<p>So what it sounds like is if her school has 4 levels of classes all college prep and above, and she’s in the 3rd one, that’s bad no matter whether they call it honors or not. Even if it truly is an honors-level class. That’s what I thought, unfortunately. Because she truly is challenged in most of her classes at her current level. And with the messed up way they have foreign language structured, it’s the one class she could confidently take a higher level class, but there isn’t one available until 11th grade. </p>
<p>She will take Level 1 (accelerated) History next year, and it will be a huge challenge. She wanted to take Level 1 English, and she has a low A average in her current English class, but her English teacher told her accelerated English was extremely tough and only A+ students could move up to it.</p>
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<p>Probably my deep philosophical aversion to studying for the SAT. 
Kidding though - when S gets closer to junior year, he’ll take a couple practice tests at home to prep for the Oct PSAT and SAT. For now, for him, there are way more productive things for him to be spending his time on in my opinion, and those would include anything from sitting out on the back porch playing guitar and singing or walking up to the corner store with friends to doing some extra math work to be prepared for the hard teacher he’ll have next year. </p>
<p>That being said, I checked out the SATHabit website you linked and it looks really handy to me! Especially if it tweaks questions based on how well you do each day. Philosophy Schmilosophy - I think I’ll send him the link and he can do it if he wants. :)</p>
<p>My D2012’s SAT prep this summer consists of … reading!
I honestly don’t understand all this fuss about SAT at this time in our kids’ HS careers. It’s way too early!</p>
<p>I know mihcal1, we didn’t give it a wink of thought until junior year for S1, and will do the same for S2.</p>
<p>@jaminjuni, thanks for the SATHabit link. I’ll check it out & have DS15 look at it, as well.</p>
<p>DS15 does SAT Question of the Day on his iPad (some days, not all). Today he spent about an hour reviewing ACT Science, as he’ll take a retired ACT in June at our community center. He has taken both SAT and ACT before (in middle school), so he “gets” that - for him - it’s better to chip away at studying, over time & when he has time, versus letting it go until closer to the test. In my experience, the best way to coax DS into spending some time is simply to ask him (nicely) if he’d like to devote an hour to it and (if he’s in a good mood) he obliges sometimes. He’s the kid who likes to be prepared and he’s not the kid who could study just weeks before the test and do well. Some kids at his HS barely studied and got amazing scores. Other students he knows (mostly from debate & orchestra) have studied on a regular basis since 9th grade and they swear by that approach. They say it’s much less stressful.</p>
<p>One student who was written up in DS’s school newspaper got perfect ACT and SAT scores on his first try! The guy is brilliant, but he explained that he had worked for over 2 years on those tests before he took them. He would spend 15-30 minutes, most days but not all, working just a few problems and then checking his answers. He stated that it’s just as important to verify why you got the answer “right” versus why you got the answer “wrong.” I believe he equated the time spent each day to something like brushing his teeth. He fell into the habit of it. Plus, he’s brilliant and that probably helped ;-)</p>
<p>I checked out the SATHabit website you linked and it looks really handy to me! Especially if it tweaks questions based on how well you do each day. Philosophy Schmilosophy - I think I’ll send him the link and he can do it if he wants.</p>
<p>I’m of the same mind as a few others here - too early for my D to start studying, but I did look at the link and it was pretty cool so I sent it to her and she can decide whether to use it or not.</p>
<p>Last day of school was yesterday, now we are watching the grades trickle in. Won’t know rank until mid-September, and really I wish our school didn’t rank at all.</p>
<p>Happy beginning of summer all!</p>
<p>RE: APs next year- D’15 is taking AP Euro or APUSH (I can’t remember which one, I just know it’s not AP Human). She will also have an anatomy class that isn’t an AP but is weighted like one for GPA, and then 3 or 4 honors which get no extra weighting. </p>
<p>Just one more day of classes for us and then finals.</p>
<p>Orchestra concert–check, Choir concert check! Band concert Tuesday and intense audition for the Jazz choir’s rhythm section on Thursday. S has been practicing like crazy for the bass opening for the jazz choir. If he gets it, he essentially will be the top jazz bass for the next 3 years. It is an exciting time. What I appreciate about S is that he just goes about business, does the work and takes it all in stride.</p>
<p>@momsings - good luck to your DS! Is your school still in-session or do auditions occur in the Summer?</p>
<p>GoAskDad–we are still in school. The final day is a half day on Monday the 25th due to make up for snow days. Crazy, but true. S will miss that day (actually the teachers encourage them to call in) because he is headed to his week long bass camp.</p>
<p>D.got a new clarinet today. Sounds so much better.</p>
<p>D15 has finals Monday and Tuesday and then she’s done. Unfortunately she just can’t figure out a way to study that’s effective for her and I am very worried she could really score horribly on math and science. She’s stubborn and doesn’t want help. But she could trash a whole year’s worth of effort in 2 days.</p>
<p>OK, get this one. D is supposed to start Drivers Ed tomorrow. They need 3 semesters of grades to enroll her. But report cards for second semester won’t be out for a couple of weeks and the on-line system is down (was supposed to be back up today – graduation is tomorrow).</p>
<p>I’m wondering if I’ll be able to bring them grades on Monday when the system should be back up, or if I should dig out a middle school report card. (This is a special Sunday class – D has an internship M-F, so the weekday morning classes won’t work.)</p>
<p>IJustDrive - I sure hope they use some common sense and allow her to take today’s class and bring in the final set of grades on Monday! S is eligible on Wednesday to start driver’s ed - vroom vroom!</p>
<p>It’s a tad frustrating. Big sis waited until senior year for drivers ed. So I was going to make sure that little sis (cooler head, better eye-hand coordination, tons more common sense) had the ability to get her license on her 16th birthday. I don’t understand why it’s so difficult!</p>
<p>My daughter’s school doesn’t have finals. They have “bench mark exams” at the end of each marking period, and there’re 4 marking periods in a year. Her friends in other areas are talking and stressed over finals. She feels lucky she is over with school and she thinks it’s less stress to deal with bench marks. </p>
<p>How much do finals weigh grade-wise? Is it really possible to get a bad grade if you mess up the final exam, even if you do well in the whole year? Or vise versa - is it possible to bring up your grade if you do well in the final, while the other grades are not too great?</p>
<p>maxwellequations–at our school, how much finals weight towards the grade is up to each individual teacher. So theortically, the answer to your questions is “Yes”. It just depends on the teacher. Is your school policy similar or is it based on a general school wide policy?</p>
<p>@momsings, The teachers told us the grading policy is made by the board of ed of the county. You’re right - each teacher seems to be different.</p>
<p>maxwell, at my D’s school, each final = 20% of the grade, and the quarters are 40% each. If it’s an AP class, then if they take the AP exam there is no final, and the grade is determined only by the grades in each quarter. I think it’s not a bad system. My only beef is that grades are NOT rounded up. D has been .2 of a point off of an A+ twice now. Not a huge deal, but sort of frustrating.</p>
<p>suzy100–that would be a beef for me too. Since our grades are teacher based (not proscribed in terms of weight) they have been known to round-up (or not).</p>