<p>Some awards are specifically for National Merit. Are there equivalent award available only for high scorers on the ACT? Would be too late for my oldest but I do have another coming along, so I’d like to hear about it. I haven’t seen any mention of such a thing in the months I’ve been following this site.</p>
<p>I suspect that students will be fleeing from the new, unknown SAT in droves, in favor of the ACT because they know what that test will look like. I’d be considering the same for my second if it weren’t for the potential National Merit money.</p>
<p>^^ That is not probable. The SAT will not abandon its immense vault of research that allows ETS to deliver an historically comparable test. In addition, contrary to the ACT, because of the regular release, there are always tons of OFFICIAL tests available for review and proactive practices. </p>
<p>Fwiw, the real change won’t come until TCB/ETS decide to seize the opportunity to emulate the PSAT with a three days SAT test and move that AP boondoggle to Saturday mornings. </p>
<p>There is a need for a better test than the SAT, but it is not that ■■■■■■■ cousin aka ACT nor a slightly revamped SAT. It should be a multi day test with sections that takes 3 times 45 minutes. It should be part of every HS in the country. Before anyone screams, please consider that it would be a ONE time affair in the junior year of HS. All in all, a quicker solution to the asinine rat race of multiple sittings. Tutoring, however, would not lose its luster as the one time test would be for all the marbles. </p>
<p>The AP fanboys would have 7 to 10 Saturdays and Sundays to strike their egos. Overseas? They could keep the old tests and let them cheat at will. No difference from today! </p>
<p>PS The 2016 version with be a boon for the HS class of 2016 as well. Finishing the SAT as a junior will yield a mulligan in 2016. Free look and no issue with a lower score.</p>
<p>i agree, the SAT would be better with longer testing, but you can’t make it a one-time affair because kids can’t make all the same test dates. </p>
<p>Can you tell us how many study materials the college board released prior to the adoption of the current SAT format? They say the kids will see the new PSAT beforehand, but the PSAT doesn’t have a writing section and that is one of the areas specifically targeted for change. As the parent of an 8th grader, I’m wondering whether I should try to get her through the SAT in the fall of her sophomore year, or take a relatively unknown test which she probably won’t have many prep materials for a year later. Also, I feel the revisions they are talking about for the new SAT won’t be particularly favorable to her, as they are dumbing down the vocab (that’s a strength for her) and nudging the test to be more in line with common core standards (which is <em>not</em> how she’s been educated). </p>
<p>Also, I don’t see why AP tests need to be on the weekends. The current system works pretty well for my daughter, who’s taken them for 3 years now. They probably wouldn’t want to have people taking them at dates all over the place, for exam security reasons. Also, it would cost more. Our teachers are already being paid to work during school hours. Not on the weekends.</p>
<p>M1, there were ample leaks of the 2005 format before March, including the infamous Rocket Revolution. The College Board released a compendium of older and newer tests in the new format. The added Math material was straightforward and the Writing was mostly based on the old SAT2 Writing. All in all, there were hardly any surprises when the new SAT was unveiled. </p>
<p>I expect plenty of releases before the first revamped PSAT, and fwiw, expect a not-so-subtle dumbing down …if the partial objective is to align the SAT to the Core or its Iowa cousin. This said, dumbing down the vocabulary does not truly equate to an easier test, as the difficulty of reading goes beyond unrelated words. </p>
<p>Dumbing down the PSAT concerns me. You already need a nearly perfect paper in some states. Are they going to require 0 wrong? Does that make any sense at all?</p>
<p>I agree the tests are flawed but with high schools handing out A’s like Halloween candy, I think it’s still helpful for the colleges to see some standardized testing.</p>
<p>My children are all very good standardized test takers, so I should not be complaining, but I will anyway. I honestly just do not see the value in making them sit though a 3 1/2 hour test with just a few minutes in between each section. This should not be an endurance test. Give them the option of spreading the sections out between morning and afternoon. Also the time allotted to each section should be increased. Some students can get to the answer but just need a little more time to do so. I do not necessarily think that makes them less intelligent. They think it through perhaps more thoroughly. The time constraint has them basically speed reading through the CR section, which is something most teachers discourage in classroom settings. They miss any subtleties that might be contained in the piece.</p>
<p>My daughter used a high school student/then Yale student to help her study 1) for the specialized high school admissions test, where he worked under the guidance of his mom who is a professional tutor, and then for the ACT, for which he trained under Revolution Prep and then struck out on his own. He charges us $45 per session, which is usually at least 90 minutes, and after 1 session my daughter’s ACT score went up 3 points. But I think he charges more for new students (when he’s available). He has a whiteboard-Skype setup in his dorm at Yale to use with continuing students.</p>
<p>@emeraldkitty4, they are a good indication of students who have the self-discipline to prep. Perhaps easier when parents hire a private tutor than for the kid who has to check out free prep books from the library, but not beyond anyone’s reach.</p>
<p>A significant part of the current test is reading speed and endurance. But with respect to endurance, my college finals were 3 hour exams, no breaks. So it’s not an unrealistic expectation that they can maintain focus and performance for 3.5 hours. It might be nice to offer a less time-constrained exam, so kids wouldn’t be rushing so much. But the current system is why it’s important to have available released tests which you can train on under the same timed conditions as the actual exam.</p>
<p>I just remembered, for D1 they looked at her PSAT before they determined how much they would charge us per hour. They charged based on student’s scores. </p>
<p>@emeraldkity4, yes, and math scores go up if English wasn’t your first language. Correlation or causation? Oh, and if you really want to ace the math section, study Chinese or Korean as your foreign language. That’ll help.</p>
<p>Oh my, I spoke way too soon.
Here’s the data SAT score and subgroup:
1321 0-20K income
1702 200K+ income. Looks pretty good, huh? Probably these kids have access to pretty good schools and all the tutoring they want.
Do keep in mind that nearly half the test-takers declined to self-report any income and we don’t know how accurate the other numbers might be.</p>
<p>A few subgoups:
1683 parent has a graduate degree. Probably a fair number of those people in the higher income brackets–is it the money for test prep, or is it the family focus on importance of education?
1654 be born an Asian male. 330 points up from babyhood. Could it have anything to do with cultural emphasis on education and the value of hard academic work?
1752 be in the highest tenth of your hs class. That’s more important than $200K income.
drum roll…
1817 that’s a whopping 500 point boost over the poor kids, and it can be yours just for taking the latin SAT2 exam.</p>
<p>Of course low income kids face more obstacles, but plenty of high scorers on the SAT achieve that with just a test prep book and some determination. I’m tired of hearing that kids need to have classes and tutors to do well. It’s simply not true.</p>
<p>We got the (slightly outdated) study guides from the library and DS slogged through them all summer, even brought them on camping trips. Paid 0$ total. End result? Writing:700, math 800; reading 800; math II 740; chemisry 800, biology 800. He was pleased and proud to have accomplished this on his own.</p>