<p>Tanman, I'm about to find out. She is only a sophomore. </p>
<p>I know that I'll be dealing with a double whammy: she is a lot quicker and a lot smarter that I could ever be.</p>
<p>I'm sure I'm not the only one who is thinking what a good fortune your sister has to have you as her tutor. More thanks on your thoughtful and comprehensive posts!</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your posts Xiggi !!!!</p>
<p>I think it is important to clarify one issue. While I strongly believe in the merits and lower cost- of self preparing for the SAT exam, I need to recognize that there are cases in which professional help is warranted. Self preparation does not only require discipline and dedication, but also requires an appropriate environment. </p>
<p>In the next future, I plan to invite a few test preparation executives and tutors to post rebuttals. It is my hope that they might provide the board with a different point of view and illustrate the benefits of their services through specific examples.</p>
<p>When I started working on this issue, the world of the SAT was a bit easier. Since most SAT books had gone through several revisions, the job of identifying the best books was much simpler. For instance, nobody would confuse the Grubers anthology with the REA books. An important consensus was also reached regarding the published tests, and the differences between the official tests and the tests published by PR, Kaplan, Barrons, among others. I believe that it was Incognito, a former CC poster, who coined the term synthetic tests. I have borrowed that term very often, or pushed the envelope by labeling them wannabe or fake test. In simple terms, using the synthetic tests was a bad, a very bad idea. It was also absolutely unnecessary: between the various publications of the 8 or 10 Real Tests and the purchase of released tests from The College Board, one astute test taker could have build up a collection of about 45 official tests. Enough to satisfy the appetite of the most voracious SAT candidate. I have to admit that I attempted to collect ALL of what was available and that I did go through ALL the ones I purchased. </p>
<p>Alas, we know a lot less about the current SAT than we did about the old one. The College Board no longer sells disclosed tests, except through a more restrictive Q&A Service. ETS sells only past versions of the PSAT. The situation is even more complicated for the current SAT.</p>
<p>Based on past experience, we CANNOT trust the companies that have tried to write tests for the new books. The issue is that most of the tests DO contain mistakes that can lead to students' confusion. As an example, the SAT book of Barron's contains good strategies but the tests are mostly irrelevant as they do NOT match the difficulty of the test. It is worth noting that it does NOT help to take a test that is more difficult than the real thing: the extra difficulty does not help a student prepare for the SAT if the type of question will NEVER show up! It is a pure waste of time. It would similar to using a book written for the former SAT Math-IIC test to prepare for the SAT. While you'll learn something, it wont be what you seek to learn. The same can be said for books such as the Princeton Review 11 Tests for the New SAT. The book was rushed to capture last summers market. Notwithstanding that Princeton Review had never been able to write a single test that was valid for the old SAT, one had to question the integrity of PR to engage in such broad speculation about the contents and format of the March 2005 tests.</p>
<p>However, the situation is not as bleak at it seems. The College Board DID release an update to its must-have 10 Real Tests. At this time, I would encourage everyone to purchase and read the Official Study book, as well as consider subscribing to the TCB online help. I think it is important to understand HOW the writers of ETS/TCB think. Getting in the head" of the test writers makes a lot of difference. When reading the solutions proposed by TCB, it is worth remembering that that they usually offer lengthy solution which cover all bases. Again, an important part of your preparation work is to devise shortcuts - some are available in the source books, but the best and most effective ones will be your own.</p>
<p>Lastly, if you run of published test, do not hesitate to work with older tests. Obviously, youll have to discard the analogies and QCs sections, but the rest is still golden. Please consider that ETS will have their hands full with creating new content for Algebra II or Writing that they wont consider throwing out their older questions for A LONG TIME.</p>
<p>The conclusion is rather simple: there is no reason to use any of the non-official tests.</p>
<p>goood info keep it comin</p>
<p>Keep It Coming</p>
<p>So Xiggi, is it better to use Blue Book tests you have already taken? Or to use old tests from the old book?</p>
<p>Alright, since Xiggi asked, Ill throw my two cents worth into the ring. </p>
<p>Let me first say that I think the Xiggi Method is great. I cant emphasize enough Xiggis point that practice and learning from your mistakes is of paramount importance.</p>
<p>Im going to try to target a few specific points in several posts and add a few of my own. Any comments and feedback are welcomed and encouraged.</p>
<p>Students who are motivated to improve and have the self-discipline to follow Xiggis advice. Also, without any statistical evidence to support this theory, Id say his method probably works better for students starting in the 550+ range. At that level, practicing and beginning to recognize specific question types and patterns becomes more reasonable. Ideally, every student would be motivated enough to follow Xiggis advice. He does give some great advice on approaching an intimidating amount of material under the Is there an alternative section.</p>
<p>Students who have a hard time self-starting might be better off in a good class (which can be expensive) or with a good tutor (which can be even more expensive.) The problem is finding a good class or a good tutor. I taught for The Princeton Review for many years before I started my own company. Classes there are a completely mixed bag (as they are with Kaplan and other large companies.) I started in the Seattle office, and was overwhelmingly impressed with my fellow teachers. I cant think of a teacher who wasnt talented, motivated and diligent. I later taught in Florida and Vermont before landing in Los Angeles. The LA office is so big that out of 100+ SAT teachers, I would have only recommended a handful at most. I did a fair amount of interviewing and training, so I know what Im talking about. The grad staff I taught with (GRE, GMAT, LSAT and MCAT teachers) was much better.</p>
<p>One problem with classes and tutorials is that students tend to think they dont have to do much work outside the class. Homework gets done in a rush if at all. Students sometimes feel that they will get everything they need in the class or in tutorial sessions, but once again, the SAT favors the motivated.</p>
<p>On the other hand classes can be a great place for highly competitive students, especially if the class comprises mostly competitive students. I guess the bottom line is that every student is different, and different learning methods favor students differently.</p>
<p>I pretty much agree with Xiggi here, too. I think smaller steps are very important before students have to put everything together in the end. As Xiggi said, building knowledge and confidence one piece at a time is very helpful. Having the answers in front of you, or checking the answer after each problem is a fine way to approach these skill-building sessions at first. (I usually give my students one timed practice test before a tutorial or class so that I know where to best focus my efforts, but not again until weve covered a significant amount of material.)</p>
<p>As the test approaches, however, when students have reviewed most of the material and learned most of the techniques, I think taking timed tests is extremely important. The new SAT is a LONG test. I find it is extremely helpful for students to get that long test experience. For tutorial students, I usually recommend taking 3 full-length practice tests in a location like a library that mimics test conditions relatively well.</p>
<p>Xiggis advice about turning SAT prep into a gamethe goal of which is to beat the test-writers at their own gameis fantastic. Thats one of the things that Princeton Review does so well. And I agree that almost everyone should prepare on some level for the SAT for the very reasons Xiggi mentions. The SAT primarily tests how well you take the SAT, and most students dont learn how to do that in school. The students who waltz in and ace the test without any prep are truly few and far between (though it sometimes seems a large percentage of them post to College Confidential :) ).</p>
<p>Another good question: can mediocre students score well on the SAT? The answer to both is Yes. The first thing I say in the Math section of my book is that the Math on the SAT is not difficult. It is tricky. It does test some very basic concepts from mathematics through algebra to geometry and a little algebra 2, but the actual math is easy. Figuring out what easy math to do is the tough part. Xiggis right. Speed is of the essence. For most math problems there are one or two hard ways to solve the problem and one or two easy ones. Having the versatility to recognize which approach is the best for any give problem comes with experience, perspective and diligent effort. I often have my students do the same math problem in as many ways as possible so they can learn for themselves the best approach.</p>
<p>The writing section is equally tricky and predictable. It doesnt test many of the 100s of grammar rules. You just need to learn, through experience, what to look for and how to approach each question type.</p>
<p>The Critical Reading section may seem even more intimidating to many students, but even in CR, patterns emerge. I personally think that the answer choices themselves are the most important aspects of Critical Reading, followed by the questions, and lastly the passage. Many many RC answers hinge on a single word in a tempting answer choice that makes the choice wrong. If students spend too much time in the passage and too little time examining the answer choices, they can suffer.</p>
<p>Xiggis advice is good. Get as many as you can and cherry pick the methods that work for you from each. Youll find a lot of overlap.</p>
<p>But MOST IMPORTANTLY, follow Xiggis advice about using official College Board tests! Frankly, they are the only ones worth their salt. Even the old 10 Real SATs has a lot of valid material for Math, Reading Comp and Sentence Completions. Doing the real tests two or three times is better than using someone elses flawed material. (A note here my book is one of those with some limited practice material about 2 tests worth. I debated for a long time about putting these materials in the book, because as good as they are, theyre not perfect. They cant be. I finally decided to include them to supplement a somewhat meager supply of real tests.)</p>
<p>I agree with Xiggi here, too (big surprise.) Many strategies are useful for some problems and detrimental for others. Thats why I stress having a nice tool belt of approaches and practicing enough to recognize which tool would best be used on any given problem. Xiggis two examples are perfect, and they are extremely realistic.</p>
<p>This is a tricky question, and I differ from Xiggi slightly (but only slightly) on this point. I find that a lot of my students, after theyve learned how to analyze sentence completion and critical reading passages, miss a significant number of questions based purely on vocabulary. Xiggi is right about secondary and tertiary definitions, but I think hes missing something when he says the test is not about vocabulary.</p>
<p>That said, there arent that many vocabulary based questions left on the test. Back in the old analogy days, vocab was significantly more important.</p>
<p>I certainly dont think that people should study vocab to the exclusion of studying other ST material, but I don think it can help. Not nearly as much as it used to, but it can still help. For example, many SATs test an understanding of the difference between indifferent and ambivalent, usually on a reading comp question.</p>
<p>So I usually recommend making vocab a small part of each days studying. Now luck certainly plays a role, and theres no guarantee that studying vocab will buy even one point, but it often can help pick up two or three questions.</p>
<p>That's all the rambling I have in me today!</p>
<p>I am very happy that Pete accepted to share his views from the standpoint of both a tutor and author. I am most thankful for his pointing to some differences. I hope to bring a few additional experts to add to the critique. </p>
<p>In the meantime, I'm still working on additional elements. Again, let me stress that I write them without much editing. I have noticed that a few of my posts could be more clear. Please consider this the Beta version! </p>
<p>Just a quick reply regarding the vocabulary issue. I agree that the vocabulary is not unimportant. My biggest objection goes tword the very large lists of words, such as the 3500 Barron's words. Assuming a student can digest 50 words a day, that would take about 70 days of hard and dedicated work. I think that learning large lists of words work for younger students -for instance young immigrants- or for adults. The issue is mainly of how to allocate precious time. If the typical student balks at spending 40 to 60 hours to prepare for the SAT, I would hate to see him spending the bulk of it trying to memorize stacks of flashcards. Let's also remember that the mere exercise of taking AND reviewing past tests entails the revision of the words that show up in the correct and incorrect answers. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I do support spending time to review a small number of words on a daily basis. I also supprt spending time on analyzing roots, prefixes, and suffixes.</p>
<p>Xiggi, all this advice is great! Do you have any suggestions for PSAT studying? Is it better just to study for the SAT, or do you recommend a PSAT book? I'm worried about the quality of the solely PSAT books because College Board doesnt't release any of their PSAT tests. Thanks!</p>
<p>I will get to the PSAT a bit later, but there is little difference in preparation, except for the essay. </p>
<p>The College Board does release the old PSAT. Unless changes were made in the past few months, one can purchase the past administrations directly from ETS. Call the main number -ETS not TCB- and they will direct you to the department that handles this type of sale.</p>
<p>Duplicate post</p>