<p>^ you are welcome. I think I will have her do a combination of PR’s Cracking the PSAT practice tests and the blue book practice tests from now until early Sept when her tutoring starts. If I give her small assignments she won’t complain - and a little bribing helps. The PR book also has a list of the most common PSAT words. Her practice test score was definitely in the range for NM so now it’s time to take it up a notch- I hope!! She does not have any AP assignments for the summer- only IB English books to read.</p>
<p>@twogirls, haha what do you do to bribe her? Good luck to our daughters and everyone here. I just ordered PR’s PSAT book. Last year she didn’t really study. She should study this year to give it the best shot.</p>
<p>Maxwellequations – the preferred bribe at our house is dark chocolate. :)</p>
<p>I went to B & N a few weeks ago and bought the PR PSAT book. On the SAT forum some say that it’s a bit easier than the real PSAT, but I don’t think the difference is huge and I like the list of vocabulary words. My daughter likes to go to the high school and practice running ( she times herself) and because she does not yet have her license I can bribe her. If she takes the practice test I will take her to the track and stay as long as she wants. She is very driven and competitive by nature so I know once the summer winds down and they all get into the SAT mode the bribery should end… I hope!! I am also planning to give her an ACT practice test before school begins. So far she has done 2 science sections- one timed, one not.</p>
<p>And so Junior year begins…</p>
<p>D has decided to take September ACT and tentatively decided on December SAT. I think she is almost ready for ACT and another month of prep work will be helpful. She’s been using her brother’s (S2) old ACT book (which was remarkably clean - I don’t think he even opened it!) and the red book. She has improved on her weakness - Science section - over the summer so I am happy for that. </p>
<p>School starts in 2 weeks here. D is trying to finish off HW along with getting the test prep work done. She is looking forward to going back to school and excited about seeing her brother (S1) this week.</p>
<p>I’ve been bribing with music. If she racks up a certain number of points on the site she’s using for testing, I buy her an ITunes gift card. I’m going to have to start bribing her to take practice tests. So far, she has only been willing to take parts of the tests because she doesn’t feel ready. October is coming fast.</p>
<p>Sally22, 2 more days of summer for us! You may be first. This is such a big year for the kids and I can’t believe it’s here already.</p>
<p>D is almost finished with her summer work - just has to read and annotate one more book. </p>
<p>I think she is going to take the ACT in September, and then the SAT either right before or right after the PSAT. </p>
<p>Nice to see some folks who have been gone for awhile are back! Also, I very much appreciate the detailed college visit recaps.</p>
<p>I got a phone call back from UPitt. The woman told me that their Sept schedule will be posted by August 19- isn’t that late? We scheduled visits with my older one 2-3 months in advance. My daughter is 3/4 of the way through her 3rd summer reading book, but now she is considering re-reading the first book that she read in June. I talked her out of it. She already knows what she needs to know to work on the project. Guidance will be handling schedule changes and complaints beginning Aug 26, which means schedules will be mailed within the next 10 days. So far she will be taking her first round of testing in Dec- SAT on the 7 and ACT on the 14. Once she gets her scores back we will determine the next move! Many of her friends are taking the October SAT. The tutor talked us out of it- he prefers waiting. My feeling is that she will test December through March. After that she will be focused on APs, finals, and SAT 11s. I doubt she will re-test in the fall of senior year- too stressful for me. I know I keep repeating myself but it calms my nerves. Meanwhile we bring my college sophomore back to school on the 24th. I hope this year is easier than freshman year- I cried for weeks and we had a mothers support group going on. I think it might be easier this time around.</p>
<p>This is the last lazy week for D’15. School starts next week and she moves into her dorm on Saturday. D’12 comes home for a week on Friday night. Yup, they overlap by about 12 hours. At least I get an extra week of summer.</p>
<p>It really does feel like fall around here.</p>
<p>The SAT tutor recommended Vocabulary Cartoons- SAT Word Power. My daughter got through one letter each night ( the book is alphabetized) and I have been quizzing her. I also have the Barron’s SAT flash cards with 200 words that are frequently used on the SAT. I did not buy this box of index cards- it was left over from my older daughter. I have no idea how good it is but since we already have it we might as well use it.</p>
<p>^ I responded to a post that now seems to be deleted…</p>
<p>S15 leaves for boarding school on Saturday. 
The summer has gone too fast. I’m excited about his new adventure but I’ll hate to see him go. The campus does not have sufficient bandwidth for Skype. Ugh!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Have you looked into options with cellular data such as FaceTime on the iPhone/ipad or the functional equivalent in Android? I’m not sure but I think FaceTime on iPhone using wifi might use less bandwidth than Skype.</p>
<p>@twogirls. That would be me. I posted initially looking for a high frequency word list, but I immediately rethought the usefulness of that. Sorry. I’m wondering if simply doing repeated official PSAT/SAT tests and learning the missed vocab might be the better way to go.</p>
<p>I found this interesting, and it influenced my thinking–from a well-known CC poster. <a href=“http://205.196.121.152/bd1gcpdf5wlg/xbientdegj4/Xiggi+Advice.PDF[/url]”>http://205.196.121.152/bd1gcpdf5wlg/xbientdegj4/Xiggi+Advice.PDF</a></p>
<p>I’m relatively new to CC and understand that a lot of what is written on this site is from the upper echelon of H.S. academia (or those faking it). I like what I’m seeing here on Class of 2015, which is why I posted. I just read a post on another board from a mom whose daughter is #2 in the class and doesn’t want to report her class rank b/c she’s not #1. Is that for real? Or is that a ■■■■■? I frequent many message boards on various topics and it’s easy to tell who is stirring up the pot. Here at CC, it’s not so easy to tell.</p>
<p>^keepme that is a funny story!! Unfortunately it’s probably true LOL !!! Lati- I tend to agree with you about doing practice tests and learning the vocabulary that was missed. That makes sense.</p>
<p>Welcome keepmecruisin! I’ve always found some cool people here…with S’12 I hung out on the “B Student” threads a lot where everyone is a lot mellower than posters in the average CC thread.</p>
<p>So far the 2015’ers are pretty cool, I agree!</p>
<p>lati I was convinced that the Direct Hits SAT vocab book was the one for D, who doesn’t want to spend a lot of time studying for this, but does want to improve her score. I’ll let you know how it turns out.</p>
<p>I can’t figure out who is a ■■■■■ and who is for real half the time either. Either way, the posts on the board can be pretty amusing.</p>
<p>D just kiboshed the idea of taking the ACT in September, not because she won’t be ready, but because that night is the Homecoming dance. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Thanks everyone…I am going to have to just shake my head at posts like that if I’m gonna last on CC. My D is an above average student at the top of the class at her HS but probably not good enough to get into the Ivy schools. She’s also an above average athlete but probably not good enough to play at the types of schools she wants to go to. And all of that is OK. She is an unbelievably great kid who will make her mark somewhere. Around here though, people would be slitting their wrists over that. I feel bad for them, they’re in for a long tough life!!</p>
<p>Suzy…I understand about Homecoming. We are rearranging our plans b/c the SAT is the day after playoffs. They’re in HS and have to enjoy the good stuff while they can. It doesn’t last long as we all know.</p>