category you are weak in, and have 10 problems to go over.</p>
<p>pckeller,
McGraw Hill is a great comprehensive study guide for the price if they don’t want all the different subject study guides . I’m speaking of the front 3/4 of the book… not the practice tests.
You have said yourself, the front half of the Blue Book is worthless. </p>
<p>I’ve said before and I will say again, I would only use CB practice tests for fully timed.
And I agree with sattut, focus on harder problems (assume 600+ already) in a category you are weak in as homework instead of another fully timed practice test.</p>