Secret Sauce

Standardized testing is an inescapable fact of academic life.

Unfortunately, many students receive low scores simply because they lack the necessary test-taking know-how, preparation tools, practice habits, or skilled instruction required to maximize scores on tests like the SAT and ACT.

Nowhere is this more evident than on the math sections of such tests.

Of course, mathematical ability is the best predictor of success on any math test, and many tutors use an entirely content-based approach in an attempt to quickly increase standardized test math scores. In most cases, however, this is a fool’s errand.

[Continue reading here.]

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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

The Most Fun You Can Have With $100

Micro-financing makes seed capital available to poor people who want to start their own business but simply cannot afford to get the started. 

The opportunity to rely on themselves, to think realistically of a day when poverty will be a thing of the past for themselves, their families, and possibly their communities, as well, is an enormous blessing for all concerned.

None of this happens easily, of course. Much hard work and dogged determination will be required to make these micro-businesses into growing, thriving, profitable success stories.

But most of these dreams do, in fact, come true.

As the business owners get to work, and start seeing their labors bear fruit, beliefs in scarcity and the inevitability of poverty start evaporating. These outcomes would be impossible without the initial loan of seed capital by small-scale venture capitalists like you and me.

That's where micro-lending site Kiva comes in.
Kiva brings together low-income would-be business owners in 70+ countries with small-scale funders to help make dreams real.

As a Kiva member, you deposit a fixed sum (say, $100) into your Kiva account, and then lend it out to one or more applicants applying for financial seed money to start their businesses. Would-be business owners post info about their themselves and their business aspirations to make it easy for funders to decided where to loan their money (country, type of business, picture of themselves, etc.).

Once the money you've loaned is repaid, it returns to your account, so you can lend it out again ... and again ... and again and again and again! Kiva boasts a 96% repayment rate (!), so your original investment of x dollars can easily have the impact of 5x or 10x or more!

Becoming an active Kiva lender is certainly one of the best ways to spend $100 and a half our every few months (and one of the most fun.)

Kiva is given the highest rating (for stars, 90%) by Charity Navigator:

Check out Kiva for yourself.

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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

ACT Mini-Tests

Mini-testing helps students discover the high levels of energy, focus, and discipline (pacing) required to maximize scores on the English, Math, Reading, and Science sections of the ACT. 

For each test section, students take shorter timed “mini-tests” containing a representative sample of questions in a fraction of the time proportional to the number of questions in the mini-test.

This exercise is a sprint! The goal is to push oneself, in short bursts to the very high level of focus and energy required to achieve a perfect score. Through trial, error, and increasing application of personal will, students learn to enter and eventually habituate the state of mind necessary to maximize their scores.

For example, an ACT math mini-test is created as follows:

From an official ACT test, the math section is printed. The student attempts to answer 1/4 of the questions in this section in 1/4 of the time allowed. Instead of completing an entire ACT Math section – which would require 60 minutes to answer 60 questions – the student has 15 minutes to answer every fourth question in this section: #1, 5, 9, 13, etc.

A bubble sheet is not used, but the standard marking system is observed (circling letters, writing large capitals under question numbers, adding “?” or “X” for guesses, etc.). The student uses an analog watch reset to exactly 12 o’clock to mark time

At the conclusion of each mini-test, students check their answers, critique their performance, and record insights. This material is then studied and reviewed thoroughly (reviewing notes and reworking incorrectly answered questions) before repeating the process. "Practice, critique, review, repeat!"

Below are standard time limits recommended for various ACT mini-tests:

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English

One passage, 15 questions: 9 minutes

Math

Every 4th question, 15 questions (#1, 5, 9, 13, etc.): 15 minutes

Reading

One passage, 10 questions: 8 minutes 45 seconds

Science

One passage, 6-7 questions: 5 minutes 50 seconds

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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

ACT Perfect Scores Have Been Blowing Up

In the two decades between 1998 and 2018, the number of perfect scores on the ACT increased 34x from .01% to .34%.

Have students preparing to enter college suddenly become 34 times smarter? Unlikely

This explosion in perfect test scores is chronicled in an article on the PrepMaven site:

These are still very low numbers – in 2021, only 4,055 students taking the ACT earned a perfect score. However, the percentage of students getting a 36 on the ACT has gone from less than 0.01% to 0.34% in 2020! (There’s a small dip for 2021, which we can likely attribute to the Covid-19 pandemic.)

The makers of the ACT have assured us that this isn’t because the test is getting easier!

Rather, our hypothesis is that the rise in students getting perfect scores is because more high-achieving SAT “superstars” are now also taking the ACT, whereas before they would have only taken the SAT.."

Plausible? SAT superstars migrating to the ACT?

Perhaps.

In another treatment of the subject, Hannah K. Sparling and Dan Horn of the Cincinnati Enquirer put it this way:

"If the test is essentially the same, why are so many more students acing it?

The most likely answer is a booming test-preparation industry that’s built on the hopes and fears of students and parents who are willing to work – and pay – to get an edge.

They see the investment of a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars in a test prep program as worthwhile if it helps land their child at an Ivy League school or secures a big financial aid package."

Plausible? Anxious parents, hyper-competitive students, and increasing billions spent on test prep?

Definitely could be.

On the same subject, the Applerouth Team said the following:

"Perfection can be a tricky thing. Too much of it diminishes value. Think of little league where everyone got a trophy. Or that Earth Science class where the teacher promised an A+ if her students simply did the work. Not everyone deserves the label of “perfect,” and the same is true for the ACT. A composite of 36 should be reserved for a select few, and too much perfection should raise red flags over the difficulty of the test..."

It's worth noting that, despite a recent dip in perfect scores correlating with the Covid years, numbers of perfect ACT scores (at last count) are still 30 times larger than they were a generation ago.

I concur completely with Applerouth. When grades and test scores are no longer seen as trustworthy, they become worthless as means of assessing merit and rewarding talent and hard work. A 30x increase in perfect test scores is unsustainable and unacceptable.

Grade inflation is real problem, and has been for decades. Although merit certainly isn't everything, life is inherently competitive, whether we like it or not – and refusing to hold back failing students is neither helpful nor compassionate.

I hope we come to our senses sooner rather than later. Denial of reality is never a good long-term solution.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

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borlandeducational.com

Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

Toy Box Subscriptions

New parents often wonder what kinds of toys to buy for their infants and toddlers.

When given a choice, little ones seem find everyday objects the most fascinating. Kitchen items are a favorite source of amazement: bowls, cups, pots and pans, silicon cupcake moulds, ice cream scoops, etc. Balls, plain wooden blocks, fabric, toilet paper tubes, and small boxes are other examples of free or low-cost toys that babies love.

Remember to assiduously avoid anything sharp, pointed, small enough to fit all the way inside a young child’s mouth, or painted (unless you know the paint is safe). Remember, until infants are a year old or so, everything goes in the mouth.

Nevertheless, it’s nice to find some fine educational toys to add to the mix. Researching the best options for baby at each age of development can be a chore, however. Fortunately, regular delivery of curated selections of age-appropriate toys is now possible through various subscription services. One of the best of these is Lalo.

Rooted in the Montessori early learning model, boxes of educational toys picked for specific age groups can be purchased individually or through a subscription model. With minimal effort, busy parents can check this task off their to-do list and give themselves more precious family time.

You’ll find other top offerings in Best Baby Toy Subscriptions of 2024 published by U.S. News.

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borlandeducational.com

Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

Major for Money, Minor for Love

Once upon a time, in the days when college was affordable for virtually everyone, a simple part-time job was all it took to pay tuition, room, board, books, and fees. In the olden days, the best advice was: “Follow your passion. Study what you love, and the money will follow.” 

Nowadays, that’s bad advice. Undergraduate degrees are beyond expensive, and graduate degrees are even more costly. Stories are rife about college students racking up huge debts chasing degrees that don’t lead to jobs lucrative enough to pay them off.

Crippling costs of post-secondary education make it unlikely or impossible for many students to move up the social ladder. Without much (or any) disposable income left over after paying basic expenses and college loan payments, many young adults have little to look forward to in life beyond renting, penny-pinching, and dealing with the stress of living paycheck to paycheck.

For nearly all young people today, I believe the best advice is: Major for money, minor for love. 

Before we go any further, it’s important to understand three SAT words: vocation, avocation, and amateur.

A vocation is a primary job. It’s the work you do to earn a living, a professional pursuit, a step along a rewarding career path.

An avocation is work you do for fun, in your spare time. It’s a hobby, essentially. Something you do for the pure love of doing it.

An amateur is a person who works hard to excel at a beloved activity while receiving no monetary reward for doing so. For many years, the Olympic Games were open only to amateur athletes, those training and competing for no other reason than personal satisfaction and love of their sport.

My advice is to major in a field of study that will pay good money and provide you with a good job that you won’t hate. Find a lucrative field you can excel in, one that doesn’t turn your stomach, and put most of your time into advancing your skills in this direction. At the same time, minor in a different field simply for the sake of immersing yourself in that which fascinates you. In your spare time, recharge your spirit by doing what you truly love. 

Major in accounting, minor in creative writing. Major in business, minor in dance. Major in statistics, minor in Italian. Major in nursing, minor in psychology. Major in AI, minor in art history.

You may not want to turn something you love into a vocation, anyway. Do you really want to make your passion a day-to-day struggle?

Imagine your passion is creative writing. How would you honestly feel about having to deal with marketing hassles, constant criticism and rejection, stifling commercialism, and unforgiving deadlines that fill the lives of professional writers? Do you realize how much competition there is for the vanishingly small number of well-paying spots in such a field? How long it takes to rise through the ranks, earning almost nothing in the meantime? Is it worth it? The stress involved could well destroy your passion for writing.  

Instead, engage in your passion on the side, part-time, as a hobby. Do your own thing on your own terms, simply for the love of doing it. Be an amateur, not a professional. Instead of spending most of your days battling with the many frustrating and soul-crushing aspects of life as a professional writer, join online writing circles, groups of other aspiring amateur writers, and enjoy sharing and improving your work on an informal, part-time basis with an appreciative audience of like-minded people.

Spend most of your time doing something that feeds your wallet, and some regular time on that which feeds your soul. 

You’ll avoid the tremendous stress associated with being chronically debt-ridden and cash-strapped while getting maximum pleasure out of the activity you most enjoy in life.

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Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.

Patti Smith at Wesleyan 2016

My daughter graduated with degrees in mathematics and computer science from Wesleyan University in 2016. She's now a senior software engineer at Meta, well married, with a healthy and happy first baby, our first grandchild.

Can you tell I'm proud?

I'll never forget her graduation ceremony. Sitting in the audience, I was nervously flipping through the program, not paying much attention to anything in particular. Time passed slowly, as more and more parents and loved ones filled the chairs facing the stage in front of the beautiful Wesleyan library. Eventually, things got under way.

And then ... that voice!

I recognized it instantly as that of a musical hero of mine, the venerable Patti Smith. Not more than a few words into her talk, I knew it was her. What a fitting way to mark my daughter's college graduation than with the words of this particular poet extraordinaire:

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I was dreaming in my dreaming 


Of an aspect bright and fair


And my sleeping, it was broken


But my dream it lingered near.

In the form of shining valleys


Where the pure air rarified


And my senses newly opened


And I awakened to the cry.

That the people have the power,


The people have the power.

And where there were deserts,


I saw fountains and like cream the waters rise


And we strolled there together


With none to laugh or criticize.

And the leopard and the lamb


Lay together truly bound


I was hoping in my hoping


To recall what I had found.

I was dreaming in my dreaming


God knows a purer view


But as I surrender to my sleeping


I commit my dream to you.

That the people have the power


To redeem the work of fools


Upon the meek the graces shower


It’s decreed the people rule.

And I believe that everything we dream


Can come to pass


Through our union we can turn the world around


We can turn the earth’s revolution.

For the people have the power,


The people of the power.

Graduates, you are the future, and the future is now.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

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Read the article in The Wesleyan Connection and watch the video here.

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Contact Chris

borlandeducational.com

Copyright © 2006-present: Christopher R. Borland. All rights reserved.