<p>Would that help more than studying the vocabulary?</p>
<p>If you’re lucky, studying 1000+ words will help you with 3/4 out of 30 in total.</p>
<p>To mangomangoo:</p>
<p>It may vary by school, so talk to the admission office at the schools. The SSAT folks told me that the year ends in July, but they do keep the scores for a year. If you take it multiple times, that only shows up as this if it is in their calendar year (August-July). My 7th grader was told not to take it until October of 8th grade for applying to high school. Some kids took a practice SSAT in 7th grade, but most took the lower. Good luck.</p>
<p>I studied about 400 and three words I studied came up on the test. Thanks a lot for the help!</p>
<p>Are we allowed to bring the ssat test booklet home? If anyone has a ssat booklet test please tell me and i would like to pay for it just to study the vocabs</p>
<p>^^^ @MA2012,
I think eighth graders might find that the math section scores better with a later administration (December or January?) than the October one. That way, they get more classroom instruction and practice, are in a stronger groove perhaps than in Oct., so recently having gotten back from the summer vacation. Yet, the October could be a “practice Upper Level” test for fine tuning, if necessary, before another winter attempt. Just some thoughts to consider . . .</p>
<p>Their school recommends October, so there is time for another test if things don’t go well. Nov and Dec could work, but I’m not sure if January is too late for some schools. We are just starting the whole process here, so still have a lot to learn!</p>
<p>@Anbu, one cannot walk out of the test center with a test booklet. And trying to buy a smuggled one is cheating. If you are caught, there can be heavy penalties-- possibly even CRIMINAL penalties, as were levied in some recent SAT-cheating scams. </p>
<p>You can, however, buy a SSAT study guide at most major bookstores. These books will have vocab lists & practice tests. Just look in the Test Study Guides section of the bookstore where they would stock help-books for preparing for the SAT, etc.</p>
<p>How do you do so well</p>
<p>Any tip on improving verbal what books or word list do you study</p>
<p>@Anbu, see post #68. You can buy SSAT study guides at most book stores.</p>
<p>Any tips on how to get a higher verbal score? I’m pretty good in the math, but my verbal and reading comp are not nearly as good. Advice from past test-takers or future testers will be appreciated</p>
<p>I’m going to say something that may not be popular, but here goes…maybe the time to think about “improving verbal scores” isn’t the month/week before you have to take a test when the results matter.</p>
<p>Maybe it starts years ago, with reading everything you can. Reading stuff at your grade level, then at higher levels. And not just books assigned at school. And not because you know you are going to be taking a test in the Fall of your 8th grade or 9th grade year that could affect your chances for a selective high school. Read because you’re curious. Because you love it.</p>
<p>Maybe it starts with asking your parents and teachers the meanings of words you don’t know. Or looking them up yourself.</p>
<p>I’m not entirely joking. From what i’ve read on the board over the past two years, cramming vocab flashcards isn’t much of a help…students have reported that out of dozens of words they studied, only a handful appear on the test they took. They were not pleased.</p>
<p>My point is this: I don’t think you can really boost your reading comp. or vocabulary over night. That’s something that’s been built over years.</p>
<p>So one possible takeaway might be “Instead of looking for ways to tweak my scores, maybe my time would be better spent exploring some schools where the average SSAT scores are closer to mine.”</p>
<p>From what we can tell so far, both of our kids’ experiences attest to 7D’s comments in #73. Their verbal SSAT scores are extremely good and they both have been life-long readers. They choose materials outside of their courses all the time to read, even as we get into these high school years. The following is for those who have a young child in the room . . . </p>
<p>Small classes in elementary school assisted our children’s development; my daughter, in particular, was able to read on her own in the classroom after finishing her assigned work, so the teachers’ encouragement, as well as instruction, was terrific. We subscribe to the idea that low student-teacher ratios are commonly underappreciated.</p>
<p>However, parental decisions are also helpful. For us, this included reading to the kids at bedtime every night from ages one to five, or thereabouts. That was demanding, in some ways, but seems to have been key to getting the ball rolling and the rewards were of course many. Secondly, we purposefully withheld electronic gadgets during those formative years; access to the first Gameboy was limited, as it was to the devices that followed, like the DS. We never had anything hooked up to the TV. Our kids played outside with neighbors, sometimes coming in to watch old shows on videotape, etc. </p>
<p>That’s our story, pretty much. We did some workouts with the test’s prep booklet that introduced the design and gave tips, we took the lower level in seventh grade. But the lifetime of reading to boost performance rings true with us. Practice what you value, and value what you practice.</p>
<p>I agree with 7Dad and Charger. Language ability tends to take more time and sustained efforts to develop. I think it’s part nature, part nurture. In my D’s case, it was lots of nature, so she needed only a little bit, if there was any, of nudging from parents.</p>
<p>But not all people are born with affinity toward letters. Some are better with numbers, and even if they try hard, they just can’t get it. I don’t know how much efforts you have put into English, but I’d just assume that you have reasonably tried.</p>
<p>If you try to expand your vocabulary in a “crunch (1-2 months?),” try using flashcards. I guess this is no special tricks. For example, try search with “SSAT vocabulary” in the Quizlet web site; you’ll find some. What you could do is, say, to browse a word list twice, mark the words you can’t define for the second time, create a custom, shorter word list, and repeat the process. You can then proceed to conquer another word list. Go even tackle SAT word lists too. </p>
<p>I’m not saying this is the best crunch-time method, but my D used this and, a few decades ago, I used it with good results.</p>
<p>SharingGift has a good point. Vocab takes a lot of time to sink in, especially if you’re not very good with learning new words. When I took the SSAT last year, I accumulated 1500 words in 3 months, impressed my english teacher, had a fantastic interview with my new vocab words, got a 99 percentile on the SSAT, and was admitted to Choate, Hopkins and waitlisted to Andover. Learning new words is like an investment. Lot’s of work needed, slow to pay you back; but when it does, you win big time :)</p>