<p>I took the SSAT and I got my results back. I got a 29% in verbal, 48% in Math and 20% in Reading comprehension.I got a 26% overall. They are really low scores so I am going to take the SSAT in December. This is the last time I am going to take it for financial reasons. I really want to score high this time. Any test taking strategies? Any tips? Should i omit questions or guess? Thank you!</p>
<p>What kind of schools are you planning to apply to and what grade are you in right now?</p>
<p>I would buy an SSAT prep book and work hard over the next few months. OR, take the ISEE (if it is accepted by the schools to which you are applying) as it may suit you better. The third-party SSAT prep books are usually SSAT/ISEE combo books.</p>
<p>I am thinking to apply to maybe Hackly, Taft and Deerfield(which i know I HAVE to get a really high score). I would like to know what does it mean when a test is skilled based? Thanks!</p>
<p>I am going to 8th grade this year so that next year I go to high school.</p>
<p>Yessie: If you do a search on “SSAT”, you will find a wealth of information. The fact is that this test is very coachable. If you work hard at it, it should be possible to raise your score very significantly. There are about 1,000 words you should memorize and that will get you through the analogies with flying colors. The math section is hard because they use tricks to make simple problems seem hard. You need to learn to recognize the tricks. Studying a review book is a good start, but you can also buy online SSAT prep materials – like vocabulary flash cards. We hired a tutoring company and my daughters SSAT score, improved by about 20 percentile points, which the company says is very typical. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>While SSAT scores aren’t everything, I think your %-iles will be a red flag at Deerfield and Taft. You will have to bring some other hook to be competitive in the applicant pools of those very selective schools.</p>
<p>I am not familiar with Hackley.</p>
<p>^hackley will arguably require higher test scores than taft (it’s a ny day school that’s on par with horace mann, trinity, sty, etc.)</p>
<p>The problem is that you really want to know what your SSAT score will end up being in order to put together a realistic list of schools. You will need to effectively TRIPLE your overall percentile just to be in the running for a FA candidate unless you bring something really unique to the table. If you wait until December, by the time you have your scores and know which schools you are competitive for, you will only have a few weeks to complete those applications before deadlines.</p>
<p>If you were my kid, I’d get you the Princeton Review and Kaplan books, as well as the official guide from the SSAT people because it has more accurate questions. (Since you mentioned not taking it more than that for financial reasons, I will presume that the coaching that devolution suggests is probably not a possibility.) After you had gone through the PR and Kaplan books, I would take the tests in the official SSAT book under strict timed conditions - with the essay. This will give you an idea of what you can expect in December and give you a better idea of which schools are within your range. </p>
<p>BTW: A skills based test simply means that it is testing a specific set of skills as opposed to an ability test. The SSAT test primary, secondary and tertiary meanings of vocabulary . The reading sections tests whether you can pick out metaphors, basic plot, etc. The math tests a pretty basic set of skills. Can you effectively use fractions and percents to solve problems, can you find an average? Stuff like that. Remember that the test looks to see not so much if you have a large vocabulary, for instance, but if you can use it to build the bridges required for the analogies. Likewise, it doesn’t test whether you can DO math as much as it tests whether you can USE math effectively to reduce the problems to their simplest forms. So in some ways, it’s not a straight skills based test. But mostly it is.</p>
<p>Read up on some SSAT books and try to find some practice papers (with answers!) that you can work with. Familiarizing yourself with the style of the questions is really important so you can do yourself justice when you sit the test ‘for real’.</p>
<p>From your comments I would guess that private tuition would be too expensive but there are some online courses that are not too $$$ that can give you a real helping hand. (They often have money back guarantees too, so you can game the system - buy it, do the work, then get a refund!)</p>
<p>It just depends on your budget - if you have $15 to spare your options are very different to if you have $150 or $500!</p>
<p>A lot of kids in the top schools take the SSAT w little preparation and ace it easily-- these are the kids u will be competing with once enrolled in a very intensely competitive school. You need to step back a minute and ask yourself if this is the environment u really want to be in? Your verbal/reading skills are especially worrisome, as the top schools require a heck of a lot of writing. </p>
<p>My son took the test cold and scored at the very top end of the scale. He barely sleeps now to keep up academically.</p>