Alumother

Xiggi you are a doll.

lderochi

Xiggi, can I assume that you are completely finished with finals? I sure hope so, with as much time as you're logging lately.

xiggi

Alumother, I do not think it matters. While I think that some people may want to monitor their progress by taking a test "cold turkey", then preparing, and finally measuring the improvement, I find it irrelevant. I understand that some companies or tutors like to demonstrate the validity of their services by measuring the degree of improvement. As far as I am concerned, I would start with as many aces in my sleeve as possible. Reading my posts and other guides should be a good start.

The results will show at the test center. The interim results are not important to me.

PS Reading The New Yorker and Discover magazines should be very helpful for the verbal section. Avid readers have a real advantage on the SAT. All of my "advice" may very well be trivial for the future Cardinal.

xiggi

Lderochi, finals are indeed behind me. I'm taking this week off and then getting serious about doing something worthwhile for the summer.

xiggi

Studying selected lists of words can be helpful, but in very limited occasions. For the overwhelming majority of students, lumbering through the list will provide a false sense of accomplishment and yield few positive results. I offered this opinion when analogies were on the test; you can safely assume that the removal of one of my favorite parts has done little to change my mind about the effectiveness of spending much time memorizing words out of their natural context.

In preparing for the SAT, it would be much better to simply read all the past SAT tests. You would be even better off by taking all the practice tests AND pay close attention to the style and tone of the test.

If you are set on spending the time working with lists and flashcards, you need to understand how the lists were compiled. Most of the lists started by compiling the words that appeared on past tests. The best lists are the ones that do NOT pretend to be more than a historical compilation. The worst lists are the ones that pretend to be better by adding a lot of seemingly difficult words that miss the SAT mark. The most egregious offender is Barron's: by recycling their mostly ineffective GRE list of words, the authors of the 3500 words are doing a gross disservice to unsuspecting high school students. I performed a mathematical analysis of the number of Barron's words that have appear on new tests, and the results confirmed my worst expectations. While Barron's provides a good indication of what showed up in the past, it does a horrible job of predicting future occurrences. The difference is important to know.

This said, there is value in working on your vocabulary, but is has to be gradual and constant. Several websites –and some tutoring companies- offer a service that sends out a number of words on a daily basis. Since it would take only a few minutes to open the emails or log in at the website, it is a good idea to start subscribe to a few of them. This is the kind of repetition that helps you prepare without really “feeling” it.

I'll leave you with a last tidbit of information. The SAT does not really test your vocabulary but you reasoning ability. The challenging questions are made difficult, not by testing arcane words, but by testing the secondary and tertiary meanings of EASY words. Examples of such meanings are "air" when used as a verb, "low" when representing a sound, and a slew of others. Do you think that "low" would ever show up on a SAT list and convey the meaning of "the characteristic sound uttered by cattle as in a moo?" Pretty doubtful!

If you want to improve your verbal scores, spend most of your energy understanding the techniques to recognize the patterns of Sentence Completion, and especially critical reading. If you truly have time to waste, spend it on the wordlists. Studying any wordlist without the absolute mastery of the verbal techniques is a recipe for disaster.

1sokkermom

Quote: "The SAT is mostly a test of mental quickness."

Fortunately for some kids, they can also do well without a lot of formal SAT prep. Some kids are just better standardized test takers than others. My S is one of those good test takers. He took the PSAT (only once) and the SAT only once. He spent about two hours the night before the SAT test doing some practice examples. He scored very well and never looked back.
He used the same strategy for the SAT II's.

I think that if he read the "xiggi method" it would have scared the heck out of him. He was probably much more efficient using his own method.

Now, my D (13 year old) is a totally different story. She is the type that will probably be more confident after more extensive practice.

xiggi

As far as organized classes a la Kaplan or PR, I believe that an overall assessment has to yield a grade of no more than a C Minus, being a combination of a few B and a majority of F.

In my opinion, Princeton Review and Kaplan are pros at exploiting the feeling of inadequacy and guilt of parents. Simply stated, I think that the classes offered by the national chains are worthless, and this in spite of their cost of $600 to $1,200. The real downfall of this type of classes is that they have poorly prepared tutors simply rehash the same material that is widely available in their $30 books. Realize that there is a good chance that your “tutor” preparation did not entail much more than attending the same class you’re sitting in.

Except for forcing students to allocate 20 to 40 hours towards an organized event, I see few benefits. Anyone with a modicum of drive and desire should do much better by self-preparing. Learning techniques and strategies is only a small part of the preparation. Just like it is for sports and music, the key to success is repetition and practice. Duh, isn't that a profound statement? It is, however, so true!

On the other hand, I believe that there ARE tutors and tutoring companies that are well worth the price. It is pretty easy to find them and verify their credentials: they are mostly local, smaller, have an owner who is involved in the business, have verifiable references, and do not mind showing examples of their portfolio. If you are set on using PR or Kaplan, I would highly advise anyone to stick to the more expensive one-on-one tutoring. This is a way to ensure that the tutor will have a bit more than a few months of experience.

My overall conclusion: if you consider taking one of the organized classes from a large national company, DON’T! Consider using the budget to buy every book written on college admission. When you are finished with the process, you could resell the books at Amazon or, better, donate them to your local school. It may sound overwhelming to buy a bunch of books, but it does not take long to separate the bad ones from the very good ones. The bad news is that you may get tired to find a SAT prep book in every bathroom of your house. A fact that may cause your visiting neighbors and family to wonder about your life’s priorities!

xiggi

Sokkermom, you won't hear a disagreement from me. As I have said many times, there are NO universal methods or systems. Please note that I addressed this in my first post on this issue:

"For some natural test takers, this would require a simple review of a past test and a general understanding of the arcane presentation and language. But, let's not fool ourselves ... those students are exceptions. Most of us, mere mortals, have to face the simple truth that to do well on this grueling test, we will need to practice."

1sokkermom

Xiggi:

Did you take the test more than once yourself ? Did your scores improve?

tanman

Xiggi: Wow.. the information that you've provided here is invaluable - everything you have said over the past 2+ years condensed down to one thread. Though I'm done with the admissions process (thankfully!), I'm going to be printing this out to help other people.. I remember you saying you were helping your sister with SAT prep.. How's that going?

xiggi

Tanman, I'm about to find out. She is only a sophomore.

I know that I'll be dealing with a double whammy: she is a lot quicker and a lot smarter that I could ever be.

shojomo

I'm sure I'm not the only one who is thinking what a good fortune your sister has to have you as her tutor. More thanks on your thoughtful and comprehensive posts!

elisa

Thank you so much for your posts Xiggi !!!!

xiggi

I think it is important to clarify one issue. While I strongly believe in the merits –and lower cost- of self preparing for the SAT exam, I need to recognize that there are cases in which professional help is warranted. Self preparation does not only require discipline and dedication, but also requires an appropriate environment.

In the next future, I plan to invite a few test preparation executives and tutors to post rebuttals. It is my hope that they might provide the board with a different point of view and illustrate the benefits of their services through specific examples.

xiggi

When I started working on this issue, the world of the SAT was a bit easier. Since most SAT books had gone through several revisions, the job of identifying the best books was much simpler. For instance, nobody would confuse the Gruber’s anthology with the REA books. An important consensus was also reached regarding the published tests, and the differences between the official tests and the tests published by PR, Kaplan, Barron’s, among others. I believe that it was Incognito, a former CC poster, who coined the term “synthetic” tests. I have borrowed that term very often, or pushed the envelope by labeling them wannabe or fake test. In simple terms, using the synthetic tests was a bad, a very bad idea. It was also absolutely unnecessary: between the various publications of the 8 or 10 Real Tests and the purchase of released tests from The College Board, one astute test taker could have build up a collection of about 45 official tests. Enough to satisfy the appetite of the most voracious SAT candidate. I have to admit that I attempted to collect ALL of what was available and that I did go through ALL the ones I purchased.

Alas, we know a lot less about the current SAT than we did about the old one. The College Board no longer sells disclosed tests, except through a more restrictive Q&A Service. ETS sells only past versions of the PSAT. The situation is even more complicated for the current SAT.

Based on past experience, we CANNOT trust the companies that have tried to write tests for the new books. The issue is that most of the tests DO contain mistakes that can lead to students' confusion. As an example, the SAT book of Barron's contains good strategies but the tests are mostly irrelevant as they do NOT match the difficulty of the test. It is worth noting that it does NOT help to take a test that is more difficult than the real thing: the extra difficulty does not help a student prepare for the SAT if the type of question will NEVER show up! It is a pure waste of time. It would similar to using a book written for the former SAT Math-IIC test to prepare for the SAT. While you'll learn “something”, it won’t be what you seek to learn. The same can be said for books such as the Princeton Review 11 Tests for the New SAT. The book was rushed to capture last summer’s market. Notwithstanding that Princeton Review had never been able to write a single test that was valid for the “old” SAT, one had to question the integrity of PR to engage in such broad speculation about the contents and format of the March 2005 tests.

However, the situation is not as bleak at it seems. The College Board DID release an update to its must-have 10 Real Tests. At this time, I would encourage everyone to purchase and read the Official Study book, as well as consider subscribing to the TCB online help. I think it is important to understand HOW the writers of ETS/TCB think. Getting “in the head" of the test writers makes a lot of difference. When reading the solutions proposed by TCB, it is worth remembering that that they usually offer lengthy solution which cover all bases. Again, an important part of your preparation work is to devise shortcuts - some are available in the source books, but the best and most effective ones will be … your own.

Lastly, if you run of published test, do not hesitate to work with older tests. Obviously, you’ll have to discard the analogies’ and QCs’ sections, but the rest is still golden. Please consider that ETS will have their hands full with creating new content for Algebra II or Writing that they won’t consider throwing out their older questions for A LONG TIME.

The conclusion is rather simple: there is no reason to use any of the non-official tests.