SAT Prep Planning (Part 2)

A host of nation-wide testing companies (Princeton Review, Kaplan, Ivy West, Revolution Prep, etc.) offer pre-packaged test prep courses. These courses are sometimes quite good – but inevitably they're pricey and usually require a huge commitment of time and energy. School-sponsored courses offered by local firms or coaches are often less expensive and time consuming, but can also be much less effective than those administered by established companies. 

[Buyer beware: prep course "guarantees" are not normally straight money-back guarantees, but instead merely allow dissatisfied students to retake the course one more time for free or at a reduced rate.]

For students who wish to prepare on their own, there are a plethora of ACT/SAT study guides and workbooks available commercially. While not as effective as working with a good private coach or investing considerable time and money in a top-flight SAT course, disciplined study with a good work book along with plenty of practice before test day can make a big difference, and is certainly much better than no test prep at all! 

Unfortunately, most self-study test prep books are decidedly inferior in quality; very few include reliable, comprehensive advice and realistic, truly useful practice tests. The majority are a waste of time, at best, and should be avoided. 

For my recommendations as to the best current self-study materials for the ACT, SAT/PSAT, and SSAT, click here, here, and here.

By far the best way to prepare to for important standardized tests is to hire an experienced private test prep coach. For many students, private coaching offers the best value, combining superior instruction, flexible scheduling, and maximum cost-effectiveness. Top quality professional test coaches in private practice with decades of experience generally charge from $150 to $250 per hour (or more). 

However, it's possible to pay a lot more for a lot less! 

The Princeton Review, for example, charges more than $300 per hour for their best tutors (those with as few as five years tutoring experience), in large blocks of hours, and then pays these tutors a small fraction of that hourly fee. For this reason, the best test coaches do NOT work for agencies, and instead run their own private practices. So while paying absolutely top dollar, you could be getting just an average quality coach. 

Click here for information on how to find the right coach.

Below is a sample medium-term ACT/SAT prep plan (adjustments should be made for the particular needs of individual students):

• Months 1-2: Strategy coaching and instruction (weekly 90-minute sessions, with timed or untimed practice between sessions.

• Months 3-4: Two full-length, timed official practice tests each month. Each practice test should be followed by at least one 90-minute coaching session to critique and correct the student's performance. In addition, students should take another complete practice test per month one section at a time (timed or untimed, as needed).

• Month 5-6: One complete, timed, official practice test per week, taken full-length or in sections (as needed), each followed by a 90-minute coaching session to critique and correct the student's performance, scheduled to conclude just before test day.

Click here for recommended test prep schedules (ACT, SAT, PSAT, SSAT, ISEE, HSPT).

Planning and preparation are the keys to unlocking a winning score on high-stakes standardized tests. The probability of success correlates most directly to the type and quality of instruction and the amount of test taking practice and performance critiquing students complete before test day. While it's certainly possible to dramatically improve one's score in a short period of time, a long-term plan allows average students sufficient time to do required practice, discover and fix patterns of error and flaws in their approach, and gain the confidence, competence, and experience necessary to perform optimally on test day. Stronger students general require less prep time.

A long term prep plan offers the vast majority of students the best chance of a successful outcome. Although it's unlikely that most students will be able to complete enough practice testing and critiquing in just a few months or weeks to maximize their final scores, even a little high quality test prep and a few well-critiqued, full-length official practice tests can make a significant difference.

Get a coach or take a course, read some books, plan your work, and work your plan.

The worst plan for test prep – by far – is no plan!

(Click here to go to Part 1.)

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

SAT Prep Planning (Part 1)

What is the ideal length of time to devote to systematic ACT/SAT study and preparation in advance of test day? What's the best way to plan a given student's ACT/SAT prep?

Although the answers will vary considerably depending on the particular student and family in question, most students should plan to spend at least one year thoughtfully and diligently preparing to take the ACT/SAT.

Whether one's plan involves hiring an coach, taking a course, or utilizing commercial prep books, three essential ingredients combine to enable successful performance on standardized tests like the ACT/SAT: subject knowledge, strategy knowledge, and test taking practice. Each one of these factors plays a crucial role in maximizing a given student's score, the ultimate goal of any prep plan. Without sufficient development in all elements of this triad, maximum performance is unlikely to be achieved.

To do very well on the ACT/SAT, it's (of course) essential to be academically strong and know as much as possible about the particular content tested on each of these important assessments! Superior subject knowledge and basic skills, however, require years of disciplined effort and excellent classroom instruction to obtain; they simply cannot be acquired or noticeably improved any other way, certainly not in the short run. The only way to strengthen this element of the triad is to take challenging classes and work hard in school over the long term.

Knowledge of effective test taking strategy, on the other hand, can have a dramatic positive effect on students' test scores and be very quickly learned and trained (in hours, rather than years). Many unfortunate students receive artificially low scores on the SAT that give an unfairly negative impression of their academic abilities – not because they aren't capable students, but simply because they don't know how to correctly approach and take standardized tests! Without realizing it, these students make fundamental strategic errors that have a disastrous effect on their scores. Fortunately, it is possible in a short period of time to “learn the ropes” of standardized test taking, for students to adopt simple, powerfully effective test taking strategies and learn simple skills that allow them to maximize their performance on test like the ACT/SAT. This “strategic approach” enables students to make the most of the knowledge and skills they already have, and can mean the difference between disappointing scores and real success. Utilizing the "strategic approach" is the only feasible way for most students to quickly impact ACT/SAT scores in a meaningful way, and hiring an experienced academic coach who specializes in teaching the strategic approach to ACT/SAT prep is the best way to ensure the success of any test prep plan.

The third key element in the triad is perhaps most important. One would never take piano lessons without practicing at home and expect to become a much better piano player. Likewise, students with advanced subject knowledge and strategic skill who nevertheless fail to practice run a high risk of falling short of their maximum potential score. Practice is the most critical factor in predicting large score improvements on tests like the ACT/SAT. There's just no way around it – substantial score improvement requires lots of practice! The long-term plans I recommend allow students sufficient time to be thoroughly trained in test taking strategy, take plenty of timed and untimed practice tests, and fully critique their practice work – and thereby maximize the odds of obtaining optimal test scores.

Just as an athlete always warms up before a sporting contest to ensure his body is primed and ready to function at maximum strength and efficiency, it is critical for academic competitors to "warm up" before any important testing experience. No serious musician would consider hitting the stage without first warming up her fingers and reviewing the music to be performed; so too must the ACT/SAT student awaken and warm up her test-taking "muscles" before each test rehearsal or performance to guarantee the best possible results. For at least 10-20 minutes immediately before dong any SAT practice test (30 minutes before any actual SAT test), students should diligently review all notes and earlier practice work, and intently visualize themselves putting to work all they've learned in the upcoming test they're about to take.

Taking practice tests at regular intervals (say, once each month) over a long period of time (at least several months), mastering and implementing the strategic approach, and carefully scoring, critiquing, tracking, and reviewing practice work is the best way to optimize scores on the standardized tests. Though it's possible to implement a successful plan that comprises only three or four weeks'' preparation, such a tight time frame makes it that much harder for most students to fit critically important practice testing into their already full schedules. Generally, it just doesn't happen – and without sufficient practice, students lack the experience needed to ensure the best possible result, and normally fall short of their goals.

Still, some preparation is much better than none! Some students will see remarkable improvement in test scores in just a few weeks by combining quality test coaching (emphasizing the strategic approach) with as much practice as time allows. While not as effective as the long-term approach I advocate, medium or short-term prep heavily focused on the most important test taking strategies, some carefully critiqued practice testing, and disciplined review can nonetheless lead to very pleasing results.

(Click here to go to Part 2.)

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Contact Chris

borlandeducational.com

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

Are Our Boys In Crisis?

Growing up has never been easy, but the evidence indicates that it's been getting a whole lot tougher in recent years for boys. While the feminist movement has brought much needed attention to issues facing girls and young women in our culture during the past two decades, a similar commitment to critical issues facing boys and young men has failed to materialize.

One result is that from 1995 to 2005 males 15 to 24 years old were more than five times more likely to commit suicide than were females of the same age.

According to William S. Pollack, director of the Centers for Men and Young Men at McLean Hospital (Harvard Medical School), psychological, educational, and other problems affecting male youths have worsened to such a degree that the word "crisis" may well be required to adequately describe them.

Rachael Rettner recently penned an informative and sobering article on this subject for LiveScience.com (excerpts follow):

"... it tends to be boys whose deeper problems are not looked into, and for whom programs that exist are not funded ... that’s absolutely true."

... compared with girls, American boys have lower literacy rates, lower grades, less engagement during school and higher drop-out rates. Boys also have higher rates of suicide, arrests and premature death.

... From 1995 to 2005, the rate of suicide among 20 to 24 year-old boys was 20.7 suicides per 100,000, while the rate for girls was just 3.5 per 100,000. Among 15 to 19 year olds, the rates were 12.5 per 100,000 for boys and 2.8 per 100,000 for girls.

An expert quoted in Rettner's article brings attention to the alarming increase in the gender gap with regard to suicide rates. In 1933 young males killed themselves 1.54 times more often than did young females, but by 2005 the rate among males had grown to 4.63 times the female rate. It's a profound and deeply disturbing fact that in just over 70 years, the suicide gap has fully tripled in size.

These numbers are a real punch in the gut.

How are we so favoring one gender and ignoring the other in so many critical areas that such brutal, heart-bruising statistics could come to reflect reality in our society?



Certainly, our girls and young women deserve all the help and dedicated, devoted attention we can give them. But we've got to start earnestly and deliberately addressing the emergency affecting our young men, who we love no less, and who at present are, apparently, in even greater need of rescue.

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borlandeducational.com

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

“Provide The Answer” vs. “Pick The Answer”

Understanding the essential difference between “Provide the answer” and “Pick the answer” tests – and the radical differences in preparation and approach that they require as a result – is critical to maximizing one’s performance on standardized tests like the SAT1/2, PSAT, and SSAT.

On “Provide the answer” tests (the vast majority of tests you’ve taken thus far in school):

• your task is to provide the correct answers;
• your focus should be on precision and thoroughness (accurate, complete answers); 
• hard questions are worth more points than easy ones; 
• 90% (or more) of your score depends on subject knowledge and 10% (or less) on test taking strategies; 
• you DO need to answer every question on the test to score well. 

On “Pick the answer” tests (like the SAT1/2, PSAT, SSAT):

• your task is to pick the right answers (i.e. fill in the right bubbles);
• your focus should be on approximation and speed (general, fast answers);
• hard questions are NOT worth more than easy ones;
• 50% of your score depends on subject knowledge and 50% on test taking strategies;
• you DO NOT need to answer every question on the test to score well (in fact, most students will score much higher by deliberately avoiding the most difficult questions).

Think about it ...

If you’re earning one point on every question, would you rather spend your time answering four very hard questions or eight easy ones (it will take roughly the same amount of time in each case)?

You’d earn twice as many points by skipping the four super-difficult questions (if necessary) in order to get the eight easy questions right, than you would by skipping the eight easy questions just to answer the four hard ones (even if you're able to answer all the difficult questions correctly – which is doubtful, at best)!

So ...

On standardized tests, get all the “easy points” on the scoreboard right away. Do the easy questions first, and skip the worst for last (or not at all). If you don’t get around to the really tough questions, you’ll still have earned the highest possible score you were capable of that day, without the risk of wasting valuable time and energy on impossibly difficult, unproductive questions.

And that, of course, is what it’s all about!

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UPDATE 6/1/19:

Most standardized tests calculate raw scores equal to the number of correct answers given. On these tests, it's important to answer EVERY question, even if you have to guess. However, most students should still avoid the hardest questions! The technique I recommend here is called "Skip Guessing:" Simply eliminate answers, if possible, and then quickly guess (I recommend the "Last Letter" strategy: after eliminating, choose the answer closet to the end). Whatever you do, be sure to answer every question; you'll get some of your guesses right, just by luck.

As of this update, some standardardized tests (e.g. the SSAT and SAT Subject Tests) still deduct a fraction of a point for each question answered incorrectly. On these tests, it's best to skip entirely (i.e. do NOT answer) any difficult questions on which you cannot confidently eliminate at least two out of five (or one out of four) answer choices.

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borlandeducational.com

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

ACT’s Financial Aid Need Estimator

Ready to do some initial research, and get an idea as to where you stand with respect to college costs and federal financial aid?

Use this service to estimate both your “expected family contribution” and “eligibility for federal need-based financial aid."

It’s free!

Click on this link to go there:

http://www.act.org/fane/index.html.

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Contact Chris

borlandeducational.com

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