missypie

My son got a 195 on the PSAT as a 10th grader. He's not the type of child who has enough self discipline to prep for the PSAT or SAT on his own, so we signed him up for an extensive (and expensive!) review course. He got a 1980 on his first practice SAT....that was the "control" before he took the prep course. The next practice test score was a 1960 and yesterday's was a 1930...he's probably attended in excess of 60 hours of classes and workshops.

Every time, I ask him if he learned anything, and he seems to be paying attention and learning things. His math score has actually gone up a bit but his CR is plummeting.

I'm telling myself "what will be will be" and what will be is that he will have an SAT score of 1900 something. That score is actually good enough for every school on his list of possibilities except Rice. I guess I'm more fascinated than irritated at flushing so much time and money down the toilet. Do SAT prep courses really not help at all? Or is my son just a fluke?

tokenadult

At least two different parents here on CC have reported that their children tested as juniors, got good but not stellar scores, and then took individualized commercial test-prep tutoring throughout the summer. Then they tested again in the fall as seniors, and their scores went DOWN. That's not good value for the money. I'd advise kids who want to score better on standardized tests to spend the summer doing recreational reading on subjects they like with books and magazines from the public library. That's much less expensive, much more enjoyable, and much better preparation both for admission tests and for actually being a college student.

eg1

Maybe the strategies they teach for the CR section just don't work for him. I have not taken a review course for the SAT, but CR always looked like the hardest section to prep for to me. If you hadn't been an avid reader all along, I couldn't really see how a review course could teach you the skills needed in such a short amount of time. If they are teaching your son ways to answer questions he doesn't just "know" after reading the passage, he might be second guessing his own instincts about the questions.

In his case, even though he is not "sure" of the answers, he may have a better sense of what the right answer is than he thinks. It is hard to feel sure of answers selected on the basis of vague feelings, as it may mean he thinks he might have heard a word before and thinks it might mean something like (blank). Applying some technique from the course might feel like a smarter thing to do in such a situation, but he could be changing right answers to wrong ones.

It is also possible that his true "baseline" score should be around 1960, and the other 2 tests are just showing more of the range into which his scores could fall. If he were more interested/motivated and were willing to work more on his own, I'd suggest he use the Real SATs book. It would give him a clearer picture of where he's at right now.

Final thoughts: Does the course he's enrolled in have any score increase guarantee? And remember, there's always the chance he'll do better on the real test, since he knows the practice tests are not so important.

missypie

If i knew then what I know now (or at least what I think I know know), I'd have hired someone to just help with the math. At first he was scoring in the high 700s in CR (one practice was even an 800)-yesterday's practice CR was a 680. Whatever they've taught him on the CR has hurt him. They've helped him in math, however.

sarahrainsberger

There can be so many factors involved, including the "foots" affect:

When children are naturally learning language, they tend to use the words foot and feet correctly at first. Then, when they learn *rules* for pluralizing words, it's been seen that many children will over-apply the newly-learned rule that says add an S for plural, and kids who were once using the word "feet" properly will, for a time, say "foots." Eventually, proper word use kicks in and all is re-righted.

I'm not saying this is what happened, but it's something to keep in mind. If your son, rather than "doing his best" was doing his best *to apply what he'd learned* then it's quite possible to see a dip in scores as he's adjusting his strategies. Many people who learn strategies don't get the full benefit of the strategies right away, since changing one's mindset or mental performance can have other unintended consequences.

I have to support what was said previously, too: these classes are best for kids who wouldn't otherwise do the work on their own AND who can be helped by basic test-familiarity strategies and/or basic content awareness. It could be that your son fell into the first category, but would have needed more particular or indepth strategy/content focus to really get much out of the course academically.

2collegewego

Well I don't have final SAT scores but, last year, my daughter appeared to be on the cusp of Natl Merit status. I hired one of the area's top SAT tutors and my daughter's scores decreased on every single practice exam (old PSATs and SATs). I stopped hiring him somewhere around 3-4 tests.

missypie

The only good thing about this situation is that we have two younger kids...if having him take the course was a big mistake, at least we'll be able to save some money with the other two.

tanyanubin

I spent about $1500 on PSAT prep for my D last year. She gained ONE POINT. One. And got almost the exact same corresponding score on the SAT.

missypie

Since someone asked if the test prep company had any kind of guarantee, I went back and looked at their materials.

They say:
"Our students typically see increases of 150 to 400 points in their SAT scores after completing our program."
Boy, that would have been nice...with a 1980 baseline,that would be a final score of between 2130 and 2380. Sweet!

But what makes me laugh is their "guarantee." Here it is:
"Best Guarantee in the Industry - You may continue to prepare under our direction until you graduate from high school - at no additional cost."

My poor son....I could keep sending him there three hours every Saturday for the next year and a half...maybe by then he'd be down to an 1800.

solkim5890

test prep centers if used too often like more than 3 hours a week is bad...just bad
thebest is to be a natural reader honestly to read a lot of books and magazines is the best way to improve CR...
Math is almost the same but its a lot of practice...more problems you solve..more familiar youll be with the questions
vocab...read and memorize i guess
writing...(who cares?) lol...writing is easy if you write a lot or have a lot of experience writing and reading what u wrote and revising and editing...

missypie

He's an amazing reader....probably why his CR keeps going down...we should have left well enough alone.

frazzledmaybe

Tell him to stop using their tricks for reading. The PR books advocate things like reading the questions before the passages. If I had done that on my test, I would have bombed out on the critical reading. Don't fix something that isn't broken!

kevinscool

U guys need to consider the ACT. Take me for a example. I studied EXTENSIVELY for the SAT over the summer, as in cracking barrons and doing EVERY practice test out of blue book. My writing? went from 610 to a 640.

I did nothing to prepare for the ACT except a practice test the night before. My writing? Went from 23 to a 34.

toledo

We saw a decline after the Kaplan ACT course. Because my son had done all the homework and the teacher was new (and even they admitted he wasn't very good), they refunded our money. The money is only one thing. I feel bad that my son wasted so many hours on that class. I agree with the suggestion to read as much as possible, if that's your weakest area. This was really only possible for us to do during the summer. My son actually had to go to another state to take the September ACT test, but did go up 2 points overall.

kevinscool

I honestly dont think reading will improve your CR score. If you haven't been a avid reader for like 6 years, reading avidly for 2 months will hardly do anything. I would suggest learning how to take the CR