<p>Hey everyone I have a question about the SSAT. I know that schools say that they look at your highest score in each section. But do they take the highest score from each section and add them together to get a total score? Sorry if this isn't clear, I'll give an example of what I mean.</p>
<p>SSAT SCORES OF STUDENT X</p>
<p>SSAT NUMBER 1: Math:780
Verbal: 690
Reading: 750
Total: 2200</p>
<p>SSAT NUMBER 2: Math: 740
Verbal: 780
Reading: 650
Total:2170</p>
<p>Polodolly, as a parent and teacher, make sure you read the complete directions for any standardized test you take. SSAT, SAT and PSAT are different than ACT in terms of wrong answers. </p>
<p>Get a practice book or go to the web site and read the direction long before you walk in to take the test. Learn what an “educated” guess is…can you narrow down your options to just 2, then 50/50 guess is good. Guessing out of 4 or 5 possibles is not worth it…thus skip it.</p>
<p>The best advice I can offer you is to read!!!</p>
<p>Thank you Snape and Alexz, I did prepare (Kaplan FTW!) but I did not read that leaving a question blank could be more beneficial than just guessing. I think I guessed pretty well, but I guess we’ll see in a few weeks :D</p>
<p>DISAGREE about the omitting versus answering.</p>
<p>It is ALMOST ALWAYS better to guess. If you haven’t read the question, the answer above is true. But you lose 1/4 point. So – if you guess a lot – you’d break even. 1 answer is correct and worth 1 point. The other four are wrong and worth -0.25 points. There’s a 0 return for randomly answering, just as there is for omitting. So save yourself the trouble of bubbling and just omit.</p>
<p>That works if you’re totally clueless about a question or if time’s running out and you are debating whether to bubble in or not bubble in the last 6 answers for the reading passage you haven’t started. In that case: omit.</p>
<p>But most of the time, you’re at an advantage if you guess. If you can eliminate 1 answer or more, you’ve got the statistical advantage. And if you have a hunch that an answer’s right as you’re zipping through at the end, you may want to make the educated guess and bubble it in. And I’m not just saying this over the long haul. We’re comparing a good shot at a couple raw points versus a possible loss of a 1/2 point if Lady Luck isn’t on your side. That’s worth it, I think.</p>
<p>But I’m only addressing this in general terms. You probably have some idea if you’re good at these guesses or not. Some people have a knack for it. Others are horrible at it. Knowing how you do in these situations may also help you decide whether to bubble or omit.</p>
<p>I was going to put this in another thread, but since this pertains to the SSAT I’ll put it here. One of my friends told me that if your SSAT isn’t a 90%, it’s extremely hard to get admitted to a certain HADES school. I believe the term he used was “almost never happens”. And this isn’t just random gossip, he heard it from an admissions officer his mom is friends with. Now, after looking on this board for a while and after taking the SSAT I’m not sure if that’s true. I mean, I’ve seen kids with SSAT scores in the 80’s getting into top schools. He also said in the admissions office’s minds you get a lot of brownie points if you improve your SSAT score significantly. So… discuss…</p>
<p>Of course, you get in with an SSAT score < 90%, as long as you have something else to balance the “deficiency” out - maybe you are a much needed football player, maybe you are from a very under-represented area the school is proactively recruting in, or maybe you are that one more full pay student who is considered “good enough” (and in many cases, you can be a combination of a few)… You get the idea: you try to be the best you can in all areas but don’t sign out of the game just because you don’t have the best in one area.</p>
<p>It might be ‘extremely hard’ to be admitted at that ‘certain’ HADES school (I would guess it’s Andover), but they will and do accept kids with MUCH lower SSAT scores or quals if you have a major hook. That includes a legacy, a famous or important or super rich family, or as DAndrew mentions someone from an underrepresented area or much needed athlete in a specific sport.
There is NO magic number, specific limitation, or formula.
For example, if one of the school’s buildings is named after the applicant’s legacy, do you think those people would get turned down? I suppose maybe, if they score something like 20% on the SSAT. And that’s still a maybe.</p>