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Advice for the SAT Bound Student
By: Jessie Mathisen
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The SAT is perhaps the most feared and misunderstood test in our culture. It's not an IQ test, but
it helps to be smart. It's not a content test, but it helps to know your stuff. Many people with great scores never studied
for it, but almost anyone can do better with practice. In some ways, it is a deeply flawed exam but it nevertheless tells
colleges something useful about their applicants. More to the point, it is here to stay. As a tutor who works with many standardized admissions exams, including the SAT, I have thought about the test quite a lot over the
years. Here is my advice for how to handle this quintessentially American coming of age ordeal.
First of all, let
me be very clear: the single best way to prepare for the SAT is to be a good student over the long haul. No tutor or prep
class can replace the benefits of paying attention in all of your classes and doing all of your homework (thoughtfully). It's
even better if you choose more challenging classes rather than easier ones. And of course, reading is critical. The books
assigned in school are not meant to be a complete reading diet for any student; achieving highly in many areas, including
the SAT, will be much easier if you read independently and voraciously. Being a good student and an active reader have many
benefits that go far beyond getting a good score on the SAT. But it is also true that you are unlikely to get the foundation
you need to score highly in any other way.
Being studious is the best SAT preparation that anyone can do, but if
you are reading this, you are probably looking for more specific ways to prepare. In the medium term (roughly one to six months
before the test) the best thing to do is to set a schedule for yourself and practice taking SAT sections and whole SAT exams
regularly. The amount you study will depend on how busy the rest of your life is and what your goals are, but a decent rule
of thumb is to do one SAT section a day, five days per week and to take one full-length test per month. Of course, grading
yourself and going over the answer explanations for the questions that you got wrong is as important as actually taking the
practice tests.
But what about test taking tricks? Many people are under the impression that the key to doing well
on the SAT is to know a bunch of magic codes that somehow crack the test wide open. While there are genuinely valuable test-taking
techniques, they aren't magic. They also aren't secret. I would summarize the most important techniques as follows:
1) Especially for math problems, view the answer choices as an important tool to help you find the answer.
2) If there is a variable in a math question and variables in the answer choices, you can plug your own number into the
question and generally figure out the answer.
3) In many sections, the early questions are easier than the later
questions. If a late question seems easy, be suspicious that there is a trap that you haven't noticed.
4) The
process of elimination is your friend.
5) For the essay, make sure that your essay has paragraphs, a beginning,
middle, and end, and try to fill up most of the space you have been given.
6) Pace yourself. Don't linger on
a particularly tough problem.
I know that these suggestions aren't as specific as you might like. To fully
elucidate and explain them is outside of the scope of this article. However there are several ways you can get more detailed
explanations. The least expensive option is to get a few SAT test prep books and begin a course of independent study. If you are not disciplined enough for that to work well or if you learn better
through verbal discussions with another person rather than reading a book, you may want to consider tutoring. Working with a good SAT prep tutor is much like working with a good personal trainer: you get very specific, individualized
advice and you also get built-in accountability and motivation.
No matter how you prepare for the SAT, remember
that your SAT score can be important, but it will not define your life. College admissions depend on far more than just your SAT scores, and where you go to college will hardly be the most important thing about your
life. While I admire and encourage hard work and high achievement, excessive worry and cramming is simply counterproductive.
Likewise, if you score well on the SAT but don't put in the necessary effort in other aspects of your life, your SAT score
won't get you that far. Study hard, but maintain a sense of perspective.
What You Need to Know The difference between children's being accepted or rejected
into their favorite universities is becoming increasingly thin. Often, all it takes is a few points' higher grade average,
or another 80 points on the SAT, to make your children's chosen future a reality.
Of
course, the opposite is true as well, and those 80 or so points that he or she doesn't get can be their worst
nightmare, and change their future altogether.
No parent wants to see his or her child's
heart crushed like that. But thankfully, there's something you can do about it.
The
way I've found is best to do that is with SAT and ACT private tutoring. Not only can you select the type of tutor you
want (even give a specific name, if you know one), but you can be there in the home to encourage your child and ensure he
or she does the preparation necessary for success. It can even be a bonding expenience.
My
Recommendation The tutoring service I recommend is one that's been around for decades. You may have heard of it:
Kaplan Tutoring.
Having been a tutor myself, I can say that Kaplan's tutoring service really is the best way to go. The amount
of professional, back-office support and assistance you get, on top of the reasonable prices and excellent tutors, makes it
a winner.
Sure, classes may be cheaper, but they force your child to learn at a higher
or lower level of learning than fits him or her. She'll either surrounded by people who learn much faster than you...or
much slower than her. And that's just frustrating either way.
Top top it off, rushing
to classes, when one's got a million other things to do his or her junior and senior years, is NOT fun.
But
studies show that students who get private tutoring, no surprise, see a much bigger jump in their SAT scores than classroom-taught
students. It's no surprise, really. Compare personalized service, scheduled around your needs and your busy timetable,
to rushing 3 nights a week to classes you don't have time for, or reading out of a boring SAT book you don't have
the patience for.
Really, it's no comparison.
Kaplan tutoring sessions last only 1.5 or 2 hours, rather than the long and boring 3 hours of a typical SAT class. And as a parent, you can chart
your child's progress with regular updates from your tutor, including regular diagnostic reports from the Kaplan Tutoring
office. Not only that, buy you have a choice in selecting your tutoring, unlike with the classes. And if you're not happy
with the tutor you get, you can always request a new one, for no extra charge.
It's
that flexibility and attention to detail that makes Kaplan Tutoring a winner. I've seen firsthand the difference it's
made in childrens' lives, and sometimes it can be downright emotional receiving a phone call from a student saying he
got the score he needed to get into that dream university!
What To Do Next Hey,
junior and senior years are stressful enough for the average American high school student. Make it a little easier, and their
dreams that much more tenable, by giving your child a personalized, flexible service that gives them a tutor who knows how
to get the best out of him or her.
Take it from me, having been an SAT tutor myself:
Kaplan private tutoring can work wonders. Your son, or daughter, will thank you. :)
