The year I took my SATs the Spice Girls topped the charts, Cuba Gooding, Jr. shouted, “Show me the MONEY!”, and Ted Kaczynski became a household name. That was also the year we upgraded to a 28.8 modem to better navigate the information superhighway. Oh, AOL….
And of course there were the events not destined for our cultural timeline – first love, epic varsity wins, wisps of facial hair (finally!), speeding tickets. There wasn’t much time for SAT prep. Besides, only kids who did poorly had to study. If it wasn’t broken, why fix it?
Our timeline has clicked onward. The Spice Girls are staring at 40, most of Cuba’s work goes straight to DVD, and The Unabomber is serving life without parole. That superhighway has exploded to unthinkable proportions: “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.” And nobody blows off the SAT anymore.
In fact, for many students the SAT is the second high-pressure test they’ll take to gain entrance to a prestigious 4-year school. The first is the SSAT – the Secondary School Admission Test.
The pressure surrounding this test can be intense, and is both unfortunate and unfair for the 8th grade students who have to take it. However, there are some marked benefits to the test prep – especially for middle school boys – that can bring some silver lining to a process that feels both developmentally inappropriate and increasingly insane.
Many boys, and this is particularly true for the more intelligent ones, have not developed methodologies for handling the complex academic tasks that they’re asked to do. They’ve been coasting on talent. They don’t know how to study, how to craft an approach to multi-step assignments, or how to persevere through not understanding a concept and work at it until they do. Test prep nicely handles the first and the third of these issues; not so much for multi-stage assignments, but you can’t get everything.
There are five sections on the SSAT. The writing section is the only one that is not graded, however the essay is sent along with the scores to the school to which your student is applying. Here are the sections, the methods to employ, and how they help improve student performance outside of the test.
Writing Sample – 25 minutes
This is typically one of the most baffling sections for students, and therefore the one with the largest potential for student improvement. Usually students are given a prompt, such as “Imagination is more important than knowledge” or “The apple never falls far from the tree.” They’ve got to interpret the quotation and show whether or not they agree with it. Every now and then they’re asked to explain the most meaningful moment of their lives, or something equally open-ended.
The break-down is this: Introduction should have a hook, an explanation of what the quote means (even if it’s stupidly obvious), and their opinion. Next come the four pillars on which to draw: Arts, History, Self, and Community. Ideally, students should come up with an example for each of these that supports their claim. If four is too much, three will suffice. Arts draws on books, plays, poems, or movies, though that’s the tourniquet option. History is history. Self is about them – personal examples from their own lives that have informed their opinions. Community is more broad. This can be a tight community like soccer, or a larger community like the US (current events would fit into this category, as would family). The conclusion should reference the supporting evidence. The closing sentence is the most important sentence in the essay.
I have my students outline their responses to practice prompts by creating a large square with the four areas, then filling them in. They also write their interpretation, opinion, opening sentence, and closing sentence. Initially I’ll give them 25 minutes to make one. Then we move to 20. Then 15. Then 10. I encourage them to use 10 minutes on the test to create their outline. The takeaway here is that preparation is everything. Great outlines make the writing easy and the process fun. Employing a structure focuses the students and frees them up to work on actual ideas, rather than floundering about for some thread of coherence.
Math – 2 sections (which are different)
Both sections have the same principle – do as little math as possible. This means eliminating answers BEFORE real math is done.
Quantitative Reasoning – 25 problems, 30minutes
This is basically a section of word problems. Some are easy; some are not.
If Sam can do a job in 4 days that Lisa can do in 6 days and Tom can do in 2 days, how long would the job take if Sam, Lisa, and Tom worked together to complete it?
a) 3.2 days
b) 1.09 days
c) .78 days
d 1.98 days
My favorite students are the ones who wonder, “What random, unnamed job is this? Why are they working together? If they are working together, maybe they’re distracting each other and now they’re even slower than if they were working alone. Wouldn’t Tom resent Lisa for taking three times as long? Or would Lisa resent Tom for making her look bad?”
The SSAT is a hard test, but a simple one. (Answer: 1.09 days, or 12/11 of a day. Answers “a” and “d” should be eliminated immediately because if Tom can do it by himself in 2 days, with help he’ll get it done faster.) There is no room for thinking outside the box. I tell my students that in life, those questions are vital; on this test, they’re crippling.
There are too many math techniques involved in this section to explain, however the overarching principles are: draw diagrams, figure out what the question actually is, and eliminate obviously wrong answers. A mantra that I use for both math sections on the SSAT is this: There’s no math in math. The intent here is to get the students in the habit of working most efficiently to answer the question. This is different than solving the problem. Once all wrong answers are eliminated, the remaining option must be the right one. Trust in Sherlock Holmes and move on. The lesson on quantitative reasoning is how to determine the actual question and move towards the answer in the cleanest, most efficient way.
Calculations/Arithmetic – 25 problems, 30 minutes
If your student gets to use a calculator (as an accommodation), this part becomes much easier. For the rest of us, it’s just working out the math. Example:
Which of the following is less than 2/3?
a) 6/9
b) 3/4
c) 5/8
d) 7/10
This section is part intuitive, part math. If they’ve been working on fundamentals (and they should have been), answers “a” and “b” get ruled out immediately. 6/9 is equivalent to 2/3, and noticeably so. 3/4 is higher and again, noticeably so. That leaves 5/8 and 7/10. This is a tricky question because neither of the remaining answers are easily converted with 2/3 (4/9 would be – 2/3 becomes 6/9, and we only had to change one fraction, rather than both). So because there can only be one correct answer, it follows that the lowest one is the correct one. Now the question becomes “which is lower – 5/8 or 7/10?” Getting inside fractions with fundamentals is important, because most of my guys should know right away that 5/8 is lower. (They should know this because 5 is three away from 8, and 7 is three away from 10, and 7 is higher. That concept is easier to see in extremes – which is larger, 1/4 or 997/1000?) Note that we answered this question without converting a single fraction. There’s no math in math.
Here’s the wrong/laborious way to do this problem:
Compare all fractions by converting to common denominators and you get:
a) 6/9 vs. 2/3 becomes 6/9 vs. 6/9
b) 3/4 vs. 2/3 becomes 9/12 vs. 8/12
c) 5/8 vs. 2/3 becomes 15/24 vs. 16/24
d) 7/10 vs. 2/3 becomes 21/30 vs. 20/30
C is the only one that is less than the modified 2/3. The reason this is poor form is that it requires converting 7 fractions into equivalent fractions (6/9 doesn’t need to be converted). For some students, this would have taken 5 minutes, or more.
The take-away with calculations is that so much of the mental math that’s required on the test – and in daily life – can be made easier by logical thinking, obviating the need for complex calculations. Again, there’s no math in math.
Verbal – 60 questions, 30 minutes
This section consists of 30 synonym and 30 analogy questions. The basic strategies are similar: cover the options and write the answer, then match up the written answer with the options given.
Synonyms
These utilize the least technique – they either know the word or they don’t. If they do, they write what it means and check out the given answers for the best fit. If they don’t know the word, they circle it and come back to it. Later, they’ll scan for roots and prefixes, and try to remember if they’ve heard it in context. If they can eliminate at least two wrong answers, they should guess.
Analogies
Dawn is to Dusk as ….
…Begin is to Finish
That one was easy, but they get much harder.
Threat is to Hostility as….
a) plea is to clemency
b) promise is to benevolence
c) lampoon is to raise
d) capitulation is to malice
e) compliment is to admiration
Strategies: cover answers, come up with a “linking” word or phrase that joins the analogy given, and use that in each of the options, eliminating the faulty ones.
Threat is a “way of showing” hostility as
a) plea is a “way of showing” hostility — NO
b) promise is a “way of showing” benevolence — not quite, maybe I’ll keep it in contention
c) lampoon is a “way of showing” raise — doesn’t even make sense
d) capitulation is a “way of showing” malice — nope
e) compliment is a “way of showing” admiration — that works well.
The take-away with this one is that there is often a structure we can put over seemingly unstructured problems. This mirrors school well, because there are so many easy tasks (like easy analogies) that don’t require sound structure, but it really pays off when faced with legitimately tough questions.
Reading Comprehension – 40 questions, 40 minutes
I am not alone in liking this section least. I’ve struggled to find a real-world application for the skills that this section requires, and the best that I can do is that it reinforces the benefits of a structured approach, and that the inference questions require solid reasoning skills. The rest of it I find useless, but since it’s not going away, here are some tips.
Break questions down into 5 types:
M – Main idea
D – Detail
V – Vocabulary in context
I – Inference
T – Tone
and practice labeling questions. On the test (and in practice), questions should be labeled (M, D, V, I, or T) before the passage is read. If a passage looks too hard, skip it entirely and save it for last. The same holds true for certain types of passages that the student identifies as consistently frustrating (poetry comes to mind…..).
Main idea questions often ask what the best title of the piece would be, or what is coming next. I ask my students to title the piece after they read it, which helps them think about the main idea.
Detail questions ask specific questions about some aspect of the text, like “according to the text, which of the following are not amphibians?” A scan of the text should give an answer, and it requires no reasoning.
Vocabulary questions are often the easiest. A word will be used in context, and the question will ask what it means. I have students circle unknown words when they read so that finding the word will be easier.
Inference questions can be tricky. These require students to draw on their own knowledge base to make conclusions. Reasoning is huge for these, and it takes practice. Practicing different ways of eliminating wrong choices is the best way to path to success.
Tone questions relate to the author’s tone, and can sometimes be confused with inference questions. “The author believes…” is an example of a tone question. The key here is looking for adjectives that identify a point of view or bias, like “in her masterful painting…” or “Though Germany was wrong…”
And that’s it, end of test.
Most of my students end up enjoying the prep process, partly because I try to make it fun, but mainly because they can receive direct feedback on how their hard work is paying off. As they start to get good at the methods, their scores rise. They get good at the test, and being good at stuff is fun.
The Misorganized Mind 