Our 8th grade son has had an up and down experience prepping for the SSAT. He was doing great in the Spring, mid-high 90s percentiles, although he wasn’t doing a full 3 hour straight exam, he would do an hour, take a break, go back. We thought it was sufficient. Then he took the June test as a practice and it was way down. He is gifted in math in school, math competitions, IQ tests, and yet he was in the low 70s on Math. Even lower on Reading/Verbal.
He has been studying a bit everyday this summer, and took an Official online SSAT test, and was 98 Math, 95 Verbal, yet only 30 Reading. He got stuck on a Reading passage, and basically melted down and got 12 in a row wrong and didn’t finish.
He obviously needs some coaching on how to actually TAKE the test - not get stressed, skip hard questions and come back, not outthink himself (he looks for esoteric answers instead of straightforward ones), etc. Anyone have any tutor/counselling advice they can pass on? He’s enrolled for this October’s test. Appreciate any help you can offer!
It was our GolfKiddo’s experience that the Reading section was highly variable in terms of difficulty and content ( length and type of passages, poem versus short story, and even century of when the original passage was written. Kiddo did not have much test taking practice on Reading. Instead focused on Vocabulary & Analogies and this paid off. The popular YA books often assigned in middle school isn’t the best preparation for the SSAT, IMHO. We used the official SSAT online resource, a Princeton Review book and one video session on Reading. Practice pacing yourself on that Reading section. Don’t get stuck on a single passage or question. Need to move on. There has been good advice on other threads about this. Practice using a watch and bring a watch to the testing center because some places will not have a clock on the wall. Best wishes :bz
Thank you @Golfgr8 ! We will work with him on pacing. Perhaps have him do more Paper based practice so that he learns he can jump around and do Easy passages first (quick, less than a minute each) and leave the hard ones to the end. A little harder to jump around doing online tests.
Many, possibly most, students take the test without any preparation whatsoever & do well. This leads me to wonder whether your son’s difficulty is due to too much self imposed pressure to do well.
P.S. “he looks for esoteric answers instead of straightforward ones” is troubling. Why does he do this ?
The SSAT is a very easy, straightforward test. My overwhelming impression is that your son is placing so much pressure on himself to do well that he is playing mind games with himself.
To be blunt, the source of unwarranted pressure is often a parent.
Although I am repeating myself, I think that it is important to convey to your son that this is not a tricky test.
I am worried that test counseling might increase his anxieties.
@BordDuLac: May I private message you with a very short, true story about the SSAT ?
Since there is no response, and since you asked for advice regarding his October SSAT test: I suggest that you the parent forget about the test & let your son forget about it as well. Just go & take the test without any pressure & without any expectations.
@Publisher Thanks for the response. I don’t get PMs.
The statement that many or most kids don’t prepare for the SSAT and do well is not at all consistent with our knowledge of families whose kids have applied to well-regarded boarding schools. In fact, I don’t know a single BS applicant who has written the SSAT with zero preparation. AOs have told us to have our son prepare, but not too much. Should people just wing the SAT, ACT, etc.? At a minimum, there are a couple of small math concepts he hadn’t yet covered in school for which he has had to get up to speed. If kids were truly winging the SSAT I think there would be infinitely fewer tutors, study books and programs oriented to the test.
Based on what I’ve observed on this Forum and around March 10 decision time, many self-starter kids put pressure on themselves to get into well regarded BSs. It’s a big life decision, and kids don’t take it lightly.
Anyway, we’ve just noticed a lot of variability in his practice scores, especially in Reading. @Publisher 's advice to convey to him it is not a tricky test, and the Reading section does not contain any “tricks” (unlike the Verbal section) is well taken.
@BordDuLac When I first applied to boarding schools I winged the SSAT and scored in the 84th percentile. Not the greatest score lol I wouldn’t recommend it for your son. I prepared for the SAT this time and am expecting a 1460+.
Anyway, reading sections are generally the hardest on all standardized tests. My recommendation for your son would to be to read a lot of passages like the ones on the SSAT, whether it be official SSAT practice or even SAT- this’ll get him more in tune with what’s expected on them.
Obviously if he’s doing well on Verbal then he has the capacity to do well on Reading! He just needs to learn to stay calm during the taste, pace well, and read in chunks in order to ensure comprehension.
@CavsFan2003 Thanks for the reply (we’re Cavs fans too!). Yes, read in chunks. Great point. I think under pressure or with difficult text he may have been reading word by word.
@BordDuLac : Well if you do not want a PM that’s fine.
As far as prep for the SSAT, it is such a basic, simple test but quite often family anxieties overwhelm the student.
And I am not going to share the rest publicly other than to suggest that you consider taking yourself out of the picture.
Get the SSAT issued/authorized/approved practice questions, place them on your son’s desk & forget about it.
And forget about elite prep boarding schools or any schools until after the October test results are in.
Hard advice to take. But we have experience with dozens of kids including our own. Ours went to top three boarding schools & we are not good standardized test takers. Nevertheless the SSAT results were excellent–in the 90s.
Did you get involved with your son’s IQ test ? Or other standardized tests ? Yet he did extremely well according to your original post in this thread. What is the difference now ?
Judging by your other thread, you are a typical parent. Your son does not need this if he performed well on other standardized tests. Forget about the Niche prep boarding school rankings. Nature has a way of working things out for the best.
@Publisher I actually don’t think I can receive PMs - probably because I’m a New Member. You seem irritated at my unwillingness to accept your PM, but I think it’s technically out of my control.
Yes, I am a typical parent, thank you. Trying to support our son who is applying to one of several boarding schools for reasons dear to him. That’s why I’m on here, seeking advice because 13 year olds sometimes have ups and downs with tests and I wanted to see if others had experienced the same with their kids. But according to you, I should just sit back because, hey, “nature has a way of working things out for the best”. Maybe I should let him pay for BS too? Drive himself to tournaments? Survival of the fittest and all that?
And since you pretend to dislike rankings, I’ll presume your kid (or kids) could not have attended a “top three” boarding school because that is an artificial construct. Let his/her BS be only described as being of very high quality and with a huge endowment.
@BordDuLac Well here’s one. My kiddo took the SSAT with zero prep. The night before the test I said, I think we should see if the test counts wrong answers or not. We checked. That’s it. Kiddo took the test, scored high 90’s in all and perfect score in math. Reading was nearly perfect. The vocab part was the lowest score. Kiddo said they were words no one uses. Ok. So there are many kids out there who do take the test with no prep. We found out later many kids in our town had been studying for a year. We just didn’t know as we decided late as a family to look at BS’s.
Many decades ago, I scored very well on the SATs. My spouse did not. Kiddos got my genes. Personally, I think scoring on standardized tests are genetic. But that’s my own opinion.
My kiddos took SAT early for CTY. Same results. Top 1%. Not having any anxiety was a plus esp for kiddo #1. At the same time, I think some kids want/need to study and do very well as a result. I think folks are just trying to offer different options as to approach.
Your post above to @publisher looks a bit nasty to me but I’m sure you meant well. The forum is for offering suggestions and insights not to attack.
@BordDuLac: I apologize if my posts offended you. That is & was not my intention. My point is that your son has done quite well in the past on standardized tests without parental involvement & should be trusted to do well on the SSAT with just the approved SSAT practice tests & guides.
Boarding school rankings & prestige can be helpful, but not as this early stage. In my experienced opinion, it is better to wait until after a student has received an official SSAT score.
If it helps, over a decade ago I created the first verifiable elite prep & boarding school ratings & rankings system based on actual college matriculations (as many, probably most, parents invest in elite boarding school educations for their children as a path to an elite college or university).
One alternative: the ISEE. Most schools that take the SSAT will also accept the ISEE. Two differences that matter with the ISEE:
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Reading is based only on non-fiction text (SSAT also has literary passages)
Math is a little tougher
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My son took both the SSAT and the ISEE. His reading percentile was much better for the ISEE. His math was a bit lower on the ISEE than the SSAT, but he still was in the mid-90s percentile.
@Golfgr8 As you suggested, lots of Reading practice and work on his pacing has really helped my son on the two recent SSAT licensed practice tests he’s taken. Seems like his issue was time management - he was stressed when he got behind. Now he’s finishing ahead of time on each section, and he’s happy with the results. Take care.
Reading section benefits the most from learning HOW to take the SSAT…lots of material online, including YouTube videos on that…and take practice tests. Biggest overall score gain is studying vocabulary…you should see big improvement from one test to the next. Look for areas of math that are weak in feedback from the online tests and try studying to fill those gaps. Like athletics, testing is a skill that draws on natural talent AND benefits from proper training. Good luck!
Our daughter gets very anxious before high-stakes testing. Someone here (you know who you are!) suggested she take the test several times under the same conditions to get used to the questions and pacing. They speculated that the third time would be the charm and it was
Thank you for the advice on this thread. He scored 89th percentile in Oct. and there’s a small chance he may take it again in December. His Verbal score was quite poor compared to practice but was offset by Q and R, which he had previously had challenges with in practice. :-?
Lots of Quizlet for the next month and I bet he’s in the low to mid 90s. Verbal is the most likely to improve with directed study…and the biggest improvement. Congrats!
@Altras Agreed. It is much easier to get good at verbal with pure memorization. A lot harder to teach a bunch of math concepts to someone who struggles to conceptualize those types of things.
Greetings. Fairly new here (but browsing long enough to really appreciate the insight some of you have to share @CaliMex and @Golfgr8). I have a related, but slightly different question which I had no luck finding results when searching the archives on the topic. Re: SSAT tests, my student has taken the middle level SSAT as a 7th grader to get a sense of the exam. In the fall, we’ll sign up for the test again, but this time as an 8th grader, which I understand to be the upper level SSAT. Does anyone have experience with whether scores tend to translate fairly consistently from the middle to upper level, assuming student stays at or above norm of learning progress in the interim?
