Our S19 has taken the ACT a few times through Northwestern’s gifted program but has never actually studies for it. We had him take it in order to obtain a score to get him into summer programs.
My question is this: is it too soon for him to start studying for the real thing? We plan on him taking both the ACT and the SAT in August/September 2017. He took Algebra II/Trig H last year so he’s had enough math. I’ve signed him up for practice tests with the local Kaplan branch this August. He has NO interest in studying now. He understands that next summer will be the time to really get ready for the test. I just thought it might be good for him to get a few more practices under his belt and, since he’s not too busy this summer, I thought it was a good time. We’re not planning on him doing any studying during this upcoming school year since he has his plate full with honors and AP classes.
Thoughts? Is it even worth doing some practice this summer? Or should we just wait until next summer?
studied, not studies! I type too quickly.
Do you think you could get him to study? It sounds like if he is not interested then I’m not sure that it will work. Can you usually make him do stuff? My S never wanted to study for the SAT but his school made them take the pre sat every year. I never would have been able to convince him that it was worth his time. Lucky for him he was a great test taker. My D on the other hand is much more academically minded and competitive so she studied once we brought other kids together to form a group. It gave her a structure to do it and she did very well with testing. So it depends on your kid and how malleable they are.
@goingnutsmom Hm. Can I make him study? Well, he’s a terrific student and very self-sufficient during the school year but sees summer as “off time”. I could negotiate and make him study. I guess my question is more about if it’s too soon. If he studies now, takes a round of practice tests for both SAT and ACT, and then doesn’t review again until next June to take tests early fall, should we just wait? Wondering when other students actually start studying in earnest.
This is highly dependent on the local culture. In our area, “studying” usually means taking a practice test or two a few days before the exam. In some areas, they start around age 10.
I was able to get my first kid to start studying the summer after freshman year and I think it made for a much more stress-free experience than what I can foresee for kid number 2 who was busy and not terribly interested, and didn’t study that summer. All I can say is that I was very confident first kid would make NMSF because it was clear she had studied enough to consistently put in her best performance. Second kid is not there yet and with many upcoming summer activities may not reach that level of preparation before test dates arrive.
If you can get him to study then why not? Can only help.
Make sure that what he studies and takes are the actual material from the College Board for the SAT. I can imagine that that may be harder now since the SAT has changed. Doesn’t Khan Academy have free stuff for the new SAT? My D found that the other test materials were too different for the mind frame she needed to get into to do well on the SAT.
Have him do both. My S never bothered with the ACT but my D definitely was stronger on the SAT. She has a very analytical/logical brain and could just disprove the wrong answers quickly. But they have changed the format so don’t know how true this is now. The word out is that the SAT is now more like the ACT.
Good luck!
Too early, in my opinion, unless you think he can put up a “finishing score” this fall. I strongly recommend waiting otherwise in order to resist burnout and to avoid using up all the good prep material. Few rising 10th graders are mature and/or educated enough to put up big SAT scores. There are exceptions, of course, and if you’re pretty confident your kid is one, there are some great benefits to finishing the exam early and getting on with the more important and meaningful things in life.
Kids naturally improve without studying specifically for the ACT just by doing their schoolwork through their junior year. Kids who are in gifted programs, as yours is, probably can wait until junior year to prepare with prep books and practice tests, and then take it in the spring. It would be good to use the summer before junior year to prepare for the PSAT. One thing that might help at this early stage is for him to read a lot of books of any sort that interests him. One person I know who scored high on all tests had a steady diet of fantasy books.
I’d wait. Test burnout is real (my kid was a NUMATS kid, had a top 3 score for all of NUMATS on one of the SAT test areas in 8th grade). She didn’t study for it, but had also taken in in 7th grade. Didn’t start studying until summer before junior year (not all her sections were high to start with). She got the scores she wanted by end of junior year, but was pretty tired of testing by then. I think pressing her in sophomore year would have been a mistake. Let your kid pursue his interests and just focus on school and his preferred ECs for now.
I think this depends on the kid and their situation and goals. I’m not a believer in subjecting middle school kids to these tests, so the first time my kids ever tested was at the required PSAT 10th grade school testing. It was when I learned that the school gives this test that I decided it would be a good idea to prep after 9th grade. Why? Because they had a good opportunity for a practice run and it would be most useful if they had already prepped so they could get a realistic idea of what they were up against. If you’re not in a high cutoff state, it probably doesn’t matter, but if your kid has to put in a near-perfect performance with no second chances, it’s helpful to have this dry run to see what needs to be done. Timing and pacing is critical for these tests, and you can’t assess or work on that if you are unfamiliar with the test. With one kid prone to careless errors and the other one a slower reader who stresses a lot, it seemed to me that practice would be a good idea.
And there was also the issue of scheduling all the testing. I am a firm believer in do it once, do it right, which is also a good way to prevent test burnout rather than making them sit for these tests over and over again. By prepping well relatively early over the summers she was able to follow up the junior year PSAT with the December SAT (could even have done it in October) and be completely done with the SAT. She took SAT2s following the APs and hardly prepped for those at all. First kid was busy all summer long after junior year and once school started, she was far too busy senior year to do any test prep. Spring of junior year in my opinion is also a bad time to take the SAT. The test dates are pretty close to AP tests and there’s always the end of year whirlwind of events. Plus the kids are pretty burned out by the time APs are done.
Second kid is pretty busy this summer and I wish she had done some prep last summer. Her PSAT practice test, which was about all the prep she did last year, and actual PSAT test score didn’t match up and it’s hard to know what to make of that other than she wasn’t well enough prepared to consistently perform. I probably would have pushed the test prep more last summer but between both of us being rather busy and the lack of test prep materials, it didn’t happen. But at least we have done a few college visits and she knows that putting in a good performance will help her get what she’s after, and she is reasonably on board with it now.
Thanks everyone. @marvin100 @BunnyBlue @intparent I was a little worried about burn out as well. Your advice is sound. And, boy, he will be glad to hear that it makes more sense to just read this summer. He’s all for that. At least this way he has a heads up for next summer and won’t be surprised when he has to budget time to study!
@mathyone thanks for your story. I do think summer is a good time and he will certainly study next summer before junior year and take the tests in the fall. That way, he can retest in winter if he needs to do that. He will have four AP tests to take in the spring of junior year along with finals so there is no way he will be taking standardized tests in the spring. Better to prepare over summer, hopefully be done by January at the latest and move on to APs and finals. Just like most other kids, junior year will be very busy.
@mathyone, some summer programs require scores from one of those tests. And if the kid doesn’t study for them (mine didn’t), I would hardly call one Saturday morning (two because my kid asked to take it again) “subjecting” them to the tests. My kid got several benefits (summer program that really changed her life, and invitation to join a gifted kid online community that was huge for get during middle school when she didn’t have much real life contact with profoundly gifted students). Don’t insult it just because you chose not to have your kid do it.
I like the idea of the summer before 10th grade to get an accurate idea of score,
I don’t mind 10th graders taking the PSAT, but I think it is more diagnostic, and there is no reason to study ahead of time.
I think it is ok to have an ACT or SAT in the spring, or maybe have a repeat of one of them in the spring. I had my sons take them in spring because I felt that they would do their best in math when they were finishing up and had most of the material stuffed in their heads. My S2 did SAT in March, ACT in April, AP’s in May, and a Subject SAT in June. One of his friends took the ACT three times in junior year, and did best on the last one taken in April.
My kids testing schedule:
10th grade Oct PSAT (for practice), March SAT, May Subject test (to match AP’s)
11th grade Oct SAT, Oct PSAT
way too early. wait a year.
@BunnyBlue Oh my goodness. He could never take the ACT and SAT in the middle of junior year. His classes will be pretty intense. Four APs and, at our school, APs are a ton of reading and homework. He will probably have 4-5 hours a night. After running for XC and eating dinner, he won’t start homework until 6:30. No way he can put ACT or SAT studying on top of that. It will have to be summer studying before junior year. He will be fine with math. Took Geometry H as an eighth grader and Trig H as a freshman so he’s already had all of the math needed. In his case, it won’t be fresh. He’ll have to go back and review a bit!