<p>PinotNoir, I, too, was in awe of my kids ability to perform on stage. I was rather shy when I was young and would never have danced ballet or played music/sung as they do. I believe you’re musical yourself, you must’ve been doubly proud! </p>
<p>D drove off for her SATs this morning. She’s acting awfully independent and I’m having to step back and let her be. She just finished a busy season of mock trial and is now concentrating on her year round sport. APs are around the corner and soon she can kiss junior year goodbye! What a year its been. Talk about so much on her plate and mihcal said. </p>
<p>Angry dad - my D is one of those early risers. She is out like a light by 10 P.M. unless she has a lot of homework. She gets up at 5:30 twice a week to work out at the gym and at 6:30 on other school days. Total opposite of my older S.</p>
<p>Well, D is off to her SAT, then coming to work a Cookie Booth for me…busy as always.</p>
<p>This week has been a mess, 4 different school schedules the week before the SAT’s–brillant planning. She’s accustomed to the early start, she starts school at 6:45 every morning…this week was one day at 8:15, one at 9:15, one at 10:15, and the last two at 6:45…and Friday ran late due to an assembly. Just too much confusion for me.</p>
<p>Good luck to all taking the SAT today. My DS is in Miami all day today (he drove to school at 6:20 am to meet the bus) at a regional Mu Alpha Theta math competition. He is taking the SAT for the second (and hopefully last) time in June. He starts his SAT prep in two weeks. We have only two weeks (after next weeks spring break) until the end of the quarter.</p>
<p>My son got in the car and said “I think there was an extra math section.” I also never thought to mention it to him. He said it “relaxed him” for the next section. Uh, okay, whatever works.</p>
<p>D felt much better about this test date. She felt she did great on the writing but thought some of the reading passages were difficult. Felt she aced one of the fill in sections of the math but didn’t do well on the other. She is hoping that the one she aced was not the experimentaly one. She is signed up for the June date but she is hoping these test scores are good enough to be done. She finished all the questions which was an improvement over the Jan test.
My D was freaking out over her CC math classs. She is ready to drop the course over one bad test grade. She has calculated that she would have to get an 100 on the remaining tests to get an A. Her advisor for her HS/College program wants my D to work on fight versus flight when she gets anxious or scared.
She will not pick her classes for fall till it is time for HS students to enroll at the CC. They get last registration time so we will have to have a few alternative selections. For senior year she can take up to 12 units each semester.
She will take try to take:
Math- College Statistics or College Algebra
Social Science- Psychology, Sociology or Communications
Art- freehand drawing or 2 D Design
2nd semester she will be able to take 3 more.
Her HS program gives her credit for Eng, Econ and Govt and computer skills.</p>
<p>D was told there was no experimental section this time! I hope that’s wrong, because she said the math crushed her. To be expected as she has a visual/spatial LD-- but she did well on the PSAT math so I was full of hope. She slept all afternoon and is full of energy right now, with this hurdle behind her.</p>
<p>My daughter felt good after today’s SAT. Fortunately she just needs to increase her math score. Will find out in a few weeks whether she did well enough or if she will have to take it again.</p>
<p>Gwen-My D wasn’t sure if there was an experimental section but said she thought there was since the Math had two grid in sections. Math is not my D’s strength. She is hoping to hit the low 600’s on the Math and hopes her reading and writing make up for the lower math score. She said it also helped her that this time the first section of her test was not a math section. Last time she had math first after the essay and that set the tone for the entire test for her. Today she started with writing which went easily for her.</p>
<p>This is exactly what we’re hoping for, mom60! If D can get over 600 on math we’ll be singing hallelujah! She felt very good about the CR and W sections today too. Well, we shall see!</p>
<p>Saw this post and thought of all the 2012 kids taking SATs today…</p>
<p>SAT Prayer from a comedy blog, TheNeuroticParent.com (also a 2012 Parent it seems):</p>
<p>“On this occasion of my (first, second, third) sitting for the SAT exams, I beseech the Almighty College Board to look over me and protect me from mis-bubbling. Grant me the strength to avoid the Passive Voice in my essay. Give me the focus to remember the properties of an f(x) = ax² +bx + c function, as well as the meaning of paucity. May I stay awake through the Critical Reading section, even if I get a passage about the process of refining rice husks for Tibetan wax statues. Bless my #2 pencils and protect their points; let me be forever grateful that they are not #1s nor #3s. Save me from realizing at 4:00 AM on the morning of the test that I have left my TI-83 Calculator in the trunk of a friend’s car. O College Board, provide me with the will to resist temptation if my classmates invite me to spend the night before the exam partying in a hot tub, as came to pass in an episode of The Gossip Girls. (Kaplan 119:9, 16)”</p>
<p>D feels comfortable that her scores will improve. I do hope that she is right and that this will be her last sitting for the SAT. (Up, math, up!) She didn’t talk much about the particulars, other than feeling more in control of her time. Well, that and finding it strange to have reality television pop up on the test. Really, College Board? Really? What’s next? Tweets?</p>
<p>The AP exam registration form was finally passed out at my daughter’s school this week. The fees are due after next week’s break. The school has no official “AP” classes, but many people (quite successfully) take the exams.</p>
<p>My daughter’s big decision over break will be whether to take English Lit or English Language. She has some colleges on her (still quite long) list that give the same credit for either, some that give no credit, and some that prefer one over the other (unfortunately not the same one). So, it’s not an obvious choice. </p>
<p>Other than English, she plans on taking Stats, US History, Physics C: Electricity & Magnetism, and Computer Science.</p>
<p>Pinot, we needed that ostrich for the extra points! Oh well…there’s always June. That’s bittersweet & wonderful about your 8th grader. My youngest is in 7th grade, and every time I attend something of hers I always reflect on how it’s the “last time” such and such will happen. I’ve got to quit moping!</p>
<p>AngryDad, agreed on the early start time. The kids had to be up by 6 a.m. in order to get ready, eat something hearty, listen to Mozart , and then travel to the testing site with lots of extra time just in case.</p>
<p>Pathways, that was hilarious! I’m going to have to share that with my kids.</p>
<p>So Bryan & Emily both thought the test was easier than the practice ones they’ve been taking from the College Board book. But what I’ve heard is that the easier tests are scaled to be graded in an appropriate way, making them comparable with the tougher tests. They both realized that the experimental section was math (my poor daughter), but they didn’t know which one was the fake one. I love how the College Board uses our kids as guinea pigs and drags the testing out that much longer.</p>
<p>Bryan scored 80 on the Math PSAT, but in practice tests since, he’s often made what he calls “stupid mistakes” that really frustrate him. He said he caught one such mistake in this test & fixed it before the section was over. I asked him if he’d had sufficient time for each section, and he said he ran out of time while solving for a proof. I was worried, and then he laughed and said that was just extra work he was doing for fun. He is such a prototypical math geek…gotta love it (and he was torturing me for sheer amusement).</p>
<p>As for Emily, she freaked me out because she only wrote a 4-paragraph essay. I kept telling the kids to fill all the space and write 5 paragraphs, lol. Emily is my writer, and she tends to get in the mid-700s on the Writing section, so I’m trying not to worry too much. In her infinite calmness, she explained to me that it was far better to have constructed 4 well-written paragraphs than 5 rushed ones. We’ll see! </p>
<p>I might have been a tad bit neurotic in supplying them with six #2 pencils each. Turns out they only needed one. :D</p>
<p>It is so nice to be able to come here and obsess…oops, I mean discuss, the SATs! Love the prayer, Pathways! I’m the same as you, Jenpam, with the “last time” thing with my youngest DS, a 6th grader. I have to admit, some of those milestones have been celebrations, more than sad reflections. Yeah, I never have to sell another piece of wrapping paper again! </p>
<p>DS was scoring in the 700s on the CR and Writing on his practice tests, but only in the 600s on the math. He came home yesterday thinking he didn’t do as well on the CR and Writing, but did better than expected on the math. Similar to Angry Dad’s DD, DS said by the end on the test he was just exhausted and knew he wasn’t thinking as clearly as he should. Maybe he rocked it out and doesn’t realize it since a lot of second time testers thought this test was easier? I think we will just wait to see his scores and then sign up for June.</p>
<p>Congrats to all the test takers, at least it is over! Now the nail baiting wait period begins! When will the scores be out?</p>
<p>I popped my one and only Mozart recording (why, oh why, can’t Clifford Brown increase your math ability?) into the car before bed on Friday night, mostly because I had mentioned it here. Exactly one note had played after I turned on the car before my daughter said “silence!” and slapped off the cd player. So even if that were real, DD received no benefits. :(</p>
<p>Wise. As my daughter’s memory comes back, it seems like a much more mixed result than the disaster she described after the test. The threads on the SAT board, paradoxically, did not undermine her confidence. Missed one really silly math open response, and “disagrees” with the conventional wisdom on a few CR questions.</p>
<p>Just shut up and wait for the score, Dad, right?</p>
<p>In the meantime, we’re headed to New Haven this week to visit the Yale Museum of Art, and she will do the tour/info session/class thing while we’re there. It seems strange to me, touring a college nobody gets into before you even have SAT scores in hand, but what are you going to do? It’s a very nice place, and we’re going to be there. Right this second, I’m mostly looking forward to comparing the slices at Frank Pepe’s and Sally’s. ;)</p>
<p>I packed half a dozen pencils and extra batteries - you never know, right? S felt very confident that he didn’t get any math questions wrong, and I wouldn’t expect him to - 80 PSAT math and 800 SAT level II math already. He felt very good about the writing section, and he says that it all depends on how the essay is scored - he said that the essay prompt was unusual, and he’s not confident about it, although he did fill both pages. CR was just “okay,” and “we’ll see.” When do the scores come out? It always seems like such a long wait.</p>
, and then travel to the testing site with lots of extra time just in case.</p>