<p>I too would like to be one and done. ACT next month and we will re-evaluate a plan. We signed up last minute for this sitting, originally we tried October, then pushed to January. So stressful!</p>
<p>I agree, PCP-- it is just crazy, all this testing, all this desperate competition. And sad, given the different rates at which kids develop. Plenty will bloom in college…but they won’t be blooming at HYSP…which is just fine!</p>
<p>I just sent a text to my son asking how the SAT was and got this text back - “It was torture.”.</p>
<p>Gwen - I’m glad your D enjoyed the college fair the other day.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree with you about watching the kids for burnout these days. My son doesn’t study for standardized tests, and he’s one of those good-at-taking-tests people, so it doesn’t stress him out (he actually came home today jumping around like a puppy and feeling invigorated). He’s not applying to tippy top schools, and I don’t expect his test scores to be his limiting factor.</p>
<p>It’s the the daily grind of school everyday gets to him after a while - he was so ready for spring break last year! I really felt like he was burned out the few weeks prior to spring break. We’re planning a college visit tour this spring break, so I’m going to try to make it fun and slow paced so that we end the week feeling like we had a vacation.</p>
<p>The AP’s are a drag though. I had no idea that the tests were such a big deal when my older son signed up for AP classes! I’m still wondering if my middle son will have finals even in classes where they have AP tests. I really need to call and find out about that. </p>
<p>OK - I’m going off topic (kind of) here, but I’m going to complain about something a friend of mine is upset about with her 8th grade son, and it epitomizes teaching to the test if you ask me. in her son’s 8th grade science class, the teacher gives a “pretest” for every section they cover. If a student gets 80% or more on the pretest, they don’t have to do the homework or take the test for that section. Nor do they get any kind of advanced work or anything else. So basically, the teacher uses the test to identify who can already pass the test, then he sits them off to the side (figuratively) while he teaches the rest of the class up to the test. He’s taking his brightest (or at least the kids who have happened to learn this subject matter somewhere else) students, and making them tread water while he teaches the minimum to the rest of the class! OK - my head is exploding now, so I’ll sign off!</p>
<p>Good luck to today’s testers! i hope everyone gets at least the score they hope for!</p>
<p>D2 told us this morning that her stomach didn’t feel well. Living in Mexico, it could mean anything. I gave her 2 pink pills and hoped for the best. We haven’t heard from her yet, so I assume she is still taking the test.</p>
<p>Let’s hope it was just a little anxiety, oldfort, and not a bug.</p>
<p>pinotnoir - thanks for sharing that story about “teaching to the test.” it’s incredibly frustrating to the high ability students to be placed in a holding tank. Those kinds of problems in our local district became worse once the district began using the services of a evaluation association. it’s called a formative testing system. seems to me to be diagnostic testing. the result was that much time and teaching is given to bringing up the lower proficiency students to the desired outcome (doing well on state assessments). no new material for the higher ability students. it seemed to be occurring in the core subjects, not the electives. it played a large part in our tough decision to remove our ds from public and to send him to private h.s.<br>
a good decision because ds is now learning new material and getting so much more out of his h.s. classes than he ever would have had we left him in the public h.s.
pinotnoir - if you want the name of the particular
evaluation association involved , just pm me.
ds took SAT today. says it was exactly like the PSAT but much longer.</p>
<p>Condor30 - that is exactly what happened to us. There is a standardized state test that has four sections. The kids that pass it are sent to the library to hang out for a few weeks while the teachers do everything they can to get the struggling kids to learn enough to pass the test to get the percentage up. The “performing” kids get warehoused. This is a nightmare. We had to pull our kids out of the public school. Of course, this “flight” only makes the problem worse.</p>
<p>going back to the “one and done” for the SAT… My D was thinking she was done, but after talking to her BFF, she may take it again at the beginning of her senior year just to see. She will do a less strenuous course next summer than this year…maybe only a math tutor. Her BFF’s father called one of the UC schools to ask if his daughter needed to take again. Her BFF got slightly lower than my D, but still in the 98%. The UC admissions counselor said “not really” and that it was a choice, but most people do take it twice. The counselor said that most people learn “a lot” between junior and senior year and they do see the scores go up a bit between junior and senior year, so taking it again in October of Senior year is what he suggested. </p>
<p>My D thought that she could deal with that, especially since schools do “superscore” now. She just wants to try and raise her math score and get it into the 700’s. She will be in PreCalculus if she takes it her senior year. She is in Trig now. She is not concerned about writing or CR. She did very well on those. </p>
<p>In the meantime, she is concentrating on getting caught up from the pneumonia. The school gave her “incompletes” for last term. She has until January to make up the work. (Very nice.) She won’t take that long. And getting healthy again. And she is taking two subject tests (English and U.S. History) in May.</p>
<p>Those 2 pink pills did the trick, she was able to make it through the test. When we picked her up she said her stomach was acting up again. I don’t think this will be one and done for D2. She thought CR and writing were easy, but there was one math section that was difficult (hoping it’s the experimental section). She is not going to take any more tests until Spring again. </p>
<p>She is now singing in the shower getting ready to go out to dinner with us to celebrate her belated birthday. Life is good again in this household.</p>
<p>chrissyblu, Your D’s math score should go up if she takes it after trig. At my D’s school, they recommend taking the SAT after precal.</p>
<p>It was a long day for my D yesterday. She took SAT in the morning and played in the school play in the afternoon. It all worked out. She thinks she did OK on SAT. Mainly she doesn’t want to think about it anymore. It was long, too long. </p>
<p>seiclan, Thank you for the tip that kids get out early if they are there early to take SAT. My D got there a little after 7 and was out a little after 12. No problem getting her to the school play in time.</p>
<p>My DS took the SAT yesterday too. He called me when he got done and he seemed in pretty good spirits. Said he thought it went good but that is was LOOOOONG!!! He said at one point when he was reading boring passages he just zoned out. He is my reader… at least 4-5 books a week, so I’m sure this test is just way too long for these kids. Why does it have to be so long??? I’m feeling pretty relaxed because he can take it again either this Spring or next Fall. He is like chrissyblu’s D in that his CR will probably be VERY high, based on previous PSAT, but his math is his low score. He will also just be in Pre-Calc next year so I’m sure his M score will rise if he takes it again in Oct. next Fall.</p>
<p>Oldfort - so glad the pink pills worked on Saturday. They have saved my son a couple of occasions, even if the results were temporary. </p>
<p>We are dealing with DS’s procrastination issues this weekend over schoolwork. My life seems like this weeks Zit’s comic strips. He likes to work under pressure instead of getting things done at the beginning of the weekend. This stresses me out. I don’t like him doing late night HW on Sunday evenings. ARGH.</p>
<p>I feel your pain seiclan!! My kids always save their homework till Sunday night… I don’t get it, I would so want to get it over with Saturday morning and then not have to worry about it the rest of the weekend. My 9th grade S has soooo much homework and he is downstairs watching TV right now… no mater how hard I try to motivate him to start early he is always up till 11:00 Sunday night URGH!!!</p>
<p>I’ve got a reverse procrastinator-- she rushes through things the minute they’re assigned, gets them done, and can’t bear to make edits later on. I’m not sure it works any better than old-fashioned put-it-off procrastination, if that’s any consolation. (Probably not.)</p>
<p>I hate the “doing homework on Sunday” trend. I don’t understand why it can’t be done earlier in the weekend…even perhaps Friday afterschool so then the weekend is clear. Nope, it’s Sunday. All of it. aarrgghhh</p>
<p>All I know is that with S2, I am not going to wait to let him decide when things will be done for the college apps. That did not work well with S1. S1 procrastinated so long, that over Christmas Break I pretty much had a meltdown on him. The whole break was getting all the applications and essays done. I hope to get S2 started over the summer writing the essays - some applications are out as early as July, so why not start. But to kids,they think they have all the time in the world and then the deadline creeps closer and closer each week. Gosh, I am not looking forward to this time next year. UHG!!</p>
<p>My daughter is “completing” her long term assignment as I type!</p>
<p>I can relate to all the parents of procrastinators out there. Actually, I can relate equally well with all of the procrastinators out there! but i am getting better in my old age…</p>
<p>I’ll tell you what I did with my oldest son (freshman now) and college app timing. He had one school he really thought was his number one choice (I didn’t think so, but that didn’t really matter). They had an EA deadline of November 1st, I think. I told him that he might as well submit his common app to all his schools at the same time, and that domino-ed into figuring he might as well finish all the supplements too. So he had them all done by November 1st - it was great! </p>
<p>I’m hoping to get this son to do the same thing, although he has a deadly combination of procrastination, spaciness, and stubbornness that can be very hard to overcome!</p>
<p>Happy Tuesday everybody!</p>
<p>Yes, PinotNoir. D better be finished with all apps by this time next year. Her sport starts on Nov 15 and from that point on there will be no time for perfecting the apps, supplements, interviews, etc. </p>
<p>(Holy cow. Did I really say “this time next year?” Yikes :eek: It was just this time last year that we were going through it all for her brother. GULP!)</p>