Do You REALLY Believe in Expensive Test-Prep Courses?

Test Preparation
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<p>Different strokes for different folks.</p>

<p>Arguing over whether or not test prep is worth it in general isn't going to lead to any mind-shattering conclusions. Many people have done well with self-study, and others need the tutoring to help them focus and learn the relevant information.</p>

<p>I self-studied for the SAT's and was basically obsessed with them for a few months. I devoured multiple tests and books until I felt I had completely mastered the material. By focusing on weaknesses and fine-tuning my strengths, it was easier to see the patterns to the questions in the tests and give the best answers after knowing what they were looking for. Eventually I ended up with a 2390 (old SAT 1590 + SAT2 Writing 800).</p>

<p>I taught the SAT to a bunch of kids as an official tutor during my sophomore year here at Penn. I can tell you right now, most of those kids did not want to be there. The other kids who were genuinely trying to do better did so by a much larger margin than the unmotivated kids who didn't give a rat's ass about the SAT. The unmotivated kids were there because their parents pretty much forced them to.</p>

<p>However, those motivated kids would have probably done well anyway without the tutoring, but to what extent is the question. Sometimes a motivated student can do well on their own, but they may desire additional help to ensure that their focus is in the right direction. What better way to learn the test that to take advice from someone who's already been through the process and knows all the little hidden tips and tricks and optimal strategies? </p>

<p>Instead of spending all that time trying to discover these tricks for yourself, it is sometimes easier to just pay someone to tell you what to look for. Tutoring has its merits, and while I don't tutor anymore, I don't discourage people from seeking test prep if they feel it would really benefit them. It's like paying for piano lessons. You could spend hours figuring out the optimal finger positions and chord structures and so forth, practicing music at your own pace, but odds are you'll do better if you're motivated and you learn from a pianist who knows the ropes and can tell you how to improve yourself more quickly after developing the right approach. On average, what kind of people are going to be able to pull off the Third Movement of Moonlight Sonata? The people who taught themselves piano, or the ones who learned from others with experience? Test prep is no different -- sometimes people just need the help.</p>

<p>Yes, it is true that people from well-off families still do poorly on the SAT even with prep. All money does is provide the resources. It doesn't buy intelligence or a genuine motivation to succeed. However, test prep won't HURT you, and this is why people who enroll in test prep usually have, on average, higher scores. It is this sort of concept that drives the correlation between wealth and academic performance.</p>

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<p>All you really need is a book and alacrity. However, some people lack the self-motivation to dedicate their weekends to studying, whether that is for SATs or for school. For these people I personally do believe that a prep course would work: getting into a routine schedule and the idea that you have to study because it is a requirement could prove to be significantly effective for these people.</p>

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<p>I agree with general consensus that you can do it yourself. My D did not want to take a course, did it herself. Said the gain versus the travel to and from and wait, could be better used other ways, plus she knew what she knew and did not waste time going over the same ground. Her self study paid off on both SAT I and SAT II. However, what she said relative to her friends was that for those who needed someone to force them to study, the courses were useful. According to a local mag, one mother had D take the course for $5,000 and D did not get 2400 as desired, then paid another $5,000 to do it again. Apparently it worked, the D got a 2400 eventually. Before you ask, the score she got after the first $5,000 was not reported but was likely in the 22xx range, and it did not say how many times the test was taken.</p>

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<p>Honestly, 2250+ is just fine for any school.</p>

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<p>Tokenadult</p>

<p>"Returning to the issue of SAT tests, do you really think you could score as high as you please if you had unlimited money?"</p>

<p>No
No
No
"Optimize for you" - maybe
"As high as you please" - no!</p>

<p>5 students from my son's class scored over 2300 on the SAT</p>

<p>val, 2400 SAT 1 sitting, $2500 NM scholar, Harvard EA
sal, 2300 SAT 1 sitting, $2500 NM scholar, Harvard EA</p>

<h1>3, 2350 SAT 2 sittings, $2500 NM scholar, Yale EA</h1>

<h1>10, 2370 SAT 2 sittings, $2500 NM scholar, Harvard</h1>

<h1>36, 2320 SAT 1 sitting, NMF, West Point</h1>

<p>No review classes amongst them.<br>
Whatever my son did in terms of "test prep" he found on the College Board site. </p>

<p>Can test prep help courses help? Possibly, but it depends both on the course and the student. It seems unlikely that significant basic knowledge and or basic skills can be gained in such a course. "Studying" content for the SAT in a broad sense will not make up for years of past inattention. </p>

<p>However...
For someone unfamiliar with the test itself, becoming familiar with its structure and quirks can have tangible benefits.
For someone who is not completing the sections, acquiring strategies for efficient test taking can be particularly beneficial.</p>

<p>So..., a course that imparts this information may well be useful to those in such need but it is by no means necessary to pay for and attend a test prep course to gain this knowledge. </p>

<p>It would seem to me that the best candidate for an actual test prep course would be someone who's scores are a negative outlier in the data, (ie SAT rank in HS significantly lower than GPA rank-assuming comparable course load- and SAT's below 25-75% at target schools), and who has been unable to improve those scores by themselves. For such a person, if basic knowledge is not the issue, but some aspect of the test is, it would be extremely helpful to determine that issue and deal with it. Of course the test prep course would have to share that goal - one trying to impart content won't help this student.</p>

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<p>Sure. As the teacher.</p>

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<p>Can kids do well on SAT by studying hard and using the test prep books? Yes. The problem is that they usually don't have this type of discipline especially with a lot of other school work geting in the way.</p>

<p>Our public high school has some of the best SAT scores in the country. We also have some of the most driven students/parents that I have seen.</p>

<p>There is a "dirty"secret to this success at our high school. What a number of kids ( especially Asian) have done was to set up weekly meetings with tutors ( usually in group sessions) to cover all aspects of the SATs. If this were done over the normal 6-8 weeks that these courses usually run, it would have been marginally effective. The secret, however, is that these kids start their tutoring for the SAT in their SOPHOMORE year! Thus, they have a year and one-half of tutoring. They go over every question from several SAT books. From what I know of the kids who participated in these events, they achieve remarkable results.</p>

<p>The tutors themselves take the SAT periodically, and I would bet bring back some of the questions.</p>

<p>Thus, don't tell me it doens't work because I have seen the results. However, you need to commit a lot of time for this technique to become effective.</p>

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<p>taxguy</p>

<p>a) what you describe is not a test prep course
b) the results you report demonstrate a correlation not a causation</p>

<p>do not these exceptionally disciplined and driven students also apply those traits to their regular studies and are not they also at the top of their class? </p>

<p>Why would it be a surprise that such students do well on their SATs? </p>

<p>How much worse do you think they would have done had they self studied instead? I'd imagine not worse at all.</p>

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<p>What probably helped DS1 more than the marginal SAT review he did was to have a tough cookie for an English teacher soph year. She really forced him to focus on reading <em>literature</em> for comprehension. (Those were the only CR questions he ever missed in practice. Scientific, historical or current events articles he nailed.)</p>

<p>DS2's big increase from 9th to 10th grade (with no prep, as I mentioned previousl) I attribute to the rigors of pre-IB English at his school. His CR+W increase was 150 points alone.</p>

<p>Taxguy,
I help out at DS2's school, where some parents have arranged with StudyWorks to come in and offer a $15 practice SAT or ACT. (Obviously, StudyWorks hopes to gain something from the transaction. However, the kids get a risk-free run-through of a full-length test. As long as one is aware there will be marketing at some point, I can deal with the arrangement.) The one time I helped with this, it was DS1's junior year, so I expected to see some of his friends show up. What I did <em>not</em> expect were DS2's <em>freshman</em> friends arriving to take the test.</p>

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<p>A point that hasn't been brought up is the differences students have in learning styles. For an auditory learner, listening to a tutor explain concepts would work much more effectively than reading about that same concept. So that, in addition to the imposition of external discipline, could be an advantage for some students. </p>

<p>On a personal note, my son studied for his tests on his own. This summer, having taken his subject tests, he met a girl who had worked one-on-one with a private tutor, taken the same tests and received the same scores. He told me, "You know, Mom, it feels really good to know I did it on my own with $12 books."</p>

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<p>One can't merely make a blanket statement regarding the suitability and fairness of SAT prep courses, which, in my opinion, vary from person to person. Some, as stated in this thread, have benefited enormously from the guidance and experience offered by such courses, while others find them unnecessary and generally useless. </p>

<p>Personally, I've never seen the need for them - mostly because everything covered by the test is also in the school curriculum; I bought the CollegeBoard book and going through a practice test was enough to get a good score in one sitting.</p>

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<p>Looks like most people in CC have taken statistics...</p>

<p>well anyways, i think the BEST way to study for the SATs is NOT to study for them (of course, this will never happen.) but by NOT studying i don't mean be lazy and waste your entire 4 years of high school, but by gradually increasing your SAT score range by reading, writing, etc, and not studying JUST for and ESPECIALLY for the SATs The reading on the SATs are on the level of advanced magazines and newspapers such as Time, NYT, etc, so the best way to improve your scores over a long period of time (about a year) is to read. You'll build an understanding of the material that cannot be built by test prep. For example, if you read an easy book like Harry Potter would you understand almost everything that you read? Probably. If people ask questions about what you read you would probably know how to answer all of them. That's cuz you've been reading that type of literature for a long, long time since probably middle school. So if you start reading the next level of literature such as classical books, you will probably build the same ability to understand the reading passages that will make the questions really easy. </p>

<p>For vocab, then, if you read you'll probably have a great basics of vocab and you'll probably know what many of the words mean...or know slightly what they mean. In that case just going quickly through a vocab list is easy and quick, and you'll definitely be able to retain the vocabulary for a longer time (which really is the whole point of testing!!!!!)</p>

<p>for math, anyone who goes thru their school's geometry and algebra classes would be able to know how to do most of the SAT's math problems. the SAT math problems are the BASIC-EST of the BASIC math problems possible, really. when you start doing higher-level math, you 'll wonder how you ever got a single SAT question wrong before</p>

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<p>i think it's also what range you wanna get . if you want to improve a 2350 to a 2400 (some ppl just have that need to be...perfect) then test prep will not help you at all.</p>

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<p>I seem to be in the minority, but I wanted my score to reflect my "natural" ability. I boycotted study books and prep courses and swore I'd only take the test once. I got a 2200 when the dust cleared. I think I could do just a little bit better, and maybe a lot better if I properly drilled the stuff, but that score was perfectly good enough for what I wanted to do with it. Besides, I'm busy with other things.</p>

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<p>haha lol</p>

<p>^i doubt that there is a "natural ability" for scoring high on SATs. altho you may be refering to how much you know just from going thru high school? otherwise, well, don't raed or learn thru HS and we'll see what you get. in fact why don't we all just take it as babies? =P</p>

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<p>Did I say anything about high school? No. I only mentioned study guides and prep courses, which are the subject of this thread. That is why I put quotation marks around "natural."</p>

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<p><em>sigh</em> i was always a rebel [a quiet one] during my school life, i never cared about it until recently. i always guessed during important tests, and somehow got away from taking any SAT tests, so i have no scores for SAT's.
perhaps i had a chip on my shoulder. atleast i reaslized all this in time! i just turned 18 and i'll graduate in a few months =]</p>

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<p>From my observation.
Yes, for those mediocre ones.
No, for those true intelegent ones. Follow HS coureses just fine......MalancholyDane if you got 2200 first time without preparing. Then 2nd time you most likely would get 2300+. </p>

<p>The true smart ones once score the ace (800) on one subject, most likely he will stay at that level. However the mediocre ones may get 800 this time, drop down next time falling into the college board statitics curve.</p>

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<p>no, i meant High school as in a means to "study" for the SATs. if you truly didnot study for the SATs you didn't go to high school, because a part of high school IS preparing you for the SATs</p>

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<p>The SATs are a huge component in the college admissions process. If one can study and improve on their own, they are highly motivated. The truth is, much of what is learned in school can also be studied independently, but school provides the environment and the structure. An SAT class does the same thing; it lets someone else become the expert and then they impart that to the student. If someone takes a prep class and the score goes up, then it was worth it. It is no different than taking acting lessons, private music instruction, or using a training coach for a sport.</p>