<p>Respectfully, xiggi, you’ve become an adult! You are out of touch with the teenage brain, psyche and concept of time when you suggest they shouldn’t “cram” but instead view test prep as a long-term process of skill development. Test takers are always going to study right before the test! </p>
<p>Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk</p>
<p>Right with you xiggi on scheduling. After consulting parents and students on cc and having 4 pages of comments and thank yous for bring up the topic, my son took his first SAT in Dec Jr. Year. Retook the SAT in March. APs done in May. Subtests done in June. DONE.</p>
<p>"All the final SAT and ACT tests should be taken in the first 6-7 months Junior year, leaving the rest of the HS to suffer the AP/IB syndrome, and work on the applications. "</p>
<p>You can’t tell me what would work for me and my kids if you try. My kids did study the summer before junior year. They did take SAT during junior year, and both of my kids did the best by far on the October test during senior year after summer SAT study. My point is why even force feed your idea on people, any scheduled test should be available to everyone. It is their job to figure out what works best for them and take it then.</p>
<p>TXArtemis, I respect your opinion, although I am lot less disengaged than you might think. I also agree that the biggest common denominator of poor success on the SAT is usually relying on cramming and procrastinating. My conclusions are not based on a datapoint of ONE, but on plenty of personal experience.</p>
<p>My comments are not made to discount the opinions of others. This said, I believe that I have formed an educated opinion of what works and what does not work that well for this precise subject.</p>
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<p>Aren’t you mixing a couple of issues here? </p>
<ol>
<li>Do I agree that the test should be available to all? Yes</li>
<li>Do I agree that it should be available in the summer, and to everyone? Yes and Yes</li>
<li>Do I think that EVERYONE should be done by the end of the Junior year? No</li>
<li>Do I think that is is best to TRY to get them all done in Junior yes? Absolutely … Yes.</li>
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<p>and this for the fifth reason</p>
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<li>If you schedule the test for the Senior year, your chances to run out of options increase, and so are your chances to be more nervous about the NEED to do well, or even sending the scores on time for early admissions.<br></li>
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<p>And, fwiw, I am not force feeding this to anyone. Just trying to help others avoiding mistakes, and spending a few months agonizing about what should have taken place. </p>
<p>Read this forum for as long as I have, and you will see plenty of April and May regrets, and plenty of advice of parents to the following generations, including … if I had to do it again, I would …</p>
<p>I am not mixing any issues, I am responding to your #163 post before you again blur the issues.</p>
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<p>Okay. Spending time preparing and taking a SAT test does not contribute to a child’s development or chosen pursuit at all; whereas ECs, homework, sports and studying course work, certainly do. Learning to take a multiple choice test well doesn’t help in college - each of my D’s has had only one (partial) multiple choice test in 3 and 4 years of college. On the other hand, developing good study and homework habits served them well and taught them something, as did the time they spent on their ECs, which both are still participating in and brought them tangible rewards.</p>
<p>Why do you think homework, ECs, sports and AP courses are more “BS” than the SAT?</p>
<p>xiggi, I don’t disagree with your idea of what would be a better way. My kids were lifelong readers and were privileged to have some excellent teachers of critical analysis along the way, so they were able to ace CR tests without studying. If their math education had been better, the same result should have attached; but it wasn’t, so they had to “learn and practice to the test” to excel on those tests.</p>
<p>My point was simply, I don’t believe the vast majority of American high school students have enjoyed the long-term preparation necessary to approach testing in the way you propose as ideal. Thus, I thnk we have to innovate taking that given into consideration. </p>
<p>Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk</p>
<p>Re: sleep deprivation. xiggi suggests unplugging the students until the homework is done. No doubt, some of the late hours are connected with social media and texting. However, on occasion I’ve taken a look at the assignments themselves, and it appears to me that they are taking pretty much the time they take.</p>
<p>When QMP was still in elementary school or middle school, we heard from some friends of ours that the high schooler next door always had a light burning when they (the friends) were calling it quits for the evening, about midnight. The high schooler next door to them was a high achieving student, 1 demanding sport, 1 other demanding EC, & has probably completed med school at this point. I thought to myself, “I would never permit that!”</p>
<p>To save Pizzagirl a bit of time, since she will find our friends’ observations intrusive and privacy-infringing, and suggest that something is wrong with the friends–no, they are normal and not snoopy. In our area, many of the houses are close enough together that you can tell when the neighbors have the lights burning (unless you close your eyes while walking upstairs). The person burning the candle at both ends was indeed the high schooler.</p>
<p>Like many of my other beliefs in my own excellence in child-rearing, my belief “I would never permit that” also bit the dust when reality obtruded. I did permit it. I’m sort of embarrassed to admit that fact. </p>
<p>When you have children, xiggi, we can revisit your plan to unplug your kids until they have their homework done. Please tell us how that works out for you. (I am assuming that you are not in the Tiger Mom or Tiger Dad category.)</p>
<p>xiggi,
I appreciate all the knowledge you contribute on this subject; you are simply missing the understanding of how high school activities and teenagers work in real life. A lot of flexibility is needed; it is not one-size-fits-all.</p>
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<p>Well, if you respond to my post, make a small effort to actually respond to something I wrote. Case in point, I am not sure why you needed to address the availability of "any scheduled tests to everyone; a point I have repeatedly expressed in this thread. </p>
<p>Hope this will help you not mixing up issues and posts.</p>
<p>You say a lot of things, and most of them seem to be supporting CB decision to offer this special summer program. I know that you have stated before that you are in favor of offering the tests to everyone, so the “scheduled tests to everyone” comment is not to indict you in anyway. It is just my editorial again in support for CB offering this to everyone.</p>
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<p>Bay, that is not what I wrote. I shared that my younger cousins brought up all kind of excuses to delay starting to work on the (minimal) individual preparation to the SAT. For whatever reason, people might misunderstand what “my” recommended schedule entails, especially if thinking it involved countless hours of filling little ovals!</p>
<p>For full disclosure, I am talking about a series of practices that never exceed twenty or thirty minutes every other week during the sophomore year. If such scheduling is hard in the second year of HS, does anyone think it will get better in the next two years? </p>
<p>Also, the “required” preparation is not universal. As we know, some students do not need more than simply learning the arcane ways of the screwy ETS writers. Avid readers with tons of books under their belt do not need to slave over CR, except for a few techniques. Students who are steps away from Advanced Calculus simply need to “forget” a few bad habits and simplify their thoughts. Other simply need to relearn middle school math. Others might want to refresh their grammar – perhaps the section that is the most closely related to HS life. </p>
<p>My contributions on this subject has always been that it is SIMPLER than many think. A bit of early efforts when time is more plentiful always pays dividends. The objective is none other than scoring at a level that corresponds to one’s abilities and academic environment. Not everyone can or needs to score in the higher percentile, but everyone can get to his or her natural limits. I believe that many students do not reach their potential because of lack of attention to the test itself. </p>
<p>Fwiw, let’s look at the alternatives, which often take the form of an organized class. Playing the guilty feeling of parents, PR et al (and school at times) recommend the students to sign up to a series of classes, often requiring 20 to 40 hours of attendance. </p>
<p>PS I do not believe that the SAT has any value beyond providing an additional yardstick to evaluate college admissions. It represents a hurdle most students need to navigate, and the best way I know is to make it as simple and painless as possible. Nobody has to love it! I don’t, but I like to beat it!</p>
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<p>Agreed this works well for the typical high-stats CC student who’s aiming at highly selective colleges. For the vast majority of students who aren’t loaded down with AP/IB coursework and who can benefit from additional “ripening”, why not hold off until later? I’ve heard so many anecdotes about SAT I scores bumping up a couple hundred points from the junior year June sitting to the senior year October test, without any additional studying.</p>
<p>“There are NO reasons for a student to delay the SAT as none of the material covered in the last two years of HS are covered. The test is at best at the 9th grade level.” </p>
<p>Oh pulleeeeze!! As if YOU KNOW when EVERY student in the US will take the Math and Humanities classes necessary to prepare for the SAT… </p>
<p>[You] are giving a LOT of students really bad advise by recommending that the SAT be taken in 9th grade!</p>
<p>Wow, $4500 for an SAT prep class? I wish I could have that sort of money to throw away. Or be part of the people cashing it in the bank.</p>
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<p>Not sure I agree with this opinion, xig. SAT-M includes a handful of Alg II problems, and most kids don’t take Alg II until Junior year**. SAT-CR includes a lot of vocab, and an extra couple of years of reading boring Lit novels helps build word usage.</p>
<p>**Of course, all of those on cc take Alg II in middle school, so this doesn’t apply. :)</p>
<p>The Choice blog on the NY Times is reporting that the August SAT associated with this program has been cancelled.</p>
<p>Prefect, thank you. I wonder if the G & T program will give refunds. And many thanks to the person who brought this out into the open. Fresh air is the best disenfectant.</p>
<p>Okay, slowly . . .</p>
<p>It’s not about the fancy prep class . . .</p>
<p>It’s not about the time of year (August vs. June vs. January, etc.) . . .</p>
<p>It’s about the appearance of impropriety on the part of an organization that is charged with administering tests in a fair and even-handed manner.</p>
<p>Yes, I agree that it’s probably a heck of a lot easier to take the test in August than in June . . . but since most kids have to take the test in less than ideal circumstances, it probably doesn’t impact your student’s test results significantly.</p>
<p>The problem is that our kids are required to take either the SAT or the ACT if they want to apply to college . . . and, for that reason, the test should be administered fairly.</p>
<p>SAT’s administration of a single August test to a small group of very privileged students reeks of impropriety . . . as does their deliberate deception regarding the reporting of scores for the August test takers. If you’re not offended by the College Board’s absolute disdain for the rules that it claims to adhere to, you should be.</p>
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<p>And it’s about time!</p>