<p>Huh, I thought we were talking about how much prep the average student did. I guess we’re talking about our own experiences. </p>
<p>I didn’t do any studying for the PSAT (heck if I remember what I got), ACT (got a 33), or the GRE (can’t remember-90th percentile or so for each section). I did some prep for APs but that was rolled into finals studying.</p>
<p>Other than APs, I’ve never studied for a standardized test. </p>
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<p>Right…although timing might be affected since the AP exam is 2-3 weeks earlier than the final. I hadn’t thought of this before, but that actually might help ease some of the end-of-year pressure since scheduling of the AP helps to insure that everybody has their ducks in a row well before finals in June. </p>
<p>For PSAT and for SAT, my daughter worked through most of a test prep book over the course of 2 summers. She was spending a few hours per week.</p>
<p>For math SAT2, she studied for a few weeks, mostly because I made her because she had learned the material long ago and needed to review it. Also she was kind of young when she took that, it was the first college test going on her record and I wanted her to be well-prepared and have a good experience inasmuch as taking one of these test can be a good experience. </p>
<p>For the other SAT2’s she did the practice test in the book of all SAT2s the college board sells and concluded that she didn’t need to study. </p>
<p>For the AP tests, she studied for some of them over the 2-3 weeks leading up to the tests and she didn’t study at all for others. She hasn’t yet started studying for this year’s May tests, except for the one where she isn’t in a class for it. I expect she’ll spend perhaps a week reviewing for the other exams. FInals in June? LOL. Our kids don’t take finals. School basically ends after the APs are done and our seniors graduate soon after. </p>
<p>S1 leafed thru test prep book in a half-a$$ed manner one month in advance of PSAT. Did not do prep course, though his high school does offer it.</p>
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New to this site so unsure how to quote posts…hope this works…</p>
<p>In my case there was a great scholarship with a 2250 cutoff, but of course your mileage may vary in terms of the benefits to squeezing out a slightly higher score. I would say that at least in my case, it wasn’t so much “upside potential” as it was that the Kaplan tutors had a way of approaching the verbal section and the essay (I didn’t get math tutoring so I can’t really say anything there) that seemed to work particularly well for the SAT. After all, the things that the test asks you to do are likely somewhat dissimilar to your normal expectations of an academic exercise; for high school tests you read a passage in order to answer questions about the main thesis or maybe specific characters/dates/events/etc, while on the SATs you get asked strange questions about the meaning behind a specific word or phrase, or the tone of a random paragraph in the passage. I hadn’t really developed a strategy to approach the problems other than the most direct route possible (read the passage, answer the questions, look back if necessary), so I found the tactics they proposed to be surprisingly helpful in that regard. </p>
<p>Also, they seem to have a good grasp on how to approach the essay in terms of what the graders want to see, compared to the average student who will probably just approach it with a “I’ll answer the question as best I can” sort of strategy. Long story short, the tutors provide an educated perspective in approaching a test that is unfamiliar in terms of what it wants from the test taker. I guess whether or not that sounds helpful is up to your son/daughter, and if I didn’t say this earlier I should mention that what I’m saying is purely anecdotal; I don’t even know if the other Kaplan tutors are as helpful as mine was (though I would hope they are, given the exorbitant rates they charge). In my case, I would credit the 150 point leap from my average practice tests to my actual score to equal parts the tutoring and random luck. Hope this helps.</p>
<p>edit: unrelated, unsolicited perspective from a college student on this thread in general: calling your kids “S” or “DD1” is really weird! It’s definitely something I’d make fun of my mom about if I saw her do it…</p>
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<p>While doing some types of SAT questions “in reverse”* can be a time-saving test taking tactic, it is not something that needs a prep course, since it is likely described in typical SAT prep books in the school library. Also, it may not be especially helpful to some students who already score high and do not come close to running out of time on the sections where such questions exist.</p>
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<li>i.e. reading the questions before reading the passage, or plugging in the proposed answers of a math question to find which one is the correct one.</li>
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<p>That’s not really what I was talking about all; anyone who isn’t a moron would do questions in reverse if the situation called for it. Although I would agree that the strategies the tutor gave me didn’t feel like they were “worth” $500. But at the end of the day it was guidance that I hadn’t received elsewhere, and when applied it was surprisingly very helpful for such relatively straightforward advice, so I must give credit where credit is due. In any case, I don’t exactly feel so beholden to Kaplan (they were well paid for their efforts, after all…) that I would continue to promote their tutoring at no benefit to myself, so I’ll just close by saying you should do whatever you feel is best. </p>
<p>Neither of my kids studied much at all for any of the standardized tests. My s12 might have used several of the SAT questions of the day at some point. My younger son studied an hour or two for the math section wen he took it the second time. He needed to score 10 more points to be eligible for a big scholarship, and that’s just what he got. My older son is quite the test taker, and scored very well, especially on the ACT and SAT 2s… My younger son scored well above average, but not as well as his brother. </p>
<p>I went to a private college prep high school back in the late 1970s/early 1980s and actually, a lot of people took the Kaplan test prep class. So there were people doing it. I did not – just took some practice tests. We all took the PSAT too.</p>
<p>I did not want to make our older son go to some stupid class and pay someone hundreds of dollars so I paid my son instead. He signed a contract to study a certain amount (half of the time the course would have taken) and he followed through.</p>
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<p>My anecdotal impression is that somewhere between a third and half of the students at my kids’ suburban privilege farm get some form of paid prep, mostly Kaplan but increasingly one-on-one tutoring at hourly rates ranging from expensive to exorbitant. I agree with everyone who says you can learn this stuff on your own, but you also can learn calculus by self-studying Newton’s “Principia Mathematica.” Nonetheless, most people find it easier and more time-efficient to have a math teacher. Test strategy is less important but no different. I didn’t feel great about paying for test prep, and I think it’s an element of our system that is fundamentally unfair to less affluent families, but I did so to ensure that my kids would be fully competitive in the pool in which they swim. </p>
<p>For a variety of reasons many recruited athletes take test preparation courses or have private tutors.</p>
<p>I don’t think there is anything typical or norm in test prep. But I do believe students these days spend more time in test prep in average. It was once common to take the test cold for the first time, and now it is not recommended.</p>
<p>My DD took a 8 week prep course that met twice a week. I asked her if she wanted to self-study but she said she would like the structure of a class. Her Math and CR scores went up from PSAT (but writing went down (likely because of essay)).</p>
<p>Note that CC is a self-selected group of students/parents who are more “into” the college search process than the norm. </p>
<p>FirstToGo = one evening</p>
<p>SecondToGo = one hour</p>
<p>ThirdToGo = one minute </p>
<p>They all did fine on their tests … with two caveats … first, we were not looking for NMF money … second, their prep mostly involved a lifetime of reading</p>
<p>My friend, who got 1400ish on all three sections of the SAT, discussing his girlfriend, who got 1000ish on all three: “Well, you can’t really study for the SAT…”</p>
<p>So there are people out there who do nothing…I can’t imagine why. The girlfriend won’t even be able to get into the local party school, according to her, with her current score. </p>