What effect will the quarantine have on the college admissions process for the class of 2021?

A student recently emailed me to ask, "Do you think colleges will consider SAT and ACT scores differently as a result of the quarantine?"

Below you will find my response.  Note that the student lives in North Carolina, USA.  Schools included in the University of North Carolina (UNC) system include North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Yes, but it’s not clear exactly how much differently.  I think they would all be prepared to disregard scores if the public schools had not managed to get their ACT’s in before the schools closed.  Since they did, here is the latest from the UNC Board of Governors:

Schools in the UNC system are permitted to consider students with weighted GPA’s of 2.5 or better and with SAT scores of 1010 or better or ACT scores of 19 or better.  Schools are permitted to disregard the score minimums, but a score must still be submitted in order for the application to be complete.

How will this play out?  My prediction is that schools who have more viable applicants than spaces (most of the ones in the UNC system) will continue to consider test scores.  Keep in mind that without spring sports, after school jobs, clubs, awards, and other extracurriculars to look at, schools might be using test scores to differentiate among students.  Schools that tend to have a hard time filling their freshmen classes will take the opportunity to disregard scores.  Schools that struggle to admit students in under-represented minorities may disregard scores for those groups.  However, if your demographic is well represented at the average college, I think you will still need decent test scores to be admitted.  

What represents a “decent” test score during a time when students have limited opportunities to retest is anyone’s guess.  You need to compare well to others in your demographic, but I’m not sure what test averages will look like come September.

Now, having said all of that, a number of private schools and some public schools in other states have said that they will not ask for test scores this year.  I don’t think we’ll know the full list of schools until they all update their admissions sites this summer heading into the fall application season.  It’s also possible that the UNC Board of Governors will come out with a new ruling, but keep in mind that this most recent ruling with more relaxed requirements did not pass unanimously.

So the upshot of all this is that we just don’t know.  This is going to be an interesting year to apply to colleges.  There are some interesting factors in play, including whether or not schools will continue to get as many international applicants.  I wish I could tell you more.

This is what your student-athlete needs to do junior year!

Click on this link from the Learning Illumination Center, a nonprofit dedicated "to educate and elevate student-athletes to become future leaders by offering learning opportunities for them and the adults in their lives."

High School Juniors:  It's Time to Prepare!

(It's the third article down.)

Ms. Cindy's ACT Math Book

It's here!  I've finished my ACT math book!  I wrote this one because I wasn't completely happy with the other books out there.

This book is designed for students who are currently scoring in the 20's who would like to score in the high 20's or low 30's.  (If you want to score a 36 you might still find this book helpful.)  It includes over 80 worked examples and over 250 exercises with explained answers.  Calculator advice is included throughout the book instead of being tacked on at the end (or missing altogether.)

The book opens with test-taking advice, and there are targeted exercises so you can practice what I preach.  The answer explanations throughout the book will alert you to test-taking strategies you could have used.  Last, but not least, there is solid advice on which question types you will want to skip if you know you can't finish and how to recognize them when you see them, as well as advice on how to eliminate answer choices to increase your odds if you have to "guess."

Which calculator should you use on your SAT or ACT?

Until 1994 you couldn’t use a calculator on the SAT.  The test was designed to be taken without a calculator and top students have made it a point to take the test without one.  That will change in March of 2016.  With the addition of precalculus problems, a scientific calculator will become necessary so that the test-taker can find the Arctangent of 3.2 or the natural log of 17.  This has been true for the ACT for years.

Which calculator will serve you best on your college entrance exam?  If you are a top math student, you probably already own a scientific calculator.  As long as your calculator will find sines,  cosines and their inverses, as well as logarthms and natural logarithms, you should be fine.  Don’t try out a new brand of calculator on the test.  Use the one you are familiar with.

Using a familiar calculator is even more important if you are not a top math student.  However, if you have plenty of time before your test, it might be worth your while to get familiar with a better calculator.  It might even be to your advantage to take more than one.

Texas Instruments has had a near monopoly on the school calculator market with their TI-83, TI-84, and TI-NSpire calculators.  (Note that the TI-NSpire CAS model is not approved for the test.) Most schools have classroom sets of one of these models and some require all students in certain math classes to rent or purchase one of these calculators.  While these are versatile little machines, they aren’t as efficient for certain functions.  If you struggle to finish in time, you might want to supplement with a different model.

A student recently introduced me to the CASIO fx-991ES.  I was impressed by how intuitive it was to use.  It takes fewer key-strokes to use certain key functions, and there are fewer instances in which you have to remember which menu to use.  Its only drawback is that it is not a graphing calculator.  However, at under $20, it is an affordable addition to your test-taking arsenal.

What SAT/ACT prep books are still on my shelf? (ACT edition)

With the transition to the “new” SAT and the somewhat less comprehensive changes to the ACT, my prep resources have undergone a change.  Some books have been culled out or replaced with updated editions, and several new titles have been added.  This is the ACT edition.  Click here for the SAT edition.

Here are the winners:

For ACT English:

The Complete Guide to ACT English, Second Edition by Erica Meltzer

This is one of the most-used books on my shelf.  Sometimes I even use it for SAT students who need punctuation help.

For ACT math:

Ms. Cindy's ACT Math Book by Cynthia Hemminger

Full disclosure:  I wrote this one.  If you buy it I'll get a little money.  (I'm hoping to recoup my costs; I doubt any of the authors on this page are getting rich off of this.)  This book suits my tutoring style, and I will have many of my students buy it.  However, if you are scoring in the 30's already and you really want that 36, you might want a book with more problems and less explanation, such as the following:

The College Panda ACT Math: Advanced Guide and Workbook by Nielson Phu

This book has a LOT of practice problems.  It is fairly comprehensive.  It is the first book off the shelf after mine.

I also pull in problems from my SAT math section.

For ACT Reading:

I’m still looking!  If you have any suggestions, let me know!

ACT Science:

For the Love of ACT Science by Michael Cerro

Is there another ACT Science book?  Not that I know of.  I quite like this one, but I would love to see it expanded.

The “losers”:

Top 50 Skills for a Top Score by Brian Leaf

I used this one for certain students back in the day, but the test has changed over the past several years, and this book hasn’t.

For the Love of ACT Math by Private Prep

This book has a lot going for it, but it doesn’t suit my style.  It looks like it would be really good for someone who needs work in all or most areas of math and who has a lot of time to prep before the test.  It was really designed for you to start at the beginning and march your way through.  It has a LOT of problems, but they aren’t organized in a way that would work for someone trying to take an a la carte approach.  You would also need a high tolerance for “dad jokes” and the ability/willingness to go online for the answer explanations.   I will include a link to order this one in case it sounds like a good match for you.

Manhattan Prep 5 lb Book of ACT Practice Problems

Once I discovered this book, I used it heavily for about a year.  Then the test emphases shifted, but the book hasn’t been updated.  Now it’s gathering dust.  It’s still on my shelf mainly because it’s the right size and heft to keep the other books from flopping over.  I should just find a nice-looking bookend instead.

What SAT/ACT prep books are still on my shelf? (SAT edition)

With the transition to the “new” SAT and the somewhat less comprehensive changes to the ACT, my prep resources have undergone a change.  Some books have been culled out or replaced with updated editions, and several new titles have been added.  This is the SAT edition.  Click here for the ACT edition.

Here are the winners:

For the overall test:

The Official SAT Study Guide, 2018 edition

The only parts I ever use are the practice tests.  These are available for free online, but you would need to print them out.  Depending on your printer, it might be cheaper to buy the book.  This was not true of last year’s book, which only contained 4 tests.

For SAT reading comprehension:

The Complete Guide to SAT Reading, Third Edition by Erica Meltzer

This book, which anchored my SAT shelf in the “olden days”, has been completely overhauled for the revised SAT.  It’s really all you need.

For SAT writing and language:

The Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar, Fourth Edition by Erica Meltzer

Again, this guide was a staple prior to the SAT overhaul.  Ms. Meltzer was proactive in getting an overhauled guide to the test-prep community as quickly as possible.  That haste meant that there were a number of errors.  With this edition, those problems have been dealt with.  I do supplement with the ACT version (see below) for some students.

For SAT Math:

I really haven’t settled on just one.  Which book I recommend varies from student to student, and, while I generally have students acquire just one, a given students will end up using most of these while working with me, even if it’s just one set of exercises.

Kaplan’s Math Workbook for the New SAT

This is the one I use with students who are currently scoring less than 600 on an SAT or PSAT.  I like the way it starts off with linear equations and systems, and I like the way it divides the problems into easy, medium and hard so that we can work on the problems that will appear at the beginning of the test and avoid frustrating the student with those end-of-test problems that he or she will likely guess on anyway.

The College Panda SAT Math: Advanced Guide and Workbook by Nielson Phu

This book is first off the shelf for students who are already scoring 600+ and would like to score 700+.  It has a TON of problems in it, and I really like the treatment of probability and statistics which is one of the main areas those students need to concentrate on.

PWN the SAT Math Guide, Fourth Edition by Mike McClenathan

A previous edition anchored my SAT math section prior to the SAT revision.  Mr. McClenathan  helpfully published this quickly, but subsequent released tests have added some insight that indicates this book is a little off-the-mark.  I’m hoping for an update soon.  It is designed for students who have always done really well in math class, and are then surprised and disappointed by a less-than-stellar math SAT score.  As I tell my students, the problems go from zero to sixty in under 6 seconds.  There’s not a lot of easy or medium practice in there.

A Guide to the Math SAT by Richard Corn

There are some excellent problems in here, but I don’t pull it out quite as often because the book is weakest in the areas in which my students need the most help.   That wouldn’t necessarily be true for everyone, though – my students tend to be clustered at a handful of schools, so they share a lot of characteristics.

The losers:

Top 50 Skills for a Top Score by Brian Leaf

I used this one for certain students back in the day, but the updated version for the new SAT just doesn’t cut it.

Dr. John Chung’s New SAT Math, 2016

The bulk of this book is 10 complete practice tests.  Back when this book came out, we only had 4 official practice tests and extras were appreciated even if they weren’t quite as good as the official tests.  Now that we have more official tests, I don’t use this anymore.

Study Materials Review: The College Panda ACT Math

Ever since a student introduced me to the College Panda SAT math books by Nelson Phu, I’ve kept an eye out for an ACT version.  A couple of weeks ago I spotted it.  I ordered both the ACT Math:  Advanced Guide and Workbook and the ACT Math Workbook:  More Advanced Practice by Topic.  Like the SAT book, the ACT book is light on test strategies.  Any gains you make will be strictly due to improvements in your math capabilities. 

In the first guide, the explanations are clear, but strictly math-based.  There is no mention of calculator use.  Math purists often make it a point to take their college entrance exams without using their calculators, but I rarely see those students.  Most of my students appreciate a word or two on the best use of their calculators.  The answers to the exercises are explained, but the explanations are ….succinct.  Usually, they just walk you through any algebra involved.  There is no mention of ways to avoid the algebra altogether by, say, noticing that the slope of the line must be positive and that there’s only one answer choice that offers that option. 

Most of the time, the primary weakness in an ACT math book is a failure to cover certain topics at all.  This book is better than the competition in this area.  The only topic I couldn’t find – I haven’t read it cover to cover – is vectors.  I will say that the coverage of the miscellaneous topics (matrices, Venn diagrams, sequences and ellipses) is cursory, but it is there.  There is a nice selection of problems at the end of each chapter.

When I ordered the books, I wondered about the title of second one:  Did the “more” mean more practice, or did it mean more advanced?  It means more practice, and I’m not sure whether I’m pleased or disappointed.  The ACT Math Workbook covers the same topics as the Advanced Guide.  The main difference is that the explanations have been left out, so the volume is slimmer – and less expensive.  The problems in each book are different, and, unfortunately, if you wanted to see the full spectrum of problem types for each topic, you would need both books.  However, if you are working with a tutor, you could use the slimmer Math Workbook and count on your tutor to fill in any missing problem types.

Overall, I recommend these books.  Up until now, I have used my own ACT materials with my students,  but I will consider having those students who are comfortable with their calculators purchase the ACT Math Workbook and then supplementing with my own materials.

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The new ACT book is out - and it's interesting

Cut to the chase take-away:  Rising seniors who retake the ACT in the fall should be prepared for a math section that includes up to three AP Statistics multiple choice questions.

The new ACT book has been released a month before I was expecting it, and the first interesting change is the title:  The Official ACT Prep Guide 2016-2017.  The "old" book (referred to among tutors as "the Red Book") had been published in 2011 and has been out of date for at least two years.  It did not reflect the addition of paired passages in the reading section, the change from seven passages to six in the science section, new emphases in the math section, or the new essay prompts.  (Note that the essay prompts were the only change that the ACT officially announced, and were likely the reason we get a new book.)  A new book was long overdue and greatly anticipated.  There were few practice tests available that reflected the new changes, and we were eager for more.  I took the April 2016 test for the sole purpose of getting a copy of the test - I paid for the question and answer service - and that brought my number of complete, up-to-date practice tests up to a grand total of 2.

The Red Book included five practice tests, but it was the 3rd edition, and they had slowly been adding to it since 2005, so I figured five tests was overly optimistic.  I was hoping for three newly written practice tests.  I was expecting the book to contain the December 2015 test, the April 2016 test and the June 2016 test.  (Remember that I thought the book would be published in July.)  I got a book with three practice tests.  One is the June 2015 test, except for the math section.  One is the April 2015 test, except for the math section.  One is sort of out of the Red Book, except for the math section.

First, let's address that Red Book test:  They did alter it by dropping the last science passage and then adding questions to the other passages to bring the total up to 40.  This reflects recent changes to the science section.  They did NOT, however, replace one of the reading passages with a paired passage.  As someone who has scrambled to find good paired-passage practice, I am more than a little annoyed.

On all three tests, the math section is a strange jumble of June 2015, April 2015, Red Book questions, and a few questions I don't recognize.  The second test is actually based on the second Red Book test with questions from April 2015 and other Red Book tests, along with a few new questions.  How odd.  The last test is based on the fourth Red Book test.There has been a lot of online speculation as to why.  Why not just put the June 2015 math test in as-is?  If it was good enough to give to students at the time, why isn't it good enough to practice with now?

There has been a great deal of speculation as to what they were trying to accomplish.  One theory is that they wanted to prevent people from being able to say, "Well, I won't bother buying this book.  I'll just access the released tests online instead."  Another is that they are signaling a change to the math section.  To examine that last question, we should ask, "What did they pull out, and what replaced it?"

The most interesting thing to me is the 23 questions that I saw for the first time.  It's extra work to write brand-new questions, assuming that is what they did, so what are these questions about?  Ten of them are on probability and statistics.  Many of those actually use notation that a student would be familiar with if he or she had taken the AP prob/stat course, but likely will NOT be familiar with otherwise.  They aren't difficult questions, but many students will be stymied by the notation.  There are also two questions on vectors.  I think it's clear that we can expect to see more questions on these topics on future ACT tests.

Students who plan to take one last shot at the ACT in the fall will want to learn some rudimentary probability and statistics to increase their chances of a top score.

At last! I've found an ACT science workbook!

My favorite test prep materials are the ones that provide targeted practice.  Whether I'm learning content material or testing strategy, I want an opportunity to try it out without having to take an entire test section.  I don't have anything against practice tests, but we have so few of them available right now that I don't want to use one just to practice some detail.  On the other hand, I don't want to wait and practice 17 details all at once.

Up until now, the ACT science section has been the great big hole in my test prep tool box.  There are plenty of books out there that include or focus on the science, but they all fall short.  Either they don't have useful advice, or their practice passages just don't feel right. Then, while browsing on Amazon, I stumbled across For the love of ACT Science by Michael Cerro.

In under 150 pages, this little workbook gets down to the nitty gritty on the most efficient way to accurately answer science questions.  The author has a philosophy that most students will appreciate: Don't read the passage unless you absolutely have to.  I have long had this approach, but this little workbook showed me how to avoid reading the passage in more situations!  There is targeted practice for each tip and several full length science sections.  Other than the fact that some of the "science" seems to have come from the author's imagination (that's on purpose - it illustrates a point) the passages feel like ACT passages.

My one criticism is that the section on prior knowledge is thinner than it could be.  A few extra pages spelling out more of the information that tends to come up on prior knowledge questions - cell structure, plant and animal metabolism, energy, and the solar system - would have been welcome.

I've only just begun using this with students, and they haven't tested, yet, but they definitely feel better, which is half the battle.  A lack of confidence in the science section has been sending some kids to the SAT, which is a problem for this year's juniors.  We're worried that fall SAT scores won't be back in time for early decision applications, and we still don't know how those scores will play out during the admissions process.  This workbook should allow more students to take the ACT.

It's a little pricey for it's length - about $30 on Amazon on 5/27/16 - but it's packed full of useful stuff and it is easy to use on your own; it may save you the price of a tutor. 

I took the ACT today

The ACT has made 4 big changes to the test in the last two years.  They have only announced one of them.  Their new practice book reflecting these changes is long overdue, and won't be published until July.  We have a real shortage of representative practice tests, and that's an issue for a test on which timing is critical.  I signed up to take this test partly for the experience but mostly to get the test booklet:  I paid extra for the question-and-answer service.

Here are my brief impressions:

First, I have been timing my students incorrectly.  I have timed them at my dining room table, or I have allowed them to time themselves at home.  I have not set the timer and had them complete the test while perched before a desk the size of a large clipboard trying to juggle their extra pencils, test books, answer sheets and calculators.  And it makes a difference.  Especially on the ACT where timing is a big piece of your performance.

This was not my first big test as an adult.  A few years back I took the SAT Math 2 subject test.  The desks at that high school were quite a bit larger.  In the future I will take desk size into account when choosing a testing site.  Meanwhile, if anyone is looking for a research topic for their PhD in Education, this might be interesting to study.

The English section went well for me, but hats off to Erica Meltzer!  On more than one question I can credit my correct answer to The Complete Guide to ACT English.  It's my go-to grammar workbook. 

The math section went well for me, but HO.LY. CRUD.  The ACT folks really upped their game in the conic sections category.  Unless there was something I missed, you had to write the equation of a ellipse from the graph and then use that equation to find the y-coordinate of a point on the ellipse. Yikes.  Most of my kids haven't looked at the standard equation of an ellipse at all, ever.  My treatment of them up til now has been fairly cursory.  I guess that will have to change.

I thought the reading section was a tad bit easier than usual.  There was only one question on which I disagreed with all of the answer choices.  Usually there are more.

I thought the science section was a tad bit harder than usual, and the tiny table issue didn't help.  I wonder if you can apply for a Larger Desk accommodation.  Fortunately most of my kids taking this test have already banked respectable science scores.  They should be ok.

Is it "unfair" to get a test-prep tutor or enroll in an expensive course?

I once had a parent call to explore the idea of getting an SAT coach for his daughter.  He told me about her, but then he said he was worried about whether or not getting her a coach represented an unfair advantage.  I pointed out that since she was at an expensive private school, her application would be read as if she had a coach whether she did or not.  (I did not point out how funny it was that he was worried about unequal access to test coaching, but not about unequal access to the private school she was in.  They also lived in one of the neighborhoods filled with mcmansions.) I guess my argument did not carry the day, because I didn't end up working with his daughter.

So is there an inequity involved in spending money to get your child ready for a college entrance exam?  And if there is, how much should you worry about that?  Would the world be a better place if everyone boycotted the tutors, the Princeton Review, the books, and online courses?  This came up on Quora, and this was my reply:

Here is something to keep in mind about "SAT coaching": It is a really big umbrella. When we read or hear about it in the media it sounds like the rich kids are buying special secrets that you only get to have if you have enough money. I assure you that I have never given anyone a test-taking tip that isn't available "out there" for everyone. As one fellow tutor always says, "There is no special sauce." Hiring an SAT coach might be like hiring a personal trainer. Most people could do it on their own, but hiring someone streamlines the process. People with more money than time tend to do this for all aspects of their lives including SAT preparation.

When parents call me to coach their kids for a college entrance exam they always say, "He/she is a very good student, but he/she doesn't test well." They will allow that the student might need just a little review, but they will anxiously inquire as to whether I teach the testing tips. And I say, "Umm...sure." And I do. For five minutes. And then we spend the rest of the ten hours on the algebra he never learned, or the grammar she completely missed because they moved at just the wrong time. You see, there is a lot of cachet in going to an SAT tutor every week. There is no cachet at all in going to an I-never-learned-grammar tutor every week.

Is it fair that the rich kid who never learned grammar gets a tutor to fill in that hole before he has to take his college entrance exam, while the poor kid who never learned grammar doesn't? Of course not. However, it would be silly to say that no one gets to learn grammar until everyone can. Or that no one can know algebra well until everyone does. Surely the more educated people we have the better off we are.

So, in answer to your question: If you need a coach, and you can afford one, get a coach. Be a more educated person. If you are worried about the inequities of this world - and really, if you were to rank all of the inequities in the world, unequal access to SAT tutors wouldn't make the top ten - then use your increased knowledge to do good.

Vocabulary work for the reluctant reader

I've posted before on the fact that many of our students have small vocabularies and that this hampers their reading comprehension.  (You can read that post here.)  By far the best way to increase your vocabulary is to read a wide variety of materials - particularly books or articles at a challenging reading level.  I have also posted on the fact that it is difficult to get students to actually do this.

Vocabulary building needs to begin - well, from birth really.  However, college bound students should consciously work on their vocabularies beginning no later than middle school.  How can you get a reluctant reader to work on his or her vocabulary without reducing it to rote memorization?  Comic books can be a great method.  Calvin and Hobbes is a great comic series with some terrific vocabulary words in it.  It appeals to everyone age 10 and up.  The artist, Bill Watterson, has retired, but compilations of the strips are still in print.  You can also find them online.

I recently discovered another great vocabulary-building book series.  Stephan Pastis, who draws the nationally syndicated comic strip "Pearls Before Swine", has also written a series of books about an elementary school character, Timmy Failure.  The series is aimed at students in late elementary school, but I have enjoyed them, and I'm 53.  These chapter books are in the style made popular by the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. "Pearls" doesn't tend to be filled with SAT-level words, so imagine my surprise and delight when I encountered the following in the first Timmy Failure book, Mistakes Were Made:  rigorously, depiction, alleviated, stipulations, assent, prudent.  And that was just the first 50 pages!  Each book in the series is entertaining - a quick, easy read.  Unlike Calvin and Hobbes, which some children would need to read with a dictionary, many of the words in the Timmy Failure books are defined by the characters as you go, although in both series you could get the basic gist of many words from their context.

These books make great holiday gifts!  

Use the summer for reading!

I tell my students that it is most time-consuming to raise their scores on the reading sections of the college entrance examinations because they need to read.  A LOT.  Then I tell them that summer is the perfect time to work on this.

This is my annual post to encourage reading.  I was inspired to get off my duff and write this year's edition by this article.

The article looks at what students are reading.  There is good news and bad news.  The good news:  reading is not dead.  Quite a few kids are reading and some of them read quite a bit.  The bad news:  too many kids read hardly anything, and when they do read, they choose books that are written at an easy reading level.

The article includes a plea for students to read the classics and includes an argument for a students reading list to include both fiction and non-fiction.  It points out that raising your reading level requires work - which is probably why kids are avoiding it - but that when students make the effort they enjoy the more difficult books.

Here's the thing.  Students who read regularly and who can comprehend material at a 11th grade level or higher will have a tremendous advantage on their college entrance exams, in college and later in life.  For a quick-and-dirty estimate of the reading level of a piece of writing, see this previous post.

"Recruiting to reject"

I was reading a blog post earlier today when I came across a new phrase:  "recruiting to reject."  It refers to a practice whereby students who have a snowball's chance in the proverbial hot spot's chance of getting into a college are encouraged to apply anyway.  The college then (predictably for those of us "in the know") rejects the student.  By rejecting these students, the schools admit rate goes down and they look more competitive than they would otherwise.  This, in turn, raises the school's ranking in various lists.  I've seen this going on a various local schools, but I never had a nice phrase to refer to it by until now.

Colleges use various methods of encouraging potential rejects to apply, and I was witness to some of them on a recent visit to a local high school.  I was there to talk to the career counselor.  She wasn't in, but I happened into a room in which an admissions officer from a local public university - I won't say which one because they are both equally guilty, but if you'll note my location you'll see which two I've narrowed it down to - was meeting with a group of prospective applicants.  Among the statements she made:

"We look at your whole application."
"We really look for people who have made A's and B's, but we admit people with bad grades every year.  It really depends on your story."  (Followed, of course, by an anecdote of a kid who failed six courses, but got admitted anyway.)
"Yes, we consider your test scores, but you are more than just your score."

I had to bite my tongue.  What I really wanted to do was jump in and say, "Yes, they will admit you with substandard grades or test scores.  IF you are 6 and half feet tall and have a terrific 3-point shot. Or IF you are a Hispanic Buddhist who will be the first in her family to go to college. Or IF your family has donated money to the school in excess of seven figures."

If you want to see if you are likely to get into a school, go to a website like Cappex. It's free, but you have to sign up.  They have admission trend scattergrams that plot on a grid all of the students signed up with them who applied to a particular school according to their GPA's and test scores.

Here is a sample:

See where the blue and green dots are?  Notice those stray blue and green dots that represent students with low test scores and/or low GPA's?  Those are the basketball-players, the kids of big donors, etc.  They are NOT the applicants who are generally described as "a good kid."  As in, "You know, he's just a good kid."  If nothing about you is VERY unusual (in a good way) then you are not destined to be one of the stray dots.  Consider whether to apply accordingly.

READ, dangit!

There exist SAT and ACT tutors who fill out a form after the test outlining for parents why the student didn't get the score they wanted.  I think it's a CYA thing, and I can see the motivation, but it seems a bit mean.  However, if I DID fill out such a form, "Doesn't read enough" would be one of the check-boxes.  "Didn't do what I told him to" would be another, and for many students this would amount to the same thing.

Students (and their parents) are told the importance of reading over and over again.  We all know we should be reading, but many people -- teenagers in particular -- don't.  Even if a student is a big reader, sometimes they don't read a wide enough variety of texts.  How many times have you heard, "They can read ANYTHING! It doesn't matter!  Find something they enjoy!"  This is only true up to a point.  When it comes to college readiness, the ability to read non-fiction at a college level is crucial.  However, you can't count on colleges to teach the student how to do this.  They expect their students to arrive already reading at a college level.  In fact, college entrance exams are specifically intended to measure the ability to do this.  High schools haven't traditionally done such a great job either.  They tend to focus on the types of fictional reading the practice of which will come in handy if you major in English Lit.  The Common Core Standards are supposed to address this issue.  We'll see.

When I get a student who needs work in the reading section, I usually assign reading homework.  I send home articles that were written "for grownups."  The students get to choose what to take home, although I encourage them to choose articles on topics they know little about rather than articles they think they would enjoy.  This is the homework that is least likely to get done.  I'm not sure why.  Is it because they can't bring themselves to read "boring" stuff?  Is it because they don't see the immediate connection between the assignment and improving their test scores?  Is it because the improvement is not as immediate or obvious?

An aside--  If you are reading this, and you are one of my current students:  I can tell when you didn't really read the article.  I may have chosen not to embarrass you, but I know.

Usually when a child's reading score is low, it's because he really doesn't read all that well.  You can't fix that without reading.  So, READ, dangit!

Check back tomorrow for some specific reading suggestions.

Study materials review: Up Your Score ACT

Up Your Score for the SAT was originally introduced in the 1980's.  It is periodically updated by a fresh crop of perfect scorers.  (You can read my review of that book here.) This is the first ACT version.  It was put together by a test prep tutor (Chris Arp) and 3 perfect-scoring students who are now in college.  Like the SAT version, the book is cute and clever.  Also like the SAT version you have to wade through an awful lot of cute and clever to get to the actual meat of the advice.  As you may have gleaned from my previous reviews, I like the books that offer targeted practice.  This one does not.  It was not written as a stand-alone resource; you'd have to buy a guide with actual practice tests as well.  As of this writing (June 2014) the price isn't bad - about $14.  Still, there's no reason not to just check a copy out of the library.

There is some fairly interesting study advice that will apply to subjects other than the ACT, and, as I mentioned in a previous post, the section on punctuation is particularly useful.  If you really need to own your own copy, there is a link below.

Another great punctuation review for the ACT!

Up until now my favorite ACT punctuation review was Barron's ACT 36.  However, I have another favorite!  I am in the process of reviewing Up Your Score ACT: The Underground Guide.  I haven't finished it, yet, so stay tuned for the full review. However, I have reached the punctuation review in chapter 4, and it's pretty good.  The ACT 36 review is more thorough, but the Up Your Score ACT review is funnier and easier to remember.

If you really struggle with punctuation questions, choose the Up Your Score review.  If you are trying to get those last few questions for a perfect English score, go with the ACT 36 review.

A while back I wrote a full review of Barron's ACT 36 which you can read here.  I recommended that you borrow a copy for the punctuation review rather than buy the whole thing.  

Cheating on the college entrance exams

My kid went off to a prestigious college. He came home for Christmas break convinced that he was one of the few people on the planet who didn’t cheat on his college entrance exams. Apparently, everyone there had a story about his cousin’s boyfriend’s sister who cheated on the exam by doing fill-in-the-cheating-method-here. Some of the stories sounded rather unlikely to me, but the news at the time was all about that kid in ….New York was it? …who made a gazillion dollars impersonating other students and taking their exams for them.

In May of 2013 I took the SAT II Math Level 2 exam and I assure you, none of the cheating techniques would have worked. That’s not to say they never work, but the cheating techniques I hear about all depend upon having a dishonest or incompetent proctor. How prevalent is that? I don’t know. I do know that if your testing strategy depends entirely on having a bad proctor, you are likely to run into trouble.

I was recently asked to review a book entitled SAT SNEAK ATTACK: How Computer Geniuses Hack, Beat and Cheat America's Most Feared Exam by Peter Wayner. At 33 pages, it would make a better magazine or newspaper article than it does a book. The gist of it is this: 1. Poor pay causes the proctors to do a bad job. (There are no statistics on the percent of proctors doing a bad job, but since they are all paid poorly I suppose we are supposed to assume that they all are therefore doing a bad job.) 2. Because the proctors are not paying attention you can hide helpful information in your calculator, such as a dictionary. (Having your calculator out at all during the verbal sections is forbidden, so this requires a very inattentive proctor.) 3. You can also hide a program that helps solve math problems, although, based on the description, it sounded to me like this particular help would only be useful for students who would otherwise score very low in the math section. 4. Large numbers of students are cheating using this method. (Again, no actual statistics. This is based on anecdotes from college students.) 5. The author personally alerted the ETS to this egregious problem and they metaphorically rolled their eyes. 6. This means that the math help program is apparently “legal” and any test-taker would be stupid not to avail himself of this advantage.

The SAT was designed in such a way that you do not need a calculator AT ALL. You are allowed to use a calculator because too many high school students think they can’t do math without one, and because they aren’t really testing you on arithmetic anyway. The top test-takers know that using your calculator as little as possible will actually help you go faster in the math section. Spending time and money downloading some program that will solve triangles for you is pretty silly. The triangles on the SAT can nearly always be solved in your head. In the time it would take to practice using the program, you could just practice the math in the first place. But I guess then you wouldn’t have a fun anecdote about how you cheated the SAT.

The new SAT: the Essay

This is the third post in a series on the redesigned SAT.  The first two were on vocabulary and the math section, respectively.

It was interesting to see what the news media chose to focus on when they did their bullet points for the redesigned SAT.  As headlines and/or sound-bites, many chose variations on “The new SAT will drop the essay requirement!”  That they would trumpet this particular change is understandable.  The SAT essay has been widely loathed since it was first introduced in 2005.

Criticisms of the 25-minute essay section abound:  Writing a coherent essay in such a short period of time on a random prompt that was sprung on you at the last second is a very artificial task.  How often does that come up?  Even college blue-book exams – the closest real-world situation - will have essay questions specifically on the course material.  And don’t get people started on how they are scored.  Anecdotes abound about how kids who can afford coaches are at an enormous advantage because coaches teach you how to use really bad writing to get a top score.  Dropping the essay requirement was popular and a good marketing move.

However, "drop the essay requirement" may be misleading.  The SAT still has an essay.  However, now the style of essay has changed and it is "optional."  Changing the style of the essay is a good move. The new style is much more the kind of writing that you might expect to do in the workplace:  Take this data and write a quick position summary.  ETS has already test-driven this essay style on the GRE, so they should be able to implement it on the SAT with few hiccups.

As far as being "optional" goes, the more selective colleges will "require" it, just as they now "require" the "optional" ACT essay.

While it is true that the method of scoring the essay has always had issues - and likely still will - there are two points to consider here:  First, American kids need to be writing more and when you include essays in assessments, the curriculum will include more writing instruction.  Second, colleges have always been able to read a student's actual essay.  They don't have to rely on the score as a measure of an essay's quality.  In fact, the essay score has always had only a slight impact on the students Writing component score in addition to being reported as a separate score.  Many colleges disregard the entire Writing component score altogether while others downplay it.  Yet, they have required the essay anyway. Keep in mind that this will probably be the only sample of writing accessible to the admissions committee that is guaranteed to have been written by the applicant.  Admissions officers all claim they can spot an adult-written essay from a mile off, but can they really?  And what is to prevent a student from paying his classmate to write a better essay?

So the essay is still there and those applying to selective colleges are stuck with it.  However, the task should be a better example of a real-world writing situation, and practicing for it may pay off even after the SAT is over.

What does "test prep" consist of, anyway?

I am a professional test prep coach.  I help students prepare for their college entrance exams.  (I should also mention that I tutor students in math in case you are looking for a math tutor.  However, most of my students are preparing for the SAT.)  The mainstream media seems to find my profession offensive in the extreme.  Test prep coaches are accused of either charging big bucks, but having no beneficial effect whatsoever or charging big bucks which gives wealthier students an unfair advantage.  Sometimes an author accuses my profession of both of those things in the same article.  That's always good for a chuckle.

In most articles or news features you'll hear that students (either unsuspecting and being taken for a ride or filthy rich and taking advantage) are spending "hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars" on test prep.  Not with me they're not.

I belong to a Linkedin group for test prep coaches.  A few months ago, someone posted a poll.  "How many hours do you typically spend with a given student?"  Most people responded with answers ranging from 5 to 20 hours, which suggests that this "hundreds of hours" business is the exception rather than the rule.  One tutor responded with "over 100 hours."  The reaction was swift and incredulous:  "WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING WITH A STUDENT FOR OVER A HUNDRED HOURS??"  (Further evidence that the "hundreds of hours" thing is the exception.)  His answer:  "Teaching kids in China how to read and write college-level English."

Oh. Ok.

When you tell people that you coach students for a standardized test, they seem to think that you spend your time showing them how to color in ovals really, really well.  Or perhaps teaching them special tricks that will enable them to correctly answer questions without actually knowing anything.  Like, "if you've bubbled two C's in a row, the next answer will always be B."  (No, that's not an actual thing.)

My clientele are mostly strong students who just need a little bit of review.  However, sometimes I get someone who somehow missed out on basic grammar.  We might spend A LOT of time together.  And we call it "test prep" because if I hung a shingle that read, "I will teach your kid basic grammar," no one would call me.  Just as in China it is apparently easier to get clients for SAT prep than for lessons in reading and writing college-level English.