by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 18, 2011 | Blog, Reading (SAT & ACT)
This post was inspired by Akil Bello’s Best SAT Prep Tip Ever on the Bellcurves blog. While I agree 100% that reading the full question (along with reading full answers) is indeed one of the most important things you can do on the SAT, I also think that advice takes a bit too much for granted because it assumes that most test-takers will understand what a question is asking, provided that they read it carefully enough. In my experience, however, that’s simply not the case.
I think there’s a tendency to forget that vocabulary issues can crop in passage-based questions themselves as well as in passages and answer choices. If you don’t understand precisely what a question is requiring you to do when it asks you which of the following would most undermine a given theory, it’s very hard to answer that question correctly!
Take inference questions. When a question asks you make an inference about what a particular person mentioned in a passage would believe, it is generally asking you to make a reasonable assumption about that person’s beliefs based on specific information that the author says about that person. It is not simply asking you to summarize what that person says or believes. It is asking you to form a general, often more abstract idea that will not be found word-for-word in the text. But if you don’t make that distinction, if you just try to summarize what the person says or thinks, you’ll be lost when you look at the answer choices.
Or, to give a slightly more concrete example, it will be very hard for you to answer a question that uses the word “analogous” if you don’t really know what that means.
So I’m going to suggest two things.
First, treat any unfamiliar vocabulary you find in the actual questions the exact same way you would treat any other SAT vocabulary — write it down and learn it.
Second, try rephrasing the questions in your own words to make sure you actually understand what you need to do. For example, if a question asks you what “transition is marked” in a particular line, you can rephrase it as “what change happens in the passage here?” Define, sum up, simplify. Whatever you have to do to make sure you understand.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 18, 2011 | Blog, General Tips, Tutoring
When proclaiming that the SAT and the ACT are not tests that can be effectively coached, the College Board and the ACT like to trot out the following statistic, courtesy of the National Association for College Admissions Counseling
Existing academic research suggests average gains as a result of commercial test preparation are in the neighborhood of 30 points on the SAT and less than one point on the ACT, substantially lower than gains marketed by test preparation companies.
Let’s take a moment and unpack this assertion. First, one of the key words here is “commercial test prep” (e.g. Kaplan and Princeton Review); nowhere is tutoring through “boutique” companies or private tutoring mentioned. As someone who has helped more than one student increase their verbal scores alone by 350+ points on the SAT and 10+ points on the ACT, I have some grounds for disputing the idea that the shortcomings of commercial test-prep should not be extended to test-prep in general.
That’s not, however, what I really want to focus on here. What interests me, rather, is the idea of average gains and the way in which that average was determined. I’ve been thinking about this thanks to Debbie Stier, who put up a very interesting blog link to the following article by cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham, a professor at the University of Virginia.
Willingham makes the point that:
When a teacher presents a reading strategy to students, we can assume that there are three types of students in the class: students who have already discovered the strategy (or something similar) on their own, students who are not fluent enough decoders to use the strategy, and students who are good decoders but don’t know the strategy. Only the last group of students will benefit from reading strategy instruction. When a researcher finds an average effect size of d=0.33 for teaching students the strategy, that effect is probably actually composed of many students who showed no benefit and a smaller number of students who showed a large benefit.
I think that something very similar is going on in many strategy-based prep classes. My guess is that only around half of the people who take those tests (those scoring 500+) actually have solid enough literal comprehension skills to even make any sort of strategy-based prep worthwhile.
What this means is that if someone’s comprehension skills are truly up to par (meaning, more or less, that they can pick up a College Board Critical Reading passage at random, understand the gist of it, and summarize the main point and tone), they actually stand to benefit immensely from strategy-based prep. It probably won’t help for the ones scoring 750+ from the start because they’re already using many of the standard strategies, even unconsciously, but for many of the still-small percentage scoring in the 600 to low 700 range, the increase can be very substantial. Many of the ones who persistently score in the 500s, however, won’t succeed in raising their scores at all because they lack the core skills on which to base the strategies they learn.
This points to a disturbing conclusion: the real problem isn’t that people can game the test by learning strategies (aka “tricks”) but rather that many test-takers don’t even even have strong enough comprehension skills to be helped by those strategies in the first place.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 16, 2011 | Blog, The Mental Game
I used to use the words “zen” and “test prep” in the same sentence only in the most tongue-in-cheek manner, but I’ve been thinking about it seriously of late, and I actually think there’s a connection.
First, though, lest you think I’ve gotten all new-agey, let me make it clear that I am not talking about meditating in order to get yourself in test-taking mode or reduce your anxiety or anything of that ilk. There are test-prep companies that do that sort of thing, but I’ll refrain from voicing my opinion about them. Suffice it to say that I am a firm believer in the principle that the best way to reduce test anxiety is simply to master the material on the test.
What I’m talking about is the attitude with which you approach the entire test-preparation process. One of the things I’ve noticed is that students who come to me knowing that they have big gaps in their knowledge and that they don’t really know what they’re doing tend to end up with higher scores in the long run than students who come to me with relatively high scores, convinced that they only have to find the one trick that’ll make everything perfect. (more…)
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 14, 2011 | ACT Reading, Blog, SAT Critical Reading (Old Test)
One of the reasons that inference questions tend to be so difficult is that most people who take the SAT or ACT have never been exposed to basic formal logic (at least in a non-mathematical context) and consequently have no idea of the rules that the tests are playing by.
While reading is by nature considerably more subjective than math, the basic kinds of reasoning that govern the two sections are far more similar than what most people realize, and nowhere is this more apparent than on inference questions.
It is first of all necessary to distinguish between inference and speculation.
According that all-encompassing source of knowledge, Wikipedia, inference can be defined as “the act of drawing a conclusion by deductive reasoning from given facts.”
Speculation, on the other hand, can be defined as “a conjecture (guess), expressing an opinion based on incomplete evidence.”
Most incorrect answers to inference questions fall into the realm of speculation; that is, they could be true based on the information in the passage, but usually we simply don’t have enough information to judge whether they are actually true. The correct answer is the one that can actually be deduced from the facts presented.
Now, for a given assertion, “If x, then y,” there are two valid inferences: one is the statement itself, and the other is the contrapositive: if not y, then not x.” So, for example, from the statement: “if a creature is a dog, then it is an animal,” we can make the valid inferences that:
1) A creature that is a dog is an animal (rephrasing of the statement)
2) All creatures that are dogs are animals (rephrasing of the statement)
3) if a creature is not an animal, then it is not a dog (contrapositive)
This is the essential basis for inference questions. The tests do not go so far as to deal directly with contrapositives, although using them can help on occasion. Most often, the correct answer to an inference question will quite simply be a rewriting of the of the original statement from a different angle.
For example, if a passage states that the mass of a red dwarf star is smaller than the mass of the sun, the correct answer to an inference question about that fact might be that the mass of a red dwarf star is not larger thanthe mass of the sun. Incorrect answers will simply be outside the bounds of that statement and involve speculation.
They might say things like, “Red dwarves have the smallest mass of any object in the solar system” or “It is more difficult to determine the mass of a red dwarf than it is to determine the mass of the sun.”
The key to dealing with these statements is to make sure that you are absolutely clear about what the statement in question actually says. Take a couple of seconds, make sure you understand it, and write it down in your own words, then look for the answer closest to that statement. It should be correct.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 13, 2011 | Blog, College Admissions, General Tips
I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who actually looked forward to retaking the SAT or the ACT their senior year of high school. You’re sick of studying, sick of standardized testing, want to actually enjoy your vacation, and never want to hear anyone utter the words “College Board” or “ACT” again. Burnout is real, I’m not going to argue. Junior year can be unbelievably hard, and it’s normal to need some time to recover.??That said, however, you may be doing yourself a major disservice by not retaking your senior year.
First, unless you’ve truly aced it the first time around (say 2300+ SAT or 34+ ACT), colleges do want to see what you’re capable of doing around the time you apply. Many people’s scores go up naturally between the spring of their junior year and the fall of their senior year, even without huge amounts of studying, and you don’t want to sell yourself short.
Second, regardless of how sick you are of studying, you need to be realistic about your chances at the colleges you’re seriously considering applying to. If your scores don’t already fall at or above the 50th percentile for those schools, your chances of getting in are significantly reduced; if you’re looking at very competitive schools and are not a recruited athlete, an under-represented minority, or national Intel winner, you should ideally be closer to the 75th percentile.
Admissions officers won’t cut you any slack if they have eight applicants that look very similar to you, and you have the lowest scores of the group.??That doesn’t mean you should drop everything over the summer and spend your entire life trying to pull up your test scores. If you’ve got great scores but nothing else, you won’t get very far at most top schools either.
What it does mean, though, is that even if the thought of even looking at another prep book is enough to push you close to a nervous breakdown, you should take a few weeks or a month off and then reassess. If you do decide to retake, focus on the sections that are most manageable. If you’ve done everything you can with Reading, focus on Writing; if you just need to work on Math, forget everything else (colleges will only take your top scores, even ones that require you to submit everything). Just don’t assume that there’s nothing else you can do.
by Erica L. Meltzer | Jun 12, 2011 | Blog, General Tips
If you’re a junior or the parent of a junior and are just starting to think seriously about SAT/ACT prep, you might be pondering the various options available to you. Here are some thoughts:
Classes I think that there are really only two situations in which it can be worth taking a class: the first is if you’re really anxious about the test and want an introduction to it in a formal setting. Confronting the SAT or the ACT can initially feel overwhelming, and if it helps to have someone else break it down and tell you what to expect, I see nothing wrong with that.
The second is if you’re totally solid on all of the fundamentals going in and just need to learn some basic strategies to help you apply your knowledge to the test. I wouldn’t suggest it as a blanket solution since most classes are geared toward people scoring around 550-600, but it can help in some cases.
I confess that taking a Kaplan class the summer before my senior year helped me jump from a 710 to an 800 on Critical Reading because I learned to slow down and actually analyze the questions rather than just going with my gut feeling. (Admittedly, though, that’s about all it taught me.) I had a French SAT II student a couple of years ago who’d done Princeton Review and scored a 2300, and she certainly thought the class had helped. But again, she was a straight-A student at a very competitive private school and had no problem with any of the actual material.
If you do take a class, though, you need to approach the strategies you learn critically. If something isn’t working for you, don’t stick with it. I’ve had plenty of students who came to me after taking Kaplan/PR classes and having their scores go down, and I the first thing I had to do was get them to stop doing everything that wasn’t working. If at all possible, try not to go with a big chain; find a smaller local company or a tutor willing to put together a group.
Tutoring If you need to do serious work on fundamental English or Math skills OR you really only need help in one area, finding a tutor can be a far better choice than taking a class.
People often discard tutoring as a option because they believe that it’s prohibitively expensive but then don’t hesitate to pay Kaplan $500-$1,000 — an amount that could get you 10-20 hours with an excellent tutor. Never assume that price = quality, however, and many tutoring companies offer financial aid and/or do pro bono work. If you live relatively close to a college or university, try to find a student who scored well and has some tutoring experience; they probably won’t charge you a fortune.
Contrary to what some tutoring companies would lead their clients to believe, tutors do not need to hold advanced degrees or be former Rhodes scholars to tutor the SAT effectively; they must simply understand how the test works and be capable of effectively conveying the necessary material in a way that is easy to grasp. Do make sure, however, that a tutor’s background matches your needs. Even if many tutors can obtain top scores in all sections of a given test, most are somewhat stronger teaching-wise in one area. If Reading is your weakest section and a tutor has a degree in Chemistry, chances are that may not be a good match.
Yes, the SAT is a “reasoning” test (you can interpret that as you wish), but it is also a reading and math test, and if your underlying skills in one of those areas are weak, you need to work with someone who really understands the subject — not just someone who will teach you tricks and strategies. A tutor, however, is usually only helpful insofar as a student is motivated and willing to be an active participant in the tutoring process. Otherwise, hiring one can be a big waste of money.
Self-Study Self-study works best when you’re either already really solid on the fundamentals or willing to put in large amounts of time to solidify them. In order to significantly raise your score on your own, you have to be seriously self-motivated.
While there are plenty of online programs such as Grockit and Prep Me, you do need to be careful. Much of their material, like that of the major test-prep companies, bears little resemblance to what’s on the actual tests, and you risk getting the wrong idea about what you need to study. For a comprehensive review of Grockit, see Mike from PWN the SAT’s analysis. The Official Guides to the SAT/ACT are absolutely indispensable. As much as possible, you need to be working with real material; otherwise you may end up wasting huge amounts of your time.
If you can afford to do so, sign up for the College Board’s online program, and if you really don’t understand why a particular type of question, ask a friend or a parent or a teacher for help. There’s always College Confidential, but you need to be careful with some of the advice. Just because a particular strategy (e.g. jumping right to the questions without reading the passage first) worked for someone doesn’t mean it’ll work for you. You need to be willing to experiment with different techniques and see what makes sense to you. You also need to be willing to go over your work very, very carefully and analyze what you do and don’t know, not just crash through lots of material and expect your score to automatically rise. Familiarity does not equal mastery. Self-study can work, but it’s definitely not the road for everyone.
