<p>I just want to say good luck to everyone! I know we will all try our best and hopefully do well. Your support on these boards has been amazing and I know any of the schools would be lucky to have us... Good luck!</p>
<p>haha, thanks cookie! i'm so nervous, and it seems like i still have so much stuff to studt (like vocab, ugh) but good luck to everyone who is flipping out (like) and to you confident people to!!! may we all get in to every school we apply for after getting amaing scores!!! haha, i wish. but ya, like cookie said, thanks for all the support!</p>
<p>Thank you for the luck wish. You guys will both do great.</p>
<p>D'yer had a great suggestion. Go to [url=<a href="http://www.freerice.com%5DFreeRice%5B/url">http://www.freerice.com]FreeRice[/url</a>] and brush up on vocab while you feed people. A great site.</p>
<p>I thought I typed [url=<a href="http://www.freerice.com%5DFreeRice%5B/url">http://www.freerice.com]FreeRice[/url</a>] but it doesn't seem to translate into that on this screen.</p>
<p>Ok. double u double u double u dot free rice dot com. I don't know how to do this. You know what I mean.</p>
<p>I highly recommend FREERICE. It's really helpful and everything goes to the UN.</p>
<p>I Love FreeRice wish I had heard of it earlier. Thanks :)</p>
<p>I'm taking the SSAT on Saturday! Good luck to everyone.</p>
<p>Good Luck to everyone taking the SSAT Sat!</p>
<p>ohmygosh, i'm completely flipping out...alreadt broke down once today after totally biffing a practice test....i'm so nervous i think i'm just going to fall over and die. (LOL) Any body else getting these pleasent feelings?</p>
<p>My son and friends are taking the test on Saturday. Relax and don't try to study at this point. Just get plenty of sleep the night before and have a good breakfast in the morning. Good luck, everyone!</p>
<p>I remember taking it...but I was in 7th grade. One Saturday morning my parents woke me up, told me I was going to take a test, drove me to the place, picked me up when I was done, and that was that. </p>
<p>I don't think they told me beforehand. Well, I suppose they hinted at it the night before when I asked why they were making me go to bed before The Rockford Files ended. Either way, I didn't have anything to stress out about -- besides figuring out how James Garner was going to save his dad after that week's bad guy broke into Jim Rockford's trailer. </p>
<p>I didn't even know I was going to go to a new school.</p>
<p>It definitely wasn't the beginning or the end of my life. Or my week, for that matter. By the time I was done I was looking forward to that night's episode of The Love Boat. As a young teenage boy I waited with anticipation for the 10 minute mark every week when they had the scene by the poolside. And if I was lucky, it would be one of the episodes without Charo.</p>
<p>When I talk to my son about setting priorities, I conveniently omit the fact that at his age my weekly calendar began and ended at 9:10 pm every Saturday night in front of the television. However, for my young friends who are worried about the SSAT...I encourage you to decompress and watch Elf<a href="USA%20Network%20from%207-9%20pm">/I</a> and look forward to Saturday night when *Blazing Saddles comes on AMC from 10-midnight. Let everything in between be filler. Your parents will get you to the test site on time, so don't even worry about that.</p>
<p>thanks you guys...but i can't help being completely nervous! The TV thing is really funny D'yer, how DID you do on that test? i acn't believe your parents didn't tell you!</p>
<p>All I know is that I did well enough to get accepted to the one school they had me apply to. I couldn't possibly tell you my scores. Not because I forgot. Because I never knew.</p>
<p>Seriously, your life -- your future -- and things like your near-term or long-term happiness do not hinge on this exam. The stakes are actually not all that high. You've just worked yourself up to think that it's so important. As if there's but one path to happiness and success. In reality, most paths to those ends don't have a stopping off point that involves an extraordinary SSAT score. In fact, it's actually far off the well beaten path to that destination.</p>
<p>You're as equipped as you're going to be. The score you get will likely be the one that most accurately fits you. High or low, it will all work out for the best. Seriously, you should be looking forward to Blazing Saddles. Have you ever seen it? Check it out. Invite some friends over, drink caffeinated beverages until you're all giddy; pop popcorn with extra butter and enjoy a classic film. THAT is something worth thinking ahead to.</p>
<p>ok everyone...take a DEEP BREATH IN.<br>
HOLD IT.............
HOLD IT.............
HOLD IT............
EXHALE.........</p>
<p>Repeat about 20 times.<br>
You'll be fine.<br>
I know it's easy for me to say, I'm not taking the test but sersiously, try to relax. I do have 2 children taking it. Both seem ok, although one keeps asking if we'll be really mad if she does bad. Ummm. No. The other seems calm, has done well on them before, but knows this one is the one that counts more. Also has a freind that has already taken in 2 times this fall and is stressed to the max about it.<br>
In any case, get to bed early tonight and remember...
take a DEEP BREATH IN.<br>
HOLD IT.............
HOLD IT.............
HOLD IT............
EXHALE.........</p>
<p>Thanks Linda. That would be very helpful tomorrow. I'll be drinking Starbucks on the way to the test site since I'm not really a morning person. Haha.</p>
<p>Good luck everyone!</p>
<p>Yeah, that's the thing, Linda S. You can't do "bad" on the SSAT. You will receive a score and, odds are, it will give some reflection of where you stand among the applicant pool...by one academic measure. </p>
<p>At worst, you will decide that you need to take the test again. </p>
<p>At best, your score will be "accurate" in that it helps guide you to the sort of school where you'll do you best at and feel at home and challenged at. If that means rethinking the schools you've been focused on, then that may be a hassle...but would you rather apply to schools that may not be ideally suited to you?</p>
<p>Note that I'm not saying that "at best" you will get 99%, unless you get that with a "guess rate" that's in line with the typical "guess rate" of other posters (meaning that that score would be an accurate reflection of how you compare to the others). However, understand that it could be disastrous to get a 99% if you have to guess at half the questions and somehow get all of them correct. You want the right score for you, not necessarily the highest score attainable.</p>
<p>The other reason that you can't stress out about getting a 99% score is that that's a measure that compares you to other test takers and you have no control over the performance of the rest of the applicant pool (for the preceding three years no less)! </p>
<p>You can only answer as many correctly as your knowledge base allows and use the "guessing" strategy(*****) that works best for you. How easy is that?</p>
<p>This is like going to get your picture taken. It shouldn't be more stressful than, say, a blood pressure test or a urine test. Or a blood test -- without the annoying needle prick. It's should be no more stressful than lining up for the standing long jump in PE class. It looks at who you are, not who you wish you could be.</p>
<p>You can't do a makeover once you sit down for your portrait. And once you enter the lab, you can't manipulate your systolic and diastolic blood pressure or pH or glucose levels or your cholesterol or . You can't improve your "springiness" when you arrive at PE for the physical fitness test; you can just try to jump as far as possible and see where that takes you. And you can't fail or perform badly (well, for the picture, try to smile and try not to blink). The lab results will be what they need to be -- and, even with the picture, it's not a matter of being impressive as much as it's a matter of getting a read on who you are.</p>
<p>How can you be bad at being you? You're the number one expert at that!</p>
<p>The only things to worry about -- and I'm confident these items won't actually be a problem for anyone -- are to bubble in the correct bubbles, put your correct name down, and don't cheat.</p>
<p>In the end, I'm not downplaying it when I say this is no worse than having your picture taken: Be yourself, be confident in yourself, smile and don't blink.</p>
<p>=====================================================</p>
<p>***** For the guessing strategy, you are at a statistical "break even" point if you guess on any question (for a 5 choice test where you gain 1 point for selecting the correct answer and lose 1/4 point for selecting one of the other 4 incorrect answers). Once you eliminate one possible answer you have a statistical advantage to guess.</p>
<p>The best advice I received about taking the SSAT was (besides getting a good nights sleep and RELAX!) was make sure that you check your test booklet and answer sheet every 10th question just to make sure that the numbers line up, it only takes a second and it eliminates the possibility of getting to the end of your answer sheet and seeing you still have a question left in the booklet!! I think this happens more frequently if you tend to "skip" questions, planning to go back to them later.
And the second piece of advice was: DO NOT change your original answer unless you have a concrete reason to do so, usually your first "instinct" is correct, and if you "overthink" it, you may get it wrong.
Good luck to everyone!!!</p>
<p>Ok, D'yer, when you write posts that make me bust a gut, how can I possibly resist posting???</p>
<p>I do have something to add to your TV lineup: Love American Style! It was, afterall, truer than the Red, White, and Blue-ooh, ooh, ooh! :)</p>