<p>My daughter will be a Junior next year and she is a good, but not great student. She could do much better if she actually cared, but that's a different post. I would like for her to spend some time this summer preparing for PSAT/SAT exams next year but that idea has met with much resistence. I think if I sent her to a tutor or a class she would spend the time listing all of the reasons she hates me! I would like to at least purchase the self-study books and hope that she opens them at some point. </p>
<p>She would like to learn to drive this summer and I would like her to improve her reading score so I am sensing a possible compromise.</p>
<p>I know these things all differ by child, but, for any of you who have been involved in the self-study, how did it go?? Did your child do so many hours per day, only when they felt like it, did you set up some schedule, monitor tests??</p>
<p>My son is a great test taker and although he had great scores we thought we could nudge them up a bit, he ended up with very good scores on the SAT’s. I had my S spend 15 minutes a day for several months leading up to the last test he took doing practice problems related to areas he need to work on. Some days he got through several questions, other days he got through 9 or 10. After he was finished I graded the problems and then spent a couple minutes going over any he had wrong. If you already know that reading is the area your D needs work in ask her to spend 15-20 minutes a day doing practice questions (reading portion only). I found 15-20 minutes doing problems while I cooked dinner was manageable for S and he did not find it onerous. I did not ask him to work on anything he already did not need improvement in and I think that was key. The problem with the courses is your D will have to sit through stuff she may not need help on.</p>
<p>Has she taken the psat or sat yet?
In retrospect, I would say not worth it.
There are certain strategies that can help students become more efficent test takers, but high schools usually go over that, and students may be more apt to listen to their teachers.
If SATs are disappointing, that may be motivation to study and retake or likely they are students who will do better on theACT.
But I would not force a student who isnt likely to qualify for National Merit anyway, to spend their summer prepping for a test.
Better that they read and continue to develop their interests.</p>
<p>For my first (rising senior), I tried to get him to study Freshman year and Sophomore year and was unsuccessful. The summer of his Junior year, he actually took it seriously and did self study. He increased both his SAT and PSAT scores and did really well on the ACT first time. </p>
<p>My D (freshman), I am encouraging her to study over the summer because in our school your English class is determined by PSAT score. This year she placed in the “high” group (with minimal studying - on a schedule her father and I set), but I want to make sure she is able to stay there. </p>
<p>I was unsure if studying would help until I saw the increase in the CR section. My son wishes he had taken it more seriously sooner. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, I don’t think you can force a teenager to study. As you said, you can make her go, but that won’t make her participate or learn. </p>
<p>I think you are right though, you can set up a compromise. Driving is a big step and definitely a positive reward.</p>
<p>Thank you for your comments. I am not trying to turn her into a NMSF, I just want her to do better than she did before. I’d also like to ovecome the laziness and help her to realize her potential. Sometimes with her I think it’s a fear of failure - it’s so much easier to act like she doesn’t care. Although, when she does do well, she is very pleased with herself.</p>
<p>My oldest did worse than expected because he didn’t finish many of the sections. The younger two did a couple of practice tests with a stopwatch.</p>
<p>My daughter liked studying much better when, instead of looking at problems and answers, we started to look for the tricks they use to get kids to choose the wrong answers. Recognizing the test maker’s tactics goes a long way to getting better scores.</p>
<p>Sign up for the College Board’s “question of the day”. It will email or maybe text one question every day. I think they even have a free phone app. Once you answer it, it will tell you whether it’s right or wrong and give an explanation. It provided an easy way for my two daughters to get a little practice in each day. Over a year, that’s 365 practice questions! Becoming familiar with the types of questions, and then repetition of the concepts through practice, can make a big difference.</p>
<p>There are no review courses in our area, so self-study was our only choice. Yes, I think it helps. The books do review concepts, areas where they might “trick” the students, and most importantly, practice problems and answers. </p>
<p>Something that also really helped S1 was paying the extra fee and getting his answers back, so he could see which ones he had missed. I think this is only available on certain test dates. This was ACT; don’t know about SAT.</p>
<p>I also had monetary incentives based on amount of score achievement. (ok, bribes:) I’m positive the scholarship reward was far greater than my cost. I did not help S1 or S2 study.</p>
<p>I have been helping my LD daughter study for several months. We will soon know if that was worthwhile!</p>
<p>Preparation should be done right before the test for any standardized test, including those huge torturing proffessional license tests. There is no reason to prep. ahead, waste of time. D. prep. for one hour / day for five days before her ACT. She did well. She used customized approach, she prepared only math section to compensate for the predicted low Reading score. Everything worked as predicted, she di not need to retake. However, she has evaluated herself what makes sense to prepare and what is not. They do need to get familiar with the foramt of each section, though.
D. took 2 wek prep. class for the SAT, which she said was a waste of her time. She did better in ACT anyway.</p>
<p>The books do help increase scores. I think the key with your D may be short intervals of study. Make it a family “jeopardy” thing even.
I find it interesting that the Coursera on-line courses turn their lectures into 10-15 minute segments to make them manageable for the masses. That works for individuals too!</p>
<p>It really depends on the child. My oldest was never a great test taker. She took a review class, which I don’t think helped her much.<br>
Middle child just looked over the sample test questions and took a practice test to get a feel for the time constraints. I think I gave him a list of tips for the essay, and suggestions for grammar types of questions to look out for. He was not motivated to study, and there was no way I could have bribed/forced him to. He didn’t study for AP tests either, and I learned just to step back and let him achieve on his own terms. He is doing very well in college, studying what he loves.
Youngest was very motivated to self-study and did prep for a few months whenever she had time (usually on weekends). She did very well, and I believe the study and practice helped, but it was done by her without my involvement unless she had a question.</p>
<p>I’ve got one natural test taker and one stressed-out test taker. </p>
<p>D1 (the natural, National Merit): did some self-study but not an enormous deal (I’m guessing she went through maybe 2-3 sample tests each for ACT and SAT). I handed her a summary of the so-called “xiggi” method from here on CC. She used that in part. </p>
<p>D2 (the stressed one): didn’t bother having her prep for the tests until after PSAT in junior year (so she knew where she stood), then found her a one-on-one tutor, initially for math. This was a match made in heaven–D2 got/gets along wonderfully with her, tutor reduces D2’s stress level by talking about test-taking strategies, D2 actually studied! Downside: $$$. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that many students will see their scores go up between spring of junior year and fall of senior year (relevant to almost-high-school-senior D2). </p>
<p>If your D has some schools in mind, it’s worth running their Net Price Calculators to see if/how merit aid increases for various ACT/SAT scores. For instance, one of the schools on D2’s list would offer $5k/year more in merit aid if her ACT score bumps up by one point. That’s a pretty powerful motivator, be it presented as “this makes the school affordable” or “this means you could have an increase in spending money” or “this makes it more likely you’ll be admitted”. :)</p>
<p>I too met a lot of resistance to the idea of studying for the junior year PSAT. So, I said that if my offspring hit a certain score on the PSAT --based on what I thought was possible with some effort–then I would shut up about test prep. (Target score based on sophomore year PSAT score. I don’t know if your kid took that. You may have some other way of choosing a target.) If the PSAT score was below that, then the kid would have to enroll in a SAT prep class and I would not listen to any whining about it. If it was above it, then no course and no nagging about test prep from me.</p>
<p>I also bought one of the CDs–don’t know if they even have them any more–for studying. The benefit of using the CD was that it told you whether your answer was right or wrong immediately and gave the correct answer immediately. That worked better than doing a whole test and then reviewing which answers were wrong. </p>
<p>It was also easy to do a few questions during “wait time” when there were just a few minutes available. </p>
<p>I think it helped. Offspring hit desired scores on PSAT. No prep class. No nagging. Offspring took a few full practice tests–without any nagging from me–before taking the PSAT to see how much more work and in which areas was necessary to hit the target.</p>
<p>Ask her what colleges she would like to attend, then show her the test scores she needs to be a competitive applicant. For my neighbor, this meant typing out the data into an excel spreadsheet…for whatever reason her son did not “get it” when given the information verbally. Sent it to him in a spreadsheet…GPA and test scores. Grades went up, homework is getting done and turned in, at least some test prep got done.</p>
<p>I have been doing test prep for 9 years–mostly PSAT/SAT. I have 3 sons who were/are NMS. And I have coached a few other kids who are NMS.
I have made a schedule and timed practice tests for my kids. We have used The Official Guide to the SAT, the SAT Question of the Day, and also Kaplan test prep books. I find the books very helpful–if your kid actually uses them. Most kids need a parent/coach/tutor to impose some structure on their study. Saturday mornings were used for full-length tests. Sometimes they’d do a section or two at a time on other days. Going over each question missed right away is the most important part of practice.
Some of my kids were more cooperative than others, but they all understood that they were aiming for scholarships. What would your kid think of getting paid $1000/hr or more for a job? Unbelievable, right? Well, if your kid gets a scholarship worth 100K+ after spending 100 hours training for the test, isn’t that worth it? (Some people think this is crazy–but think again how many hours kids spend on sports or other ECs that rarely pay off in big scholarships. There are others who mistakenly believe that you can’t study for these tests or it won’t make a difference. IMO/E, familiarity with the test and a lot of practice is the key to improvement. There is no magic to it. Read the books and keep on practicing. Of course the student has to start with some natural aptitude for test-taking.)
We’ve spent a lot of time in the summers doing practice tests and it has paid off very well. One of my kids who didn’t make NMF still got a big scholarship based on SAT scores.
My next kid isn’t quite as good at math as her older sibs. She is a freshman, but we are doing SAT math this summer so she can get used to the types of questions and the tricks. I am paying her 5 cents a question (slave labor, but this is a bit of a motivator) doing one or two sections a day. It takes her longer than 25 minutes/section at this point, but we are going over the concepts very thoroughly.
(I need to review the book for a prep class I’m teaching, so it helps me, too.) Good luck!</p>
<p>My daughter is the same age as yours - rising junior. She and I visited two colleges in April: one that is a good fit for her both academically and socially and one that I think is a big reach but enticing. She liked both and she heard from the admissions directors what they look for in applicants. The visits provided some realism as well an incentive to take the tests seriously - I don’t think she took the college application/entrance thing all that seriously (“oh, I’ll get in”). </p>
<p>Then I signed her up to take the SAT and ACT in June. She studied some Math for the SAT because her PSAT math score was low but I didn’t do anything beyond buying the math SAT section book. I also bought an ACT prep book for her to study; no one among our friends or her friends had ever taken the ACT so the book was helpful.</p>
<p>I didn’t set up any study schedule for my daughter. She probably under-studied but I think that’s natural. I found that she got more serious about studying the prep books every night in the week before the exam. </p>
<p>That said, I don’t recommend June as an exam month. It was tough to fit in the time to study between the AP exams and finals. I think her schedule was: week of AP exams; SAT on Saturday, regular school week, ACT on Saturday, finals week.</p>
<p>I have one who is an “SAT kid” and one who is an “ACT kid”. Neither could improve in their weaker test - but both improved with study within their stronger test.</p>
<p>The “SAT kid” did a test prep class which he felt was a waste of time so he also did self study. The “ACT kid” only did self study on her own schedule.</p>
<p>This type of thinking may be part of the problem. Being a good student isn’t about being smart (yes it is helpful), its about working hard. If you tell your D that she does well because she is “smart” then not doing well implies that she is “dumb.” This may cause the I don’t care attitude. </p>
<p>Just wondering…do you ever tell her that you know she is smart and that she just has to try harder?</p>