October 16 SSAT

<p>Good luck to all you kiddos taking your ssat tomorrow morning.</p>

<p>ditto
10 char</p>

<p>Pencils are sharpened and snacks packed!</p>

<p>Hope she’s in bed. Mine is. She’s worried; I’m not. That’s the first major difference between this year and last year! :)</p>

<p>I would be taking the SSAT if I weren’t taking the PSAT tomorrow.</p>

<p>Hey everyone i haven’t been on in a while but i just got back from taking the SSAT.
The verbal section was MUCH harder than the practice tests and they didn’t use that many words from the Princeton Review. And the I think I bombed the math section. I left a few unanswered at the end b/c I ran out of time. So I probably will wind up having to retake in November or December. Oh, and if I don’t get a high 90’s score on reading I will be very surprised. But still, I think I’ll have to retake. And I think I can start posting again now that I’ve settled into the rhythm of this year and the demands of my life so that’s great :)</p>

<p>@ifax: Good to see you back and to hear that you’re in a rhythm at school. CC can take a up a lot of time and energy if you’re not careful.</p>

<p>Regarding the vocab…I think many people are duped into thinking the review books contain words that will be on actual tests. After taking the SAT the first time last year, my daughter gave me a bit of a lecture… “Um, not a single word from the Barron’s book was on that test.” It’s best to think of those review book lists as examples of the types of words that will be on the tests they are written for.</p>

<p>It’s good that you took one relatively early in the testing season…so you can take it again if you aren’t satisfied with your scores. It sure ain’t cheap, though! I wouldn’t fret too much until the results come in.</p>

<p>In my opinion, it was pretty similar if not easier than the Princeton Review practice SSAT. The reading passages were pretty short and the math sections were easier than the practice ones.</p>

<p>@neato: She was in bed by nine on Friday after a dinner of her choosing (Chinese, dine out).</p>

<p>@ifax: Get this prep book my daughter swears by called “Up Your Score”…according to her, that was the single most helpful thing she’s read for either the SSAT or the SAT. It’s by some kids who got 800s on the SAT…and is more about strategies and tactics…time management is one of the main themes.</p>

<p>My S took SSAT this morning. His impression was that verbal was hard, math and RC easy. He omitted 2 in verbal, but was able to complete other sections. In verbal, you can miss a few question and still score relatively well, but in RC, missing a few brings your score down dramatically.</p>

<p>That’s the great thing about the verbal section. If you get a raw score of 50, you get a 779 on the section which is like a 90ish? But I’m not sure if the SSAT is as forgiving with math. I think if you miss 10 questions on the math, you’re score is aprox. an 80%. I’d be lucky to scrape an 80% judging by how I think I did. But I’m already strongly considering taking it again. I’m just going to wait for results. </p>

<p>@SevenDad,
Thanks for the suggestion. I’m pretty sure time management is my problem during tests. I spend a lot of time on the hard questions instead of skipping them. This book would probably be beneficial to me. And btw I’m interviewing at St. Paul’s next week.</p>

<p>My seventh grader who is not applying to BSs until next Fall took it for the experience at Chapel Hill Chauncy Hall. She wanted to try it with testing conditions etc. She thought the Math was easy, and the verbal difficult.</p>

<p>Was it a lot harder than the practice tests? I took the practice test and got 90th percentile. What brought down my score was my 69th in verbal. if the test is much harder im screwed, even with all the studying im doing.</p>

<p>@danceaway: Don’t stress…seriously. It’s just one component of your application.</p>

<p>That said, here’s a link to a semi-recent thread on this exact topic:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/1011601-compare-practice-ssat-real-ssat.html?highlight=SSAT[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-admissions/1011601-compare-practice-ssat-real-ssat.html?highlight=SSAT&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;