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In our house English is not spoken - unless we have company of course, but other than that, spoken English is left at the doorway. There are books, magazines and TV, but we do not speak English to each other.
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I grew up in an immigrant household as well; unfortunately, my parents didn't teach us their native language. They relied on us to help teach them English. Because of this, my grammar is more advanced than most of my friends' throughtout school, as was my spelling and use of words. If I didn't speak correctly, my parents didn't understand.</p>
<p>And I've insisted that my d also speak correctly, although it didn't work as well with her as it did with me!</p>
<p>I agree with xiggi for preparing for the CR in a finite amount of time, and that reading ALOT from a young age is the best and most enjoyable preparation. My daughter has carried her dictionary around with her for several years.
Happily, doing away with the analogies section has reduced the role of pure vocabulary in the section. There are words you can figure out in context that you can't when presented in a free-standing form.</p>
<p>Agree with MotherofTwo about reading. Our daughter has always been a big (wait . . I meant to say, a voracious and insatiable) reader. In the 7th grade, walking in cold, she scored 760 on the verbal section of the SAT; as a junior, a perfect 800 (old SAT). She did no formal prep for the SAT (took a practice test out of the book), so I have to believe that reading (and reading a broad range of works) is really the key. Although our household is fairly verbal, I still attribute high scores to years of reading-- and, of course, comprehension of what's being read.</p>
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. . . his torturous periple down the SAT underworld.
<p>I think the OP is referring to a tighter time window. IOW, the reading lots of books advice is not going to "help" the student who is taking next month's SAT. As xiggi says, it's better to have a longer time frame to prepare, but unfortunately there are thousands of students out there as we read and write, who are sweating over next month's test (which for many will be their last SAT and therefore their last chance to make it into their dream world college!).</p>
<p>Obviously it's improbable that someone can do much to increase their score hundreds of points in just a month. However, it is possible to increase a score by up to 50 points in less than a month, if a concentrated effort is made in the right direction. I'd go ahead and give a 300 word list a good going over, including paying attention to the roots (as marite said- jubilation, jubilee, etc.) as well as xiggi's method of "studying" a bunch of tests to see if you can catch on to the logic. </p>
<p>Another hint- never read more into the question or the essay itself that isn't specifically stated or at least obviously suggested by the author. Kids are "taught" to read into and interpret literature- that absolutely KILLS them on the CR portion of the SAT! One of the reasons that I have lobbied for our school to offer AP Lang in 11th grade THEN AP Lit in 12th instead of the way they do it now (AP Lit in 11th). The juniors get out of Lit with all these wonderful interpretive reading skills and then go out and promptly bomb the SAT. :(</p>
<p>If you've got little kids, it might be a good idea to read a lot to them now. I'm a student, but I think this helped me out a lot. My parents read to me until I could read myself, but then continued through elementary school. At that point they read me novels that would be too challenging for me to tackle alone. I followed along as they read, and they could help me understand anything I wasn't sure about. Neither their professions nor my ambitions lie in the field of English, but I have a perfect record of CR scores on the big 3 standardized tests.</p>
<p>My daughters love to read and, like diskobox, we read to them for years. The older one feels this made a difference on her PSATs and SATs. However, some of her friends (who did not do as well on CR or W) were mad at their parents for not reading to them enough as children! D thought this pretty funny.</p>
<p>D did not prep for either test (despite my pleas that she review math), she's happy with her CR 800. But like another commenter, we have an OED in the house--we received 2 as wedding gifts.</p>
<p>We're also a "wordy" family --books all over the house, etc. Son got 800 on SAT English, daughter 790, both without studying. I've signed up for the SAT "Question of Day" email and find it a nice brain teaser every morning -- but some of those sentences they want you pinpoint the error in are gawd-awful! Too bad "Start fresh, please" isn't a choice :)</p>
<p>I've read that the difference in spoken vocabularies at kindergarten between children from affluent families and poor families is enormous. The number of different words heard in a day by the kids correlates exactly. And what is cheaper than speech? Anyone can and should talk with their kids. Even if the library is too difficult to get to regularly, parents can tell stories to their kids about stuffed animals, family history, whatever. (Okay, I'll creep off my soap box now.)</p>
<p>Great tips, xiggi on the the critical reading and fascinating to hear everyone's experiences w/vocab growing up & w/their own kids. I always figured my son has a big (mental) vocab because I tend to use big words & he's a real reader. But, thinking about it, the level of his reading over the past few years could have used some challenge...hopefully there's time to remedy that---if not for the SAT, then just for learning generally (it doesn't happen at our public HS---even though he's been in honors Eng for yrs!).</p>
<p>Magic Cards!?! ROFL! I'll have to take a look at them, we have thousands and thousands of them. Mathson's little brother still plays pretty regularly.</p>
<p>I think one of the best ways someone can increase their vocabulary without deliberately studying is to develop an interest in reading 19th century novels, particuarly British novels. If you can somehow get a kid hooked on Hardy, Trollope, Dickens, etc., he'll be in fine vocabulary shape for the SAT.</p>
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Here's a cheap tip: rather than spend time reading boring and unhelpful lists of words, check Ebay or another source for older books published by the COLLEGE BOARD and have your son read the past Reading sections and plug the answers in. Yes, read the sections WITH the answers in front of him. Reading 10-12 complete tests will do a LOT more than spending time on a list that is mostly a compilation of the words that appeared in the past but are taken out of context.
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<p>Xiggi, thanks for the "cheap trick." To me, it's a golden nugget of common sense. </p>
<p>I have started reading your post on taking the SAT and am picking up GREAT information. Your advice gives me a sense of direction as I sort through all the different methods and try to create an individualized plan together with my son.</p>
<p>Before we puff ourselves up too much about our 'wordy' homes, let's keep in mind that wordiness is related to family wealth--if not in your generation, then somewhere downt he track.</p>
<p>Unlike a few of my layabout siblings, I nurtured a voracious reading habit from toddlerhood to current dottage--and I made sure my boys were surrounded, literally, by beautiful, magical books. I paid dearly for their schools to increase their love of words. Still paying in fact....;)</p>
<p>Surprise! They love to read. With an eensy bit of practice, they can hit the SAT CR out of the park.</p>
<p>My mother instilled her love of reading in me. She grew up in a well-to-do household. She went to private schools through university. Her father instilled his love of reading in her. He graduated from private university in 1918. Though it was a choice of mine, my love of reading isn't such a surprise given the affluence in my mother's background.</p>
<p>My husband grew up in a Horatio Alger family--abject poverty to wealth during his formative years. After the marines, his father went to night school--to get a business degree. From there, he rose to the tippy top of corporate America and the tippy top of income earners. Still, he wouldn't be considered 'wordy'. My husband's mother graduated from high school. She loves to read but would not be considered 'wordy'. She knows she is not 'wordy' in the academic sense and that lack is a source of shame to her.</p>
<p>Consequently, my husband isn't 'wordy' in the academic sense of the word. His children--another generation beyond their grandparent's poverty and supported by the traditions of the maternal side of their roots--are wordy. </p>
<p>Count your blessings if someone taught you how to live a literate life. Chances are your family was blessed with wealth at some stage.</p>
<p>My mother grew up in a poor immigrant family and she is very wordy. She has always used a lot of high level vocabulary words. I don't think that you can generalize this way.</p>
<p>cheers--I also disagree. My mother's mother came to this country from Czechoslovakia as a child, lived on a farm, and had probably an elementary school education (in North Dakota) at best. She still managed to instill in her children a love of reading and in particular, a love of poetry in English!</p>
<p>I know lots of people with similar backgrounds--parents or g'parents were immigrants with small chance for education who nevertheless nurtured literacy in their children. It makes me sad to see nowadays children of privilege seemingly going backwards in literacy--living in McMansions but with few books in the home, allowing their children to spend all their time on movies, video games, and TV. And sports, of course. Nothing wrong with any of the above in their place, but it gets me when some people say "Oh, your kids are naturally smart!" </p>
<p>They may be, but I hope I have guided them in what to be smart at. As my mother always said, "You can learn anything if you are a good reader."</p>
<p>Another point in favor of wordiness NOT being related to family wealth, but rather to much reading--I wish I could remember whose life story I read years ago. He grew up in Texas, I think, the son of poor sharecroppers. Somehow he was "turned on" to books. He found the public library and, overjoyed, began reading his way through the stacks. The kindly librarian took pity on him and helped him focus his choices a little better. He went on to earn a high school and then college education. </p>
<p>It really doesn't matter whose story it is, I guess...the point is, he grew up to be a man of letters, unlike any of the rest of his family.</p>
<p>Cheers, no wealth in my family line. I went to college on an athletic scholarship and didn't take any standardized admissions test. When I discovered I would never qualify for the Olympics, I shifted my focus to academics and spent a year in England studying English Literature. This experience awakened my intellectual curiousity and instilled a desire to read the "classics."</p>