D21 has been practicing with the eight official practice tests in the SAT blue book and has been improving her scores. I talked to a popular tutor in our neighborhood and she says that these are good tests to use for practice and to study but to NOT use the scoring because it will give her a false sense of how she will score on the upcoming tests. Her suggestion was to just try to shoot for fewer and fewer questions wrong (no duh) but not focus on the scores.
She’s suggesting this because she says that the last half dozen of the SAT sittings have had very harsh curves and the number that D is getting wrong right now won’t be the score she expects if she scores herself on these eight tests. For example, she just took test 5 and got eight wrong on math. That’s a 700 according to the scoring. The tutor is saying that eight wrong on the last handful of tests won’t break 700 and she expects this “harder scoring” to continue.
Now, the way I’ve always understood how these tests are scored is that, if a test is deemed “easier” by SAT then the curve is harsher so, if one uses official practice tests, those scores should be representative of any sitting of an SAT. Is this no longer true? Are the tests about the same difficulty but the curves are harsher? Does the tutor’s advice make sense to just keep practicing but try not to focus too much on D’s practice scores? Should we assume that her scores will be lower on upcoming tests even if she gets the same number wrong on the March test than she gets on these practice tests? Ha. That’s a lot of questions…
That’s what I thought but the tutor made it sound like the curves are harsher even though the difficulty is supposedly the same. She’s a very well known and experienced tutor and I thought this advice was interesting. Why would she say to not pay attention to the scores on these practice tests? Are the last three or four SATs “easier” than the eight official practice tests?
Wondering if anyone used these tests, then took the SAT and thought test was easier and scored around the same as the practice tests.
@homerdog. My daughter used the SAT blue book for prep and my impression is that it was easier to get a higher score on an “harder” test.
She took the November test and I remember reading on line that 5 errors in math = 700 and 3 errors in writing was a 740-750 or so. There was not much room for error if you were shooting for a 1450+
There was a lot of chatter about “easier” tests when the PSAT results came out this year. I know a number of kids whose scores dropped from sophomore to junior year, enough to knock them out of NMF eligibility.
To answer your question, my kid’s practice tests in the blue book fell within a 100 point range and she scored within that range on the real test. YMMV.
The tutor appears to have no idea of how the SAT is scored and what the concept of equating means. Which is sad for someone claiming to be an SAT specialist.
A lower score for a given raw score, incorrectly referred to as a “curve”, simply means the test was easier. SAT scores are defined by percentiles. If students on average got more questions correct (i.e. the test was “easier”) then it takes more questions correct to score at a certain percentile of the population (and the resulting SAT score) than it would have on another “harder” test.
It’s a bit more complicated, and CB has white papers that explain the statistics behind it - it’s not based on just that one test but among all tests. (They re-use unscored test questions and take advantage of the fact that many students test multiple times to equate between tests.)
If a student scores better than 90% of all students would have on a particular SAT Math test, that student will receive a 670. It doesn’t matter if the test was a difficult one and the student got 12 problems wrong or an easier one where the student only got 8 problems wrong. If is was better than 90% of students did/would have scored, it’s a 670. The scoring tables for the sample tests and the scoring for actual future tests are the same.
No, it’s not perfect, and there may be small discrepancies. But the cry that “I only got a low score because of a harsh curve!” is an unfounded excuse.
@homerdog According to Inside Higher Ed, the last few SATs, especially the math, were easier.
However, it could just be the fact that the teachers and kids are getting used to the new format, that there are more in international students and they are getting used too the new format, and, of course, the free prep guides by companies like Khan Academy is making test prep much more available beyond the top percentiles of SES. Since the “secret” of successful prep for most kids is mostly practice, the availability of practice tests along with guides as how to use them means that more students are better prepared for the SATs
Finally, there is an arms race - the minimum SAT required for accepted to popular schools, and is going up, so more kids are putting in time, and kids putting in more time, to prep.
So it’s likely less that the tests are easier, and more that the students are better prepared. So the number of students who get only five questions wrong on math is much higher, and thus the curve becomes harsher.
@RichInPitt i agree with your post. That is indeed how equating works.
I guess the question then becomes, how does one practice for these “easier” tests with harsher curves when the practice tests out there are “harder” (at least according to SAT’s equating)? Is the studying still the same? Maybe D just keeps prepping but on test day goes in with the mindset that lately the test has been “easier” so she needs to be extra careful about things like arithmetic errors or approaching problems in complicated ways since there is likely more straightforward ways to do the problems. She tends to do that already - use trig to answer questions when she could have just looked at the drawing and got the answer way faster. Learning the easy way to do the questions leads to fewer errors.
Generally on the no calculator questions the easy way to do problems should pop out to them in about 30 seconds. If they are churning away on a long way, better to move on and come back.
IMO, the best way for your dd to maximize her score is to take the SAT practice tests and then carefully study the questions she got wrong on each exam such that she learns why she made each error, and then familiarize herself with the concepts that make the correct answer what it is. Basically, she will be finding her knowledge gaps and teaching herself to avoid those mistakes in the future. Then, she should get a good nights’ rest before the exam so she is ready to kick some test booty on test day.
My current high school junior did all 10 of the available official SAT tests, but usually not under test conditions, sometimes one section a day. Time was not an issue anyway based on prior testing experience.
The practice tests all fell within an 80 point range, and my child’s performance on the October 2019 test turned out to be 20 points from the top of that range. So I would say the blue book and the two more recently released tests were pretty accurate in predicting performance.
Is she missing problems because the question is challenging or are they “silly” mistakes? I think that’s the reality of the different curves. While I completely understand the process of equating, for SOME kids, they’re just not going to get through the entire test without a couple silly mistakes. And it’s particularly pronounced at the high end where the kid really knows the math, they’re just prone to making a couple errors. Those are the kids who suffer on the harsh curve. My daughter came out of the SAT thinking it was the easiest test she had ever seen and was sure she killed it. She ended up with something like a 720/740? in math with just a couple questions wrong. The curve matters a lot for those kids - for most kids who will answer fewer questions wrong on an easier test, the equating works.
I would say that half of the mistakes on math are dumb dumb mistakes and, when she looks at the question a second time, she’s like “uh I did know that!” She is learning from those mistakes of course. She really is solid on all concepts being tested. The questions she can’t figure out are because of the way the question is asked. So getting those questions wrong and understanding her mistakes helps a little bit but every test is different of course.
This is especially the case with reading where, she can review her mistakes, and read why the correct answers are correct but the next test is the next test with different reading passages of course. She’s clear on the strategy for reading - that the answer is explicitly in the passage, to not “analyze” or extrapolate from what is actually in black and white in the passage - but analyzing mistakes on one test doesn’t really help with the next test. Maybe just taking more practice tests helps.
She’s taken two tests now. On all sections, she’s missed fewer the second time (math from 13 wrong to 8 wrong, reading from 10 wrong to 7 wrong, writing from 8 wrong to 5 wrong) so she’s going in the right direction! I know her scores may bounce around a bit as she takes more tests and she won’t just get fewer wrong each time.
S19 bounced around a bit but, from first practice test (he took six) to first real sitting, he went from 1410 to 1540. (1410, 1380, 1460, 1480, 1490, 1470 practice and 1540 real). He, however, took the SAT in Aug 2018 before the really crazy curves started happening. His 800 math was one wrong but his 740 EW was nine wrong and that seems like it’s not happening anymore. Nine wrong EW would be way lower on recent tests. That’s what I don’t get.
@VickiSoCal I agree about the math and I’ve tried to get her to understand that. Look at the drawing if there is one. They are drawn to scale. She had one question that I figured out in five seconds and she was doing some crazy trig to figure it out. She got it right but took so long. It was in the first ten questions and I told her that no question would take as much work as she did …she has to learn to look at the math questions and find the most obvious way to do them. It’s not natural for her to do that. She thinks about “how they do it at school” a bit too much.
My daughter took a handful of the official practice tests and her performance on the October 2019 test reflected her scores ( for example in math her practice tests were 780-800 and she ended up with a 790).
@RockyPA At the tippy top of the curve, I think the official practice tests are fine. One, two wrong has always been 790-780. Sometimes, one wrong was an 800. That doesn’t seem to ever be the case anymore.
The scores a little further down the scale are the ones that have been super rough lately. Four wrong, five wrong on each section on the official tests is usually still above 750 but that’s not the case with the most recent tests. I know that our son’s nine wrong on EW in Aug 2018 would not be a 740 lately.
These easy tests do sometimes help a certain type of student. We do know kids who aren’t even that advanced in math get 800s to everyone’s surprise while the kids in BC junior year get a few wrong. Some kids are just good at going the right pace and not rushing. Sometimes, the really advanced math kids think “eh this is easy” and then make mistakes.
I guess the bottom line is I want to know the secret to not making silly mistakes! That would get D (and probably lots of other kids) a few extra points for sure!
Silly mistakes are definitely a problem at the top too… my daughter made one such mistake and got her 790… and yes the SAT definitely does not measure math prowess at the higher levels!
As the tests become easier, the penalty for “silly” mistakes becomes greater for those who are likely to score towards the top of the range. The ability to maintain concentration and double check your work is no doubt an important skill, but it is not necessarily well correlated with actual knowledge of the material on the test.
I agree that in particular the SAT does not measure math prowess at the higher levels. My own high school junior got a 790 on math at the beginning of 7th grade (talent search) after only a month of precalculus (and no formal classes in algebra or geometry), and just this October got a 790 again half way through Linear Algebra. Both times 1 wrong. Both times finished in less than half the allotted time. Some kids just can’t settle down and check their work, regardless of ability. The new SAT catches them for sure.
The curve, I believe is such that the 50th percentile is a 1000. I got -2 on Math and ended up with a 750; this curve has been similar for the past few tests
