So, for a student whose school system gives all of those standardized tests (they used to be called a “battery”), that is probably enough practice with the format.
I know that some schools do actual “prep” that would be similar to a company’s prep, within the classroom.
When I referred to students being prepared for tests by their normal course work, I did not mean that! I meant “normal” schoolwork, more like LOUKYDAD’s son had.
I agree with carolinamom2boys that there is “no right answer for every student.” I just think that if many of the students in an area are taking formal prep courses, some parents will feel a lot of pressure to enroll their children, or nervousness about not doing it. I experienced both, for a short time when QMP was a freshman in high school–but we did not go with a course.
On this forum in particular, I suspect that there are a large number of families where prep is not really needed. It can be heavily dependent on the quality of the school system, though–not just on the student’s talent and work ethic.
I have been doing test prep–private tutoring and classes---- for 12 years. There is plenty of free/low cost prep out there. A lot of parents will buy their kids a book, or point them to a website, and leave it at that. IMO, the biggest issue is that most students don’t have the self discipline to prep systematically. They procrastinate. Kids don’t see the immediate benefit of prep --thousands of dollars to be saved years from now, vs. socializing with friends/enjoying the day, cramming for tomorrow’s math test, rehearsing for the school play/practicing for the big game this weekend. They say they “don’t have time” for prep, but they manage to make time for everything else they want to do–even difficult/uncomfortable things like 6:30am band practice, soccer in 95 degree heat, etc. Ten to 20 hours a week on sports seems reasonable–but four hours on test prep is too much! Some kids are just unwilling/have a bad attitude toward prep. (Which is why parents hire tutors or pay for classes.)
Some parents add to their kids’ lack of motivation. They mistakenly believe that “you can’t really study for these tests” because back in their day, no one did. Or they think that prepping is almost like cheating, or they don’t want to be seen as “trying too hard to buy their kid a better score,” and “does it really matter when the kid plans to go to State U.?” Many parents think that scholarships will be based on other things–that grades/scores/ECs are equally weighted or that grades will certainly count more! These parents are shocked when their dime-a-dozen 4.0/26ACT kid doesn’t get a scholarship, but the neighbor’s kid with a 3.75 GPA/32ACT does.
A few kids can walk in and get a perfect score with no prep. Good for them! But those kids are the rarest of rare birds/gifted/geniuses. Natural intelligence and natural talent for test-taking is a huge factor.
I compare testing to sports. Some kids are strong, coordinated, fast, have the right build for the sport. They have a huge advantage/inborn talent. They are great with very little practice. Some kids are uncoordinated, weak, have poor spatial sense, etc. You can train them for hours every week for years and they will go from horrible to middle-of-the-road.
Where practice really pays off is for the well-above-average/nearly-great kids who train diligently.(Does it matter if a kid made NMF with no prep, or after doing 30 practice tests?) It is all about getting familiar with the exact topics and types of questions on the test, and taking time to analyze each error–but most kids simply do not have the patience for that. Kids have to train for the test by taking the test, bubbling answers, timing themselves, and reviewing mistakes. Would anyone try to run a marathon without training for it? Students need to practice for speed, endurance, and strategy as well as exact content. General class work is not enough.
“almost no prep” is NOT equal to zero prep. The test taker geniuses who can score 2400 or 36 with zero prep. are rare. They are statistical anomaly. if kid belongs in this group, sure go with zero prep. Vast majority do not belong there. Vast majority will need a prep. even for scoring a 33, let alone 36. And it may take only about 5 hours of prep. 5 hours is not a waste of time when there are hundreds of thousands of $$ and extremely selective admissions are at stake. Ultimately, it is each family and their student choice. I would repeat the investment of 5 hours any time, I wish we had more of these types of investment with huge returns in our lives!
The SAT Question a Day (free service from College Board), one question daily over a 4 to 6 month period, with the student paying attention to anything that is missed, is more or less equivalent to the 5 hours of prep that MiamiDAP mentions. (I estimated this at 2 minutes per question, which is maybe a bit excessive.)
So in that sense, I agree with MiamiDAP. QMP “prepped” a little faster–I would estimate perhaps 2 hours total, in the car on the way to EC’s. No real full-length practice tests in either case.
I am not saying this to brag, nor to say that QMP and friend are “real geniuses.” I think there is a lot of misplaced anxiety over these tests, and still want to wave the flag about avoiding that, where not needed.
Of course, if the initial results of a practice session suggest that a student will profit from preparation, the student should certainly go for it.
I also think that parental emphasis on the importance of the test is an important factor. I have some friends that for various reasons told their kids not to worry about the test and just do your best. Now they admit they might have had more options if they nudged their kids a little to prep. I don’t have any friends that have said that the time/money spent on prep (self prep or class) was a waste.
It does appear that GPA-heavy students find better scholarships at historically black schools, while test-score-heavy applicants find better scholarships at non-historically-black schools.
I agree with @carolinamom2boys , different things for different students. As for raising scores from very good to great, tutors can identify recurring errors and areas for focus. Yes that can be done auto-didactically I know, but some will get there more efficiently with a tutor.
And so I can participate in this thread fully, I will reveal that when my son took the SAT they didn’t give him a score, they just handed him the Nobel prize and named an airport after him.
The kids where we live don’t do classes. Instead its private one on one tutoring ( about $1200). They have the kids do real condition practice tests first and in middle of prep. My kids went from 30 ( school practice test) to 35 and 26 to 30 respectively. Could they gave done it on their own? Don’t know but this gave them specific times for study and practice tailored to them. With every penny. Both got into dream schools. One got over 12K/ year in merit money which was totally unexpected since we are full pay.
@Postmodern ‘The’ Nobel Prize? Which one? My DD won the Nobel in chemistry and literature, albeit in different (but consecutive!) years. And the newly found planet in Alpha Centauri will be renamed for her as well. (She has an upcoming interview with Carl Sagan). Yes, have a great weekend!
In 14 years of full time test prep teaching, I’ve had probably close to 100 perfect scorers, but I’ve only know 10-12 kids who were capable of perfect SAT scores before prep (How’s this for crazy: I had six of them in a single team class once–here’s where they ended up: 2 H, 2Y, 1 MIT, 1 Stan (!)).
My girls self-studied and took the ACT multiple times to raise their scores. My son will take the ACT for the first time the end of this year,sophomore. We’ll see how he does. I imagine I will get him in a prep class because I don’t see him self-studying. Our school offers the $200 one so we’ll go with that. As of now he doesn’t want to go away to school and the one within commuting distance only requires a 22. I’m sure he can get in but with each up tick of the score comes more $$ so we’ll try for as much as we can get.
Smart family that was not coerced into spending time and money suggested by OP. The top students do not need it-we did force our gifted son to do a practice test for the ACT and SAT (he had already taken those in middle school for the Midwest Talent Search). He should have studied beyond his HS calculus class review of precalc material for that subject test however. Perfect SAT scores, almost perfect ACT scores do not mean acceptances to college. Grades matter (try telling that to a bored teen, sigh).
Most middle, even upper middle income families have other things to spend their money on. Plus, their kids have better things to do with their time than to be bored in yet another class. Self study can be done more efficiently if it is desired.
I wonder if getting into a college because of higher test scores due to paying for courses really makes a long term difference. Perhaps the difference is that the kid is motivated to finally settle down and work at something. Self motivators can self study. Those who choose not to study extra for the tests either don’t need to or do not want to push to get scores. Call them lazy or satisfied with their choices. Ten years later they could be happier with their lives than those who went all out in HS. Notice the wording here- happiness, not financial or prestige measures of success.
OP- let things be. What works for you and your family may not be best for others. What worked (or didn’t) for my kid is not the same as for others.
I look at where H and I ended up compared to where we could have and I see traits other than IQ at work. I see a pattern of working hard enough for goals but also not enough to be at the pinnacle- H calls it laziness. For us it wasn’t worth the time and effort- “settled” for a life with far less pressure than those at the top. I have also seen it in others who potentially could have worked harder and done “more”. btw- many of those colleges where people strive to get in are not any better than some state flagships- not worth it.
I considered that if my daughters were not willing to self-study, then why should I pay for tutoring? Then again, they were 17 and really knew nothing about college admissions. I believe that tutoring MAY have been difference between going to a land-grant uni instead of a directional, where she is able to major in animal science, a major that otherwise would not have been available to her. Her degree MAY have a large impact on her first job or grad school. You never know for sure, but for us it was $900.00 well spent, considering the tens of thousands that an undergrad degree will cost. Outside of cost, she was able to go to her dream school, and was motivated to stay during her academically rough first year.
Regardless of GPA, college choice, need for merit, need for aid, etc., a higher SAT or ACT is always a positive. (Even going to a test-optional college, wouldn’t it better to be able to submit a score the school would like to raise their profile?) I just believe much of the resistance to SAT tutoring comes from the belief that SAT/ACT testing is a bad indicator, or is patently unfair to kids from lower incomes or lower performing schools, or the College Board is a racket. All of which may be true, but for the vast majority of selective universities, and most selective LACs, testing is not going away. May as well help your kid do the best she can.
A point that occurs to me is that in my era, ordinary school tests had quite a few more multiple choice questions and “fill in the blank” questions, that are somewhat analogous to the sentence completion questions on the SAT. So students had regular exposure to questions of that type. Changes in the mode of instruction and assignments may mean that students rarely encounter test items like that.
Another place where this shows up: If the students have encountered multiple choice questions (aside from standardized tests), they may only have encountered relatively poorly designed ones. Some of the freshman STEM courses at my university have multiple choice tests. Some students are surprised to find that if they have calculated something, and their answer is among the choices, it could still be wrong–because the choices have been designed to include common errors or misunderstandings. Knowing this about multiple-choice exams can be very useful.
Another issue with ACT / SAT tutors in our area is that the school frowns on this tutoring. The result is that students still do it, but they don’t admit to it. Then the families that don’t know that other students have tutors never learn.
An important part of doing timed practice tests – or real tests – is learning how to manage time on the exam. Do you spend extra time on an early but difficult question, at risk that you’ll end up rushing near the end of the exam time? Or do you skip a question that stumps you, go ahead to finish the exam, and then come back to the questions you skipped? Do you make your best guess if you’re not certain (or can eliminate one or two possible answers), or do you leave the answer blank, and then return to it later if you have time?
These approaches have little to do with mastering the subject matter. They involve being test-wise and aware of the time constraints. They may involve being aware that the more difficult questions come later. Reading about the test, or taking a prep course, should allow you to make smart strategic decisions like this.
That said, for my S, his practice tests were the hometest in the ETS booklet, followed by taking SAT twice in middle school for the Midwest Talent Search. When he got to the PSAT in 11th grade, he was prepped enough, and scored very highly (NMSF). He had no test anxiety and was able to gauge how well he was going. On Math 2, when he came out of the exam room I asked him how he did. “Oh, I got 800,” he said. “How do you know that?” I asked. “Well I answered all the questions and I had time to check my work.” He didn’t miss any questions of that test.
For my D, her first encounter with the SAT was in her senior year. She didn’t take the PSAT. She did well enough on the SAT for her needs (aiming at art school) but repeated it anyway and improved her superscore by about 50 points. Whether it made any difference in admissions who knows? Extra time spent on her portfolio was far more valuable, I’m sure.
When it came to grad school, however, my D decided that from an art degree background making a move to business school for an MBA required her to really do well on the GMAT. She self-studied using a Princeton Review program, took a math class at a local college (since she hadn’t had any math for 5-6 years). It paid off (720) (a higher score than her combined SAT I scores taken several years earlier). Lesson: if the test really matters to your career, and you aren’t confident in the material or test procedures, study hard for it.
I am curious to know the hows and whys of this frowning. Why would they care? Wouldn’t they be happy since the theoretically higher scores benefit them immensely?
Maybe it’s a private school that avoids “teaching to the test” in the classroom and hopes students will do the same at home. A lot of people like the idea of high SAT scores but think it’s unseemly to study for them.