Dear Parents,
DD is not quite motivated to practice SAT Math! What were your frustrations with your student when they prepared for SAT MAth?! More of a venting post so please chime in! We hope to learn from your experiences! thanks!
We left whether or not to study for SATs up to the kids. One kid was motivated and studied, the other wasn’t. The one that studied ended up with a total score of about 100 points over the one that didn’t, but did worse in math in spite of the studying and in spite of better grades in math classes. Go figure.
I wasn’t frustrated at all by the lack if studying from kid #2. It’s his life. He was the one who would have to live with the outcome. He knew our budget. If lower SAT scores resulted in worse choices, then that was his problem. In the end, their college choices were very similar so it didn’t make any difference at all.
SAT question: Experienced test-takers & parents - could you please tell us what obstacles (homework not done due to football schedule, or lack of motivation, or test fatigue or other) we can expect while our student is preparing for the SAT test? Daughter will be giving the SAT this year but we are clueless about the qualitative obstacles regarding this test. We think we have the prep materials and probably a tutor. We’d like to be ready to tackle these obstacles when they come by. thanks in advance!
Also, dd isn’t very motivated to do these frequently. any suggestions on how to motivate her more? ty!
My kid enjoyed (relatively speaking) the math quizzes on the Khan Academy SAT section and we would encourage him to do one or two at a sitting. But it is their life and their decision about prep time.
D is retaking in December to improve mainly math. It’s been rough trying to fit in prep with school and work. I haven’t pushed it. Her scores are fine, she’s in range for most schools she likes already, we’re just hoping for more merit. She’s requested off from work leading up to the test so she’ll probably work using her review books.
S17 took a class at the local CC for 8 weeks leading up to his test (met on Sunday afternoon). He did none of the homework. I didn’t push it. I don’t think you can really force prep - they’re motivated or not. As long as they are ready to live with the results.
My math kid never managed to get an 800 on SAT math despite the fact that he was doing Linear Algebra as a senior. His problem was careless mistakes every time - either leaving out a step in a fourth grade level problem or misreading a problem and answering the wrong question. (I think he missed a “not” once.) The problem is that SAT math will have the wrong answers that involve this kind of carelessness. So IMO, the most important thing is to learn to recognize the patterns of the kinds of questions they will ask, but then to read the questions carefully. You have to be reasonably speedy as well. My non-mathy kid never broke 700 because he’s just too slow. He was taking AP Calculus BC as a senior, and was actually quite good at math theory, but never could remember any formulas and claims he didn’t really memorize the multiplication tables until he took the Officer Candidate’s School exam after he graduated from college.
My main frustration about SAT’s was that neither of my kids did any serious prep or practice for the exame. A saving factor in the case of the older one, however, is that he first took the exam for the Northwestern precollege summer program. He did very well on it. When the real test round came around he knew his main issue was pacing. He did very well on the general and subject tests. Even on the so-called SAT IIc math test, he didn’t practice at all but when he came out of the test room and I asked him how it went, he answered “I got 800.” “How do you know that?” I asked. “I answered all the questions, and I had time to check my work,” he said. And he was right. Perfect score. He didn’t need special prep.
The problem of no-prep was more serious for his younger sib, however. She thought she could do the exams without any prep, just like her brother. That wasn’t so. And by the time she figured this out she had no time to repeat the SAT I. But she was applying only to art schools. She really didn’t need the highest SAT scores. She did need an outstanding art portfolio. On that she spent a lot of prep time, including spending two summers in precollege art programs. Result: she got into all the art schools she applied to. But she also learned her lesson about tests. Some years later when she wanted to apply to business school (to add an MBA on top of her BFA) she realized she needed to practice, especially on math. For that she took a college-level course, followed a self-study on-line Princeton Review curriculum. On her first real GMAT she got excellent scores – with equal percentiles on both parts of the exam – and was admitted to a top 10 business school.
@zbuffalo12 I would insist that she do a practice test at home to see where she needs work. If she is dragging her feet about studying, have her do 15 minutes per day on a section she did not do well on. It doesn’t sound like much, but it will be manageable to a kid who doesn’t want to study, and it will help her make progress. She does have to own this process, even though in your adult wisdom, you know she should be preparing more!
My kids high school offered a practice full up SAT administered by the College Board. My kids comments echoed the proctors comments. They weren’t ready for how long the test actually is. It is long!!!
My son was in calc BC and he said that the test wasn’t that hard but the material it was based on was back at the algebra 2 level. For the real test he went back and studied an algebra 2 review book.
LOLS.
Pretty common for really advanced math kids to have problems with simple math problems (I’m talking < third grade level) let alone SAT math.
My math/physics kid (taking quantum and algebraic topology grad school classes as a HS senior) made constant mistakes on simple addition and subtraction. 3+2=6? was typical.
We gave him third grade math worksheets the night before the test to prep for the math SAT!
We had a tutor for a short period of time. My kids were not that motivated to really study on their own and between school, homework, and time-consuming ECs did not have a lot of time to crack open an SAT book. Having the tutor meant there were a few hours a week they would focus on SAT. They tended to do the homework the hour before the tutor came.
One of mine missed one question on the Math portion of the SAT and dropped his score to a 770, so assume it was not a difficult problem.