<p>I don’t know of any teenager with that sort of personality that will actually really listen to parents. I didn’t. I suppose you could try bribery ($1 for every point about 500), if you are really desperate.</p>
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<p>Dang. I wish my parents would have cared about scores like that. Sure would’ve kicked me in the pants!</p>
<p>Get a SAT practice book and see how he does in that section.</p>
<p>When you say that he did badly in English…do you mean CR or Writing?</p>
<p>“When an AP English A student gets 400 on the SAT Verbal, it is time to call the CB for a hand scoring. It is quite possible your student missed a question and put all subsequent answers one row higher.”</p>
<p>I think it is a good idea to do that.
But you also should take a look how the high school teacher taught the course. I personally met many kids who had As in AP calculus but failed college calculus terribly.
My kid is in AP comp now, he said everyone gets A in the class, so I am wondering !!!</p>
<p>I concur that you should check the score. If you don’t know what he scored on his practice tests, assuming he took at least one, buy a CollegeBoard practice book and give him the CR section to at least confirm that he is actually scoring in the 400 range.</p>
<p>Take him to look at a few colleges. If he falls in love with a college that he knows will require a much higher CR score, it may motivate him to practice and do better. This worked wonders with a friend’s son last year.</p>
<p>Agree with menloparkmom and the subsequent posts. That score doesnt make sense. Perhaps he got off track on the answer sheet and the answers are all 1 line off. Handscore request. Now.</p>
<p>baybreeze - your son sounds like my son, one year ahead, almost exactly. He is full of attitude and although I have been reading posts on CC for almost 5 years, he will not listen to my advice about college planning (or much else for that matter). My son is also in the top of his huge, uber-competitive hs class and scored substantially below his “abilities” in the CR section of the sophomore practice PSAT.
I ran into my elder children’s private SAT tutor at the gym and mentioned the disparity to him. He told me that is actually very common in high achievers. He also told me that he has had a lot of success with raising CR grades in these kids using an online program called Eye Q (which he recommended that I do this summer with my son). I looked it up online and it looks like it may help my child. I know that, at least for my son, the CR was so low because he didn’t have the patience to read through the paragraphs of the reading comp. sections and then when he went back later, he ran out of time. My son omitted 22 of the 45 or so CR questions on the PSAT! Eye Q is basically a eye training exercise program that has the end effect of helping the kids to read faster.</p>
<p>Anyhow, just google Eye Q and you will get the website if you want to check it out. This summer (my son, class of 2012) is going to work with a tutor on CR and writing for the SAT AND now he will do that Eye Q program. I am hoping that this helps.</p>
<p>…with a little performance incentive. My daughter turns 16 next month and is a high school junior. I felt she could do a little more preparation for the January SAT, so I devised an incentive plan for her that had to do with her main object of desire: a car. She had to meet a certain standard to even consider getting a car of a certain kind and cost, and then for every 10 points she earned more ‘credit’ towards a better car. It worked to some degree.</p>
<p>BUT, and this is maybe my main point, she then took the ACT in February with little more preparation, and scored the equivalent of 300+ points better and ended up in the 99th percentile. Luckily for her, she had negotiated the same deal for her ACT (with the help of an ACT/SAT equivalence chart).</p>
<p>I personally would have another heart to heart with your child and find out what is driving this. I would then strongly recommend having them take the ACT…some students just perform much better on one or the other tests.</p>
<p>Thank you for all your great advice. Everyone is right, so I may take bits and pieces of everyone’s advice. </p>
<p>In answer to a question about which part he did poorly on - it was the critical reading part. The writing part he did over 600. And he had taken two practice tests with the tutor and scored over 600 on the reading section.</p>
<p>I don’t think he can get in the 700’s but 600’s seem reasonable. I noticed that he doesn’t enjoy reading, and that is a problem. A lot of times he is reading the spark notes for assignments rather than delving into the full length novel. He claims it’s a time isssue, but I don’t think that’s the only thing going on. Reading a novel takes patience and follow-through. But that’s a whole other issue. </p>
<p>Taking the ACT is a good idea too. But I’m assuming you have to study for that test as well.</p>
<p>Studying for these tests is of limited value. But if your son has traditionally gotten 600s range on standardized testing, the good news is there is scorechoice, now, and still time for another test. He may be more motivated to put in the work you want him to put in when he realizes he will have to retake for a score.</p>
<p>Good luck. Raising teenagers is not for sissies, as I heard someone say on here one time.</p>
<p>I’d also suggest the ACT. Many kids do better on one test than another.</p>
<p>The other incentive that might work is one that doesn’t nag, if this is acceptable to you, of course. Give him a list of the colleges that he might be interested in, or at least a “tier” of them. Tell him that you will not fund a school below that level (of course, make it realistic, and note the schools from Fairtest that are part of those tiers - I’m not suggesting an “Ivy or we’re not paying” mentality). If he doesn’t get in to an acceptable school, he gets a job and tries again the following year. It’s amazing how much more motivated many kids become after a short period of “Want fries with that?”</p>
<p>‘In answer to a question about which part he did poorly on - it was the critical reading part. The writing part he did over 600. And he had taken two practice tests with the tutor and scored over 600 on the reading section.’</p>
<p>600 on Writing and low 400s on CR waves a red flag to me; get the CR hand scored, for your and your son’s peace of mind.</p>
<p>One of my kids had a relly low score on a subject test. As soon as he saw the score he knew there was a problem. We had it rescored and in fact there had been an error. The grade was changed. </p>
<p>There must be a problem with your sons grade. He has a high GPA and is taking AP English. That just does not make sense.</p>
<p>You paid an SAT tutor, right? What does the tutor think</p>
<p>I don’t think College Board would change his score, even if it seemed as if he marked the answer sheet wrong. The only thing they may do is not have the score appear when they send scores to colleges. Your son should definitely take another SAT. You can choose scores you send to most schools. Good luck.</p>
<p>Does hand scoring actually check and fix the problem where a kid got off-by-one? I’m not sure how this would work.</p>
<p>But I second the advice of talking with his counselor (or a teacher he respects) and asking that person to have a talk with your son.</p>
<p>My gut feeling is that if he scored well (600 +) on the next go-round, that colleges would look at the 400 score as not relevant. </p>
<p>Honestly, I’d be hard pressed to see how to even get a 400 other than only doing a quarter of the test and then randomly guessing the rest.</p>
<p>My daughter turns 16 next month and is a high school junior. I felt she could do a little more preparation for the January SAT, so I devised an incentive plan for her that had to do with her main object of desire: a car. She had to meet a certain standard to even consider getting a car of a certain kind and cost, and then for every 10 points she earned more ‘credit’ towards a better car. It worked to some degree.</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>I used to give each my kids 2 tickets to the movies & popcorn/drink money (for the child and a friend) for every 2 hours that they would do SAT/ACT practice sections. When they began seeing improvements, they no longer asked for the tickets and just began studying on their own.</p>
<p>In the end it didn’t cost me much, but it sure “paid off” with scores!</p>
<p>They do change the grade if the mistake had nothing to do with the bubbles. My kid did something kind of silly.</p>
<p>As far as the test prep goes- we went with the one on one tutoring—not the group thing. For 8 90 minute sessions it cost us about $200 more than the regular group classroom thing. The tutor was a Dartmouth grad who came to our house. My D took the ACT cold the first time–barely any studying – then after the tutor went from a 29 to a 33.
So I totally recommend the private tutor gig if possible. Just being around the college grad pushed her.</p>
<p>But bottom line is…find the thread about top student going to 3rd tier college. Attendance at top colleges are not the only way to success. Most people never go to a top college, yet they make great strides at whatever college they choose. His test taking skills (or understanding of why it is important) may kick in later!</p>
<p>Good luck to you and your son. But it may be time to let it go. People learn more from mistake than successes.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl - the tutor was shocked with his score and said that my son seemed distracted and tired these last few sessions (he did about 8 semi-private lessons). I told my son I am not continuing with the tutor since I am throwing money out the window.</p>
<p>I like the idea of an incentive. Maybe $ for every point he gets over 600. $1 seems to little, …$5 too much? It would still be less expensive than the tutor! I know he loves money, since we do not give him money every time he wants it. All great ideas. I like the movie theater ticket idea for my daughter, who is now a sophomore. I’m just feeling a little guilty because my older son (in college now) was self-motivated and we never had to bribe him - getting a good score was incentive enough.</p>