Study materials review: Up Your Score

Up Your Score:  The Underground Guide to the SAT has been around so long it is no longer "underground."  First published in the 1980's, each edition stays fresh by recruiting top-scoring students as co-authors.  The 2013-2014 edition is by Larry Burger, Michael Colton, Jaja Liao, Manek Mistry and Paul Rossi.

This guide is intended as a supplement to The Official SAT Study Guide.  Up Your Score does not include any practice exercises.  Compared to other supplementary guides, this book includes more advice on studying (how to concentrate, how to improve your memory, best time of day to memorize something, etc) stress reduction, and general test-taking strategies.  The section on guessing strategies is one of the most interesting of its type that I've read. There is even a section on bubbling technique.  Apparently some students take a ridiculously long time to color in the bubbles. Who knew? Most of the tips are of the type you see in every guide, but there are a few new ones here. This guide is more fun than most.

When it comes to content, there isn't much here.  One third of the book is devoted to vocabulary.  The book doesn't have a whole lot to say on the rest of the critical reading section.  There are 600 words in the vocabulary list.  The bad news:  they are arranged alphabetically instead of by meaning.  The good news:  after dozen words or so there is a silly alliterative story using those words designed to help you remember them.  Another thing this book does well is to distinguish between words you might need to know to answer the vocabulary questions at the beginning and literary terms you might need to know to answer the passage content questions.

The math section begins on such an elementary level that, honestly, if you don't know how to do that then you aren't the sort of person who can learn math from a book.  It then proceeds to brush lightly over far too much material without either giving an opportunity to practice or referring you to appropriate problems in The Official Guide.

The writing section is short and tries to cover both the multiple choice content and essay advice.

I picked up a copy at BJ's for under $10, so the price isn't all that bad.  However, if you've already read another guide, this one doesn't have enough new stuff to make it worth buying.  Check a copy out at your school or local library and then read just the useful bits.  If this will be your first guide it's worth the price, although if you find out that you need more intensive help in a particular section, this one won't cut it for you.

The Cost of Calculators

Before calculators, if we spotted a zero as one of the multipliers, we thought something along the lines of: “Woohoo! Less work for me!”  With today’s students a multiplier of zero barely registers. I swear I have had this exact conversation with multiple students:

Student:  (busily using a calculator to multiply a long string of numbers)

Me:  Sweetie, STOP.

Student:  (looks up)

Me:  There’s a zero in there.

Student:  Huh?

Me:  All of those numbers you are multiplying.  One of them is a zero.

Student:  Ok.  (goes back to multiplying)

Me:  STOP.

Student:  (looks up)

Me:  If you multiply something by zero what do you get?

Student:  (long pause)  Zero?

Me:  Exactly!

Student (gives me a look that says plainly, “And that applies to my life, how?”)

Me:  So you are going to multiply along and get some number. You are going to multiply that number by this zero. You will get zero.  You will multiply that zero by this number and get zero, and so on.  What will you have at the end?

Student:  Zero?

Me:  So write it down, and MOVE ON!

Vocabulary is a stumbling block in reading comprehension

A limited vocabulary is frequently a stumbling block for my students when it comes to reading comprehension.

Both the SAT the ACT include "vocabulary in context" questions:  "In the context of this passage, what does fill-in-the-word mean?" These questions often stump my students.  However, even questions that are not explicitly about vocabulary can present problems.  Consider one question which had as possible answers:  a.  stunned amazement,  b.  silent contempt,  c.  mild concern, and d.  feigned interest.   Imagine trying to answer the question without knowing the meanings of "contempt" or "feigned."  Worse, a student will occasionally miss the entire point of a passage because such a large percentage of the words are unfamiliar that he or she can't work out the gist of the article through the context.

Am I just being a curmudgeon, or have student vocabularies really declined since I was young?  According to an article in today's Huffington Post, it's the latter.  Exam scores recently released by the National Assessment of Educational Progress reveal that the students at the top - those most likely to apply to college - are performing less well than their predecessors.  Furthermore, vocabulary was (as predicted) closely linked to reading comprehension.

If you are the parent of a young child, you will want to take note.  There are vast differences in the rate at which young children are exposed to language.  These differences are usually described as existing between higher and lower socioeconomic groups, but if you are looking at child-care or preschool options, you should pay close attention to the language proficiency of teachers and child-care providers.  Differences in language acquisition in early childhood persist into adulthood.

If you are the parent of a slightly older child, you should continue reading to your child, even if he or she has already learned to read.  Your child should read on his or her own, of course, but by reading aloud, you can introduce your child to literature that is on a more challenging level.  Don't put your child in a position of trying to make up for years of neglect by attempting to learn 2,000 vocabulary words in the month before the college entrance exam.

Study Materials Review: The Critical Reader

I’ve been skimming an advance copy of The Critical Reader by Erica Meltzer, and I have concluded that if you want an 800 on the critical reading section of the SAT, this is the book to buy.  It is intended to be a companion volume to The Official SAT Study Guide.  Given that, and the purchase price, it may be the most expensive option out there. 

The book isn’t a quick read, either; it’s 334 dense pages of material and exercises.  You won’t work your way through this book in a week. It will lead you through hours of intense study.

Now, if you’ve read some of my previous blog posts, you might have noticed that I have recommended against spending hundreds of hours preparing for one test.  Have I changed my mind?  Not at all!  Here’s the difference:  while some study guides focus on the test itself with tunnel vision, this book is designed to help you raise your test scores by becoming a more critical reader. The author recognizes that your motivation is to do better on a test; however, she takes the time to explain why the skills measured on the test are important skills for a college student.  Then she teaches you those skills.  Once you have worked your way through this book, you can reap the benefits of being a better reader for the rest of your life! Isn’t that worth a good bit of your time?

If you plan to go to college, get this book.  You will want to work through it before your college entrance exam, so if you are planning to take the test during the next school year, buy the book now and work through it over the summer. This book is also a must-have for test prep coaches.

A note to the high school sophomores

The junior class is currently about 2/3 of the way through the spring testing season and they are STRESSED.  Spring is a crazy time of year:  AP exams are looming and teachers are assigning projects. Then there are rehearsals for the spring musical, practices for spring sports, and, oh yeah: prom. Most of this is all packed into April and May.  Add in an April ACT exam or a May SAT and something's not going to get the full attention it needs.

This year I had hardly any March SAT students*; everyone signed up for the May SAT instead. I'm juggling 20+ students and so far most of them have had to cancel at least one session, and only two are consistently completing their test prep "homework." Now I'm not one of those companies that makes you pay for your sessions whether they happen or not, and if you don't do your homework, there  are no repercussions.  However, most of these students will not do as well as they were hoping to do on the next SAT.  Instead of being finished with testing in spring of junior year, many of them will elect to take an August or fall test as well.

Often this can be avoided with a little bit of planning, so sophomores, listen up!  When you are a junior take the January SAT at the latest. If you have already completed precalculus, then a junior year fall test is even better. Your scores will come back by the first half of February.  If you will need to retest, sign up for the March test.  I know it feels like you will have more time to prepare if you push the test out until May, but that is an illusion.  Not only will April be too busy to devote the time to test prep, but you will be distracted by other things and you won't study as efficiently.

As for the ACT, a lot depends on when (or even whether) you take precalculus.  North Carolina juniors  in public school will take an ACT in February or March.  If you decide to retest, you will need to consider whether to take the June or July test or wait until September.

*This year sleet and freezing rain pushed the January SAT to February 16. Scores didn't come back in time for students to take the March test.  "The best laid plans..." It was a good reminder that postponing all testing until senior year is dangerous because you never know when some outside event will come along to wreck your plans.

This figure is not drawn to scale

Both the ACT and the SAT math sections are filled with figures and diagrams.  Can you trust what you see?  That depends on the test.

On the ACT none of the figures are drawn to scale.  They make this disclaimer at the beginning of the math section.  You can still trust certain aspects of the diagram.  For example, if it shows that two line segments intersect, then they really do.  Sometimes they will give you facts about the diagram that you should assume.  However, sometimes they can be mean, and looks can be deceiving.  Here are some things you CANNOT assume about the diagram. Consider the diagram below:

Unless it is stated or you can prove it given what is stated, you CANNOT assume any of the following:

• that segment AC is tangent to the circle 
• that point O is the center of the circle
• that D, O and F are collinear (in other words, angle DOF could be 179°)
• that any angle shown is a right angle, an acute angle or an obtuse angle
• that any segment is longer than, shorter than, or the same length as another based on how they look

For the SAT on the other hand, you should assume that every figure is drawn precisely to scale unless there is a note under the figure that says otherwise.  If the figure IS drawn to scale, you can use that information to eliminate some of the answer choices. Again considering the figure above:  If you are told that segment OB is 3 inches long and asked the length of segment EF you can eliminate any answer choice that reads 3 inches or longer, since EF is clearly shorter than OB. 

Does the Math SAT measure anything worthwhile?

Daniel Coleman recently announced that the College Board will begin a process of updating the SAT. Again.  The last update was in 2006. While that may seem like a lifetime ago to any teenagers faced with taking the test, it feels more like yesterday to the "old fogies" among us.  The announcement has spawned a rehash of the usual anti-test rhetoric, which tends to consist of variations on the following:

• The test doesn't measure the true abilities of students who know the material but don't "test well."
• college entrance exams are unnecessary since a college can learn everything they need to know from other parts of the application - particularly the student's GPA/transcript
• the SAT in particular is "not aligned with the curriculum"
• college entrance exams, and the SAT in particular, are too "coachable."  This gives an unfair advantage to students whose families can afford expensive courses or tutors.

The article lambasting the test in question generally ends with a call to end all testing that is standardized and/or "high stakes" immediately and directly.

My expertise is primarily in the math section.  For a discussion of the reading section, I'll refer you to this article by Erica Meltzer "Why good grades in English do not always correlate with high SAT Verbal scores."

As test prep coach, I am frequently called by a parent who assures me that her child's grades are top-notch, but he/she just doesn't "test well."  The parent seems to feel that the student knows the material, but can't show it on the test.  Usually I discover that the student understands the material at such a shallow level that he or she can only answer a question if it fits the same pattern as the questions that have always been asked in math class. Furthermore, this only works for more recent material.  Topics covered more than a year before have been forgotten because they were never thoroughly understood in the first place.  Once I've worked with the student for a few hours, I've uncovered a list of "holes" in his or her math understanding.  Salman Khan discussed this phenomenon in a Ted Talk.  (Watch the Ted Talk here.  The part about holes in understanding is in minutes 8 through 10) A child can make an A or a B on a test without mastering about 15% of the material. Since math is cumulative, these holes add up.  Eventually the student will hit a wall. Suddenly, after years of A's and B's, the student is struggling to pass math.  The angry parents will often blame the teacher since, "he was doing well until this year."

The Math SAT shines a big spotlight on all of those holes.  Let's look at an example that should be accessible even to those readers who may be math-phobes:  even and odd numbers.  At the most basic level of understanding, a student can recite the definitions of even and odd numbers and identify a particular integer as being even or odd.  At a deeper level, a student should be able to apply the definition in order to answer a novel problem, such as "a and b are both even numbers. Which of the following could be the product of a and b?"  If you truly understand what it means to be an even number, you will realize that, of the choices given, the answer is the only one divisible by 4.

Critics see questions such as the above and wail, "The test is not aligned to the curriculum!"  Really? Since when are odd and even numbers not part of the curriculum? Apparently saying that is someone's attempt to translate, "The problem doesn't look exactly like the homework," into educationalese.  Of course the problem doesn't look exactly like the homework! That was the point.

Sometimes, on one of the earlier questions, an alert student will realize that she doesn't need to perform the tedious arithmetic called for in the question because the answer will have to be even and there is only one even answer choice.  Critics wail, "The test is too easy to 'game'!  A student can get the correct answer without even working the problem!"  Having a deeper understanding of odd and even numbers isn't "gaming" the test. That IS the test! Do you really think the folks at the College Board are so stupid that after decades they haven't figured out that to prevent a student from doing that they should include more than one even answer choice? They wrote it that way on purpose.  A student with a deep understanding of math can breeze through that question and have more time for the difficult questions at the end that are more at her level.  Meanwhile, however, other students can still get a correct answer. They just have to slog through the arithmetic. Test questions such as these are brilliantly designed.

"The test is too coachable!"  Hah. As a test prep coach I wish it were.  One mom took on a year-long project of attempting to get a 2400 on the SAT.  Her study regimen included just about every program or technique ever invented.  She even had a tutor at one point. Her math score barely budged. (Visit her blog on the subject here.) I have students who make dramatic gains on the math section after seeing me, and others who don't. Some students have a thorough understanding of the material, but they've never seen the types of test questions that would test a deeper knowledge.  Once you show them what these questions look like they are off and running. I don't try to explain Bloom's Taxonomy.  They think they are "gaming" the test.  Some of them, bless their honest little souls, anxiously inquire if using their new awareness is "cheating."

It is true that the students who come to see me often make dramatic gains.  And it is true that most of them have paid about $300 (total, not per hour) to do so. However, the solution to that problem is not to "fix" or eliminate the SAT. The solution is to include questions that test a deeper level of understanding on the students' every day math tests!

Critical thinking skills are enormously difficult to measure.  We want our students to learn critical thinking skills, and we would love to have a good measure to decide whether or not they are, but most tests, and in particular most teacher-made tests, assess learning at a fairly superficial level.  If I were in the admissions department at an engineering school, I would absolutely want to see a student's math SAT score. Even if the child has managed A's in math up to this point, I would want to be alerted to the holes in his understanding at the earlier levels that might keep him from continuing to perform at that level. I only hope that the SAT continues to be a test that can fill that role.