<p>They might even say, as my S did to my surprise, that SAT prep sounded like fun. I think he believes it's a video game in disguise....</p>
<p>Keep those installments coming! I printed them out for my daughter to read, and you wisely addressed them from a student's, rather than the parent's, perspective. Thank you.</p>
<p>Too bad they did away with analogies, the most fun part. My son followed pretty much the Xiggi method, though unacquainted with it: did 10 real SATs, the first few in slow motion, and a slow methodical review of errors and lucky guesses, trying to determine general principles. Up to full speed near the end. Trained self to maintain full concentration through whole test--no dogging it at any time. That was it, no vocab lists, no tricks or strategies. 1570 first sitting, and done.</p>
<p>Xiggi:</p>
<p>when you get back from your "discussions" with i-dad :) , do you have any recommendations for the SAT II's, particularly practice tests, since the CB only prints out two of each in their tome?</p>
<p>After spending time building the blocks of knowledge and confidence, students should start developing techniques to save time. The SAT is mostly a test of mental quickness. People who like to solve puzzles tend do well. One good facet of the SAT is that the puzzles thrown at students are rather simple and very often repeated. </p>
<p>Again, there are no great secrets. Dedicated students should be able to learn the techniques, leave the calculator in its case, and know what NOT to do. Developing time saving techniques will help students find not only the correct answer, but the best answer in the shortest amount of time. It is worth remembering that the four incorrect answers do NOT matter: nobody needs to show the steps and confirm the answer. Well, that is fine and dandy, but does one acquire the techniques? This is where your source books come in play. As we know, the books contain a number of tips and strategies. While most of the advice is helpful, it is important to tailor it to the individual student. In other words, by reading the various industry offerings, a student can acquire a set of tools that will start the process. However, the advice is really aimed at helping average students improve their scores. I am not saying this is a pejorative way! Most books and organized classes- are most helpful for students who will score between 500 and 650. Despite being incomplete, the advice is still valid and will help anyone in the earlier phases. Concepts such as the process of elimination (POE) and plugging key numbers represent key components of any students arsenal. However, to really push your talent to the limit, youll have to graduate from the generic concepts. This is accomplished by practicing and looking for hidden patterns. Slowly but surely, your brain will recognize the questions and the answers will flash right in front of you. Oh, I know that someone said that the SAT was super easy because ALL the answers are always in front of you except for the Student Produced Responses or grid-in questions. That is, however, not what I meant! </p>
<p>So, lets depart from the sterile theory part and look at a few examples of the difference between following the generic advice and moving up to the next step. </p>
<p>For instance In the very beginning of a book published by Princeton Review, we find this strategy: </p>
<p>To follow the example, you need to visualize a square ABCD, and inscribed inside the square a half circle CFD. The half circle diameter is also CD. In this case, the value of the side is 8. This is a very common SAT problem and PR asks the student to identify the area represented by the square MINUS the half circle. </p>
<p>The 5 proposed answers are: </p>
<p>A. 16 - 8 Pi (Pi for [greek]p[/greek])<br>
B. 16 - 16 Pi
C. 64 - 8 Pi
D. 64 - 16 Pi
E. 64 </p>
<p>This is what PR proposes: We know that the value of Pi is a little more than 3. Let's replace Pi with 3 in the proposed answers. Choice A and B are negative numbers. From here, you could guess C, D, or E and it is a guess we SHOULD take. However, we can also eliminate E because 8*8 is 64 and represents the whole square. What do we end up with? A one-in-two shot of getting this problem right. Neat, huh! </p>
<p>Well, not so fast Princeton Review </p>
<p>Let's look at the problem. How fast can we solve it? </p>
<ol>
<li>Area of square? 8*8 = 64 .... 5 seconds </li>
<li>Area of half circle? Any student sitting for the PSAT or SAT should be able to play with the formulas for areas of circles, squares, and triangles. In this case, the 1/2 circle has a diameter of 8, hence the area of the 1/2 circle should be radius^2 * Pi * 1/2. The answer is 16 Pi/2 or 8 Pi. Time to compute this ... 15 seconds </li>
<li>Guess what? The answer to the question is 64 - 8 Pi. Now you are able to mark answer C with complete confidence, and only after about 25 seconds! </li>
</ol>
<p>What is bad about the PR method? First, if forces the student to attempt FIVE calculations. Despite being mostly trivial, it introduces potential errors. With the building pressure, most students DO make careless mistakes; calculating 16 times 3 easily falls in the category of easy mistakes. Lets assume that the student does not make a single error and gets it done rather quickly ... at the end, he still has TWO choices or a 50/50 chance. It could mean a plus 1 or a ...MINUS 0.25 in his tally, or a swing of 1.25! </p>
<p>Why do I consider this particular message to be wrong? It tells the student to forego attempting to solve a problem that most 7th graders can solve FAST and CORRECTLY. It also reinforces the idea that the test is all about gimmicks and tricks. While the POE taught by PR is a GOOD technique, I do not quite understand why they selected this problem to illustrate their method.</p>
<p>The next one involves a perennial favorite problem on the SAT: the average rate of speed. Heres the problem: </p>
<p>A girl rides her bicycle to school at an average speed of 8 mph. She returns to her house using the same route at an average speed of 12 mph. If the round trip took 1 hour, how many miles is the round trip. </p>
<p>A. 8
B. 9 3/5
C. 10
D. 11 1/5
E. 12 </p>
<p>PR offers this solution: First the problem is a hard problem (level 5). TCB assumes that the common student will not attempt to solve the problem and pick the trick answer of 10 since it represents the average of 8 and 12. The common student second choice will be to pick a value that is stated in the problem: 8 or 12. PR provides the strategy to eliminate those Joe Blogg answers. Again, the conclusion of PR is to end up with two choices and pick between B and D. In their words, the student will be in great shape! </p>
<p>What's my issue with this? In my eyes, a 50-50 chance is really not good enough. When you consider how this problem can be solved, the recommendation to guess becomes highly questionable. </p>
<p>What could a student have done? Use a simple formula for average rates -an opportunity that PR strangely forgets to mention. Is this formula really complicated? I could detail the way I developed it while working through similar problems, but the reality is that millions of people have seen it before. Im absolutely convinced that many good tutors teach it, but you wont find it in the typical help book. Here it is: </p>
<p>[2<em>Speed1</em>Speed2] / [speed1 + Speed2] or in this case:
2* 8 * 12 / 8 + 12. </p>
<p>Most everyone will notice that the answer is 2*96/20 or simply 96/10. This yields 9.6 or 9 3/5. The total time to do this, probably 20-45 seconds. Not a bad method to know! </p>
<p>It does get better. How would I solve it? </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Check the problem to make sure we have a ONE hour unit. Most often, the SAT writers will use a one hour limit and not a different number of hours. </p></li>
<li><p>As soon as I verify that the unit is 1 hour, I will mark B because I know that the answer is ALWAYS a number slightly BELOW the straight average. It takes only a few problems OF THAT TYPE to realize that it ALWAYS works. </p></li>
<li><p>My total time including reading the problem: about 10 seconds!
Here you have it: two methods that are faster and are bound to yield the correct answer and a healthy dose of self-confidence!</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Obviously, two examples do not tell the entire story. It does, however, reinforce that the SAT is not a test that can reduced to simple tricks. Too many students spend more time looking for quick shortcuts than working on the test itself. For some reason, they believe in a SAT Holy Grail, a mystical summary of tricks that will deliver perfect scores. </p>
<p>As I will repeat often, I do not pretend to know everything about the SAT. I've spent enough time on the SAT to know what works well and what does not work that well. There are merits to a number of strategies, and one has to TRY them in earnest. One of the biggest misconceptions is that the use of strategies represents a shortcut for PREPARATION TIME. Nothing could be further from the truth. The strategies only work for people who invest an adequate amount of time in troubleshooting the techniques and ascertain the relevance to their individual case.</p>
<p>GREAT information. I'll keep checking for the next installment!</p>
<p>Xiggi,
When you mentioned source books you didn't say anything about Grammatix but in the SAT section of this website it sounded like you endorsed it. Are your tips similar to the ones that are found in the Grammatix book?</p>
<p>Wow, Xiggi, great information. Thank you so much. I can't tell you how many links to posts by you that I've sent to my DD and to my sister (for her son). Keep it coming! </p>
<p>Idler, it sounds like the Xiggi method worked well for your S. He did wonderfully!</p>
<p>Xiggi, Got this all printed out and ready to show S. Here's the question. Imagine a 15 year old boy who does v. well in school and thinks he wants to go to Stanford. Imagine SATs will make a big difference in that goal since his ECs are reading the New Yorker and Discover Magazine and playing an instrument badly. Should he do a test or two first and then read the print out or read the print out first and then do the tests? Or does it not matter one whit? All of this is of course assuming that in the interim he has not moved any further towards the "grunt-only" mode of communication;).</p>
<p>"Xiggi, When you mentioned source books you didn't say anything about Grammatix but in the SAT section of this website it sounded like you endorsed it. Are your tips similar to the ones that are found in the Grammatix book?"</p>
<p>I'm getting there ... slowly but surely. In the next installments, I'll talk about preparation companies and study guides. Grammatix is different from the books that can be bought at your local bookstore. Mike Barrett's e-book is a favorite of mine. </p>
<p>Here's what I'm working out -typing as fast as I can and working without a safety net. :)</p>
<ol>
<li>Should you memorize the "famous" lists of words?</li>
<li>How to approach critical reading</li>
<li>Are all prep companies and tutor similar?</li>
<li>How much time should I invest and how do I progress?</li>
<li>How many times can I take the SAT</li>
<li>Differences between SAT and ACT</li>
<li>When is it best to take the SAT?</li>
</ol>
<p>Xiggi you are a doll.</p>
<p>Xiggi, can I assume that you are completely finished with finals? I sure hope so, with as much time as you're logging lately.</p>
<p>Alumother, I do not think it matters. While I think that some people may want to monitor their progress by taking a test "cold turkey", then preparing, and finally measuring the improvement, I find it irrelevant. I understand that some companies or tutors like to demonstrate the validity of their services by measuring the degree of improvement. As far as I am concerned, I would start with as many aces in my sleeve as possible. Reading my posts and other guides should be a good start. </p>
<p>The results will show at the test center. The interim results are not important to me. </p>
<p>PS Reading The New Yorker and Discover magazines should be very helpful for the verbal section. Avid readers have a real advantage on the SAT. All of my "advice" may very well be trivial for the future Cardinal.</p>
<p>Lderochi, finals are indeed behind me. I'm taking this week off and then getting serious about doing something worthwhile for the summer.</p>
<p>Studying selected lists of words can be helpful, but in very limited occasions. For the overwhelming majority of students, lumbering through the list will provide a false sense of accomplishment and yield few positive results. I offered this opinion when analogies were on the test; you can safely assume that the removal of one of my favorite parts has done little to change my mind about the effectiveness of spending much time memorizing words out of their natural context. </p>
<p>In preparing for the SAT, it would be much better to simply read all the past SAT tests. You would be even better off by taking all the practice tests AND pay close attention to the style and tone of the test. </p>
<p>If you are set on spending the time working with lists and flashcards, you need to understand how the lists were compiled. Most of the lists started by compiling the words that appeared on past tests. The best lists are the ones that do NOT pretend to be more than a historical compilation. The worst lists are the ones that pretend to be better by adding a lot of seemingly difficult words that miss the SAT mark. The most egregious offender is Barron's: by recycling their mostly ineffective GRE list of words, the authors of the 3500 words are doing a gross disservice to unsuspecting high school students. I performed a mathematical analysis of the number of Barron's words that have appear on new tests, and the results confirmed my worst expectations. While Barron's provides a good indication of what showed up in the past, it does a horrible job of predicting future occurrences. The difference is important to know. </p>
<p>This said, there is value in working on your vocabulary, but is has to be gradual and constant. Several websites and some tutoring companies- offer a service that sends out a number of words on a daily basis. Since it would take only a few minutes to open the emails or log in at the website, it is a good idea to start subscribe to a few of them. This is the kind of repetition that helps you prepare without really feeling it.</p>
<p>I'll leave you with a last tidbit of information. The SAT does not really test your vocabulary but you reasoning ability. The challenging questions are made difficult, not by testing arcane words, but by testing the secondary and tertiary meanings of EASY words. Examples of such meanings are "air" when used as a verb, "low" when representing a sound, and a slew of others. Do you think that "low" would ever show up on a SAT list and convey the meaning of "the characteristic sound uttered by cattle as in a moo?" Pretty doubtful!</p>
<p>If you want to improve your verbal scores, spend most of your energy understanding the techniques to recognize the patterns of Sentence Completion, and especially critical reading. If you truly have time to waste, spend it on the wordlists. Studying any wordlist without the absolute mastery of the verbal techniques is a recipe for disaster.</p>
<p>Quote: "The SAT is mostly a test of mental quickness."</p>
<p>Fortunately for some kids, they can also do well without a lot of formal SAT prep. Some kids are just better standardized test takers than others. My S is one of those good test takers. He took the PSAT (only once) and the SAT only once. He spent about two hours the night before the SAT test doing some practice examples. He scored very well and never looked back.
He used the same strategy for the SAT II's.</p>
<p>I think that if he read the "xiggi method" it would have scared the heck out of him. He was probably much more efficient using his own method. :)</p>
<p>Now, my D (13 year old) is a totally different story. She is the type that will probably be more confident after more extensive practice.</p>
<p>As far as organized classes a la Kaplan or PR, I believe that an overall assessment has to yield a grade of no more than a C Minus, being a combination of a few B and a majority of F. </p>
<p>In my opinion, Princeton Review and Kaplan are pros at exploiting the feeling of inadequacy and guilt of parents. Simply stated, I think that the classes offered by the national chains are worthless, and this in spite of their cost of $600 to $1,200. The real downfall of this type of classes is that they have poorly prepared tutors simply rehash the same material that is widely available in their $30 books. Realize that there is a good chance that your tutor preparation did not entail much more than attending the same class youre sitting in. </p>
<p>Except for forcing students to allocate 20 to 40 hours towards an organized event, I see few benefits. Anyone with a modicum of drive and desire should do much better by self-preparing. Learning techniques and strategies is only a small part of the preparation. Just like it is for sports and music, the key to success is repetition and practice. Duh, isn't that a profound statement? It is, however, so true! </p>
<p>On the other hand, I believe that there ARE tutors and tutoring companies that are well worth the price. It is pretty easy to find them and verify their credentials: they are mostly local, smaller, have an owner who is involved in the business, have verifiable references, and do not mind showing examples of their portfolio. If you are set on using PR or Kaplan, I would highly advise anyone to stick to the more expensive one-on-one tutoring. This is a way to ensure that the tutor will have a bit more than a few months of experience. </p>
<p>My overall conclusion: if you consider taking one of the organized classes from a large national company, DONT! Consider using the budget to buy every book written on college admission. When you are finished with the process, you could resell the books at Amazon or, better, donate them to your local school. It may sound overwhelming to buy a bunch of books, but it does not take long to separate the bad ones from the very good ones. The bad news is that you may get tired to find a SAT prep book in every bathroom of your house. A fact that may cause your visiting neighbors and family to wonder about your lifes priorities!</p>
<p>Sokkermom, you won't hear a disagreement from me. As I have said many times, there are NO universal methods or systems. Please note that I addressed this in my first post on this issue: </p>
<p>"For some natural test takers, this would require a simple review of a past test and a general understanding of the arcane presentation and language. But, let's not fool ourselves ... those students are exceptions. Most of us, mere mortals, have to face the simple truth that to do well on this grueling test, we will need to practice."</p>
<p>Xiggi:</p>
<p>Did you take the test more than once yourself ? Did your scores improve?</p>
<p>Xiggi: Wow.. the information that you've provided here is invaluable - everything you have said over the past 2+ years condensed down to one thread. Though I'm done with the admissions process (thankfully!), I'm going to be printing this out to help other people.. I remember you saying you were helping your sister with SAT prep.. How's that going?</p>