A student once said to me: “You know every word there is! Did you make flash cards for the entire dictionary?”
She was wrong on both counts. There are plenty of words I don’t know, and the ones I do know I didn’t learn by using flash cards. I learn words by following a simple rule: I look up every word I encounter that I don’t already know. Always. If you follow that rule all the time, you’ll develop an outstanding vocabulary in no time at all. Every word you read in a textbook…or hear on the news…or read in a magazine…or hear in a movie. Look it up! Sure, you can probably figure out roughly what it means by context, but why not just learn the darn word?
I was just reading an article online at the New Orleans Times-Picayune that said, “The Falcons [are] one of the teams that appeals to a fan base deracinated by definition.” I’d never seen the word deracinated before in my life! A quick trip to dictionary.com, and now I know what it means (pulled up by the roots, eradicated). Now I know — and so do you!
By the way, I’m amused to note that my blog software is saying that deracinated is misspelled. It isn’t, it’s just the software doesn’t know that word either!
One of the most important things a student can do to prepare for the SAT or ACT is to become proficient with his or her calculator. So simple, yet so important.
When I first began tutoring back in the 90s, I wondered why powerful Texas Instruments calculators were allowed on the test, when no calculators at all had been allowed back I took the test. After all, TI-83 and TI-84 calculators can solve many questions on the test all by themselves, and they can be programmed to do even more — even to hold any formulas that a student might need to remember. Soon, though, the answer became apparent: most students barely use the more powerful abilities of their graphing calculators. Quite a few students didn’t even know how to do a simple cubic root, much less find and install any programs that would be helpful.
If that sounds like you, you might want to become a little better acquainted with your graphing calculator. Ask your teacher or a savvy friend for tips, or simply Google anything you’re not sure how to do. Did you know that your TI unit can almost instantly determine all the prime factors of any number, or calculate the slope of the line connecting two points? You just need to write or install tiny programs that can help you out. (I have several that I provide for my students, including some I wrote myself).
Make friends with your calculator. Trust me, you do NOT want to be figuring things out on the fly while you’re on the clock on test day!
I wanted to take a moment to offer some appreciation to a few of my wonderful students who did exceptional things last spring.
Special kudos go out to Ryan and Emma, who both scored 2380 on the SAT — only 20 points off a perfect score! They tied each other for the best score any student of mine has ever gotten. Amazing job, you two! Also a shout out to Tasha, who broke 700 in everything, including an awesome 780 on math.
Congrats to all my great kids. Thanks for making me look good!
The biggest test of the year is tomorrow! Here are some helpful tips to get you through the day.
* Eat a breakfast that will stick. Including breaks, the SAT takes about four hours, so you need to be in it for the long haul. A breakfast of pancakes and fruit juice isn’t a good choice; that much sugar will make you jittery at the beginning of the test and sluggish at the end. Instead, try a meal of complex carbohydrates and protein.
* Bring a snack. You will have two short breaks, so have an energy bar or banana in your pocket to scarf down when the time comes. Even if you’re not hungry at the start of the test, you’ll probably be hungry by the end (Did I mention that this awful test is four hours long?). You might also consider bringing a bottle of water.
* Have lots of #2 pencils. Remember that mechanical pencils are not allowed. If you’re used to using mechanical pencils, or pens, you might have forgotten that old-school pencils sometimes break and invariably get dull. It’s insane to show up for the test with only two pencils. Bring several, all sharpened. It’s better to have too many than too few.
* Buy a pack of 4 AAA batteries and tuck them in your pocket, just in case your calculator runs out of juice. Batteries only cost three or four bucks so there’s no excuse not having some. You might even go ahead and replace your old batteries, but be aware there’s a risk that changing your batteries could delete your calculator’s memory, which will erase any programs you had stored. I give my students some terrific programs to help them on the math section, so I advise them not to change batteries unless they actually think their calculator is dying.
* Finally, wear a watch. Although most test proctors will helpfully tell you when the time for section is almost up, they are not required to do so, and may simply forget. Do not count on your proctor to keep you apprised on how much time is left on a section — that’s your job. If your watch has a chronograph function and you’re familiar with using it, great! Otherwise, just write down the starting time when you begin each section, so you can quickly estimate how much time remains whenever you feel the need.
Good luck!
Since the big May SAT is this weekend, I’ll post some helpful tips throughout the week to help raise your score!
Today I want to talk about the biggest mistake I see my students making on the essay. It wastes gobs of time, and simply fixing this one error can make your essay a lot less painful to write.
The biggest mistake is: Introductions that drag on forever. Most of the time, students taking the SAT feel the need to pad out their first paragraph, so they write anywhere from 4 to 7 sentences. Sometimes they will literally take up the entire first page! Worse, all too often these sentences are almost totally devoid of content: they just repeat the same thought over and over and over again. Here’s a typical introductory paragraph:
I agree that courage is the most important of all virtues. While there are many virtues that are important for one to possess, courage is the most important of them all. If one is a coward, how can one put whatever virtues one may possess into action? Although a person with other virtues may be a good person, I myself cannot truly admire them if they do not also possess courage. Because courage is the most important of any virtues one may have, a person is not truly admirable unless they are brave.
Ugh! Didn’t your eyes glaze over reading that? The reason it’s so boring is that the author isn’t saying anything. There’s pretty much no new information or ideas contained in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th sentences. The author simply repeats the topic sentence, over and over, in slightly different words. The writer has wasted tons of space and precious time and hasn’t succeeded in advancing the essay one inch. Sadly, he has succeeded in making the reader hate his horrible essay!
So don’t do that! Your introduction does not need to be longer than two sentences, and probably shouldn’t be longer than three. Unless you’re trying something unusual and cute for your intro (for example, relating a story or a long quotation) then three sentences is more than enough to suffice. While it’s crucial to have some kind of introduction, it’s perfectly fine if it’s very short. In fact, it’s better! Get it done with as quickly as possible and move on to your body paragraphs — that’s where you’re really being graded.
A better introduction might look like this:
I agree that courage is the most important of all virtues. Three examples illustrate this point: the bravery of George Washington and our founding fathers, the failure of Neville Chamberlain to address the Nazi menace, and the heroism of Martin Luther King Jr.
Isn’t that better? Two sentences, no wasted words, no wasted time, and the reader is eager to read more. Good things do come in small packages! And by the way, this is good advice for your closing paragraph, as well.
With the biggest SAT of the year just five days away, this is a good time to remind everyone of the importance of signing up for College Board’s question-and-answer service for the May SAT. Many students don’t even know about this service, but it’s critical.
For a small fee of $18, College Board will send you a copy of the SAT test you took and your answers for it, so you (and your tutor) can review every single question you missed and see why you missed it. As a test coach, it’s the best diagnostic tool I have. This service is only offered on the January, May, and October tests, so if you’re taking the SAT on one of those administrations, you should absolutely pay a few dollars to get your booklet back. It’s very much worth it. For observant Jewish students, and students taking the test outside of the United States or Canada, this Sunday’s test is the only one all year with the service available. Make sure you take advantage of the offer while it’s available! If you end up taking the test again, it will be a massive help in improving your score.
You can retroactively order the service up to five months after your test date. However, the sooner you order the better, since College Board can be very, very slow sending the booklets out. A student of mine this spring ordered the January Q-and-A but did not get it in time for the March test he was also taking. (It arrived two days after, which just figures!) Even worse, a student I taught last year kept procrastinating about ordering his Q-and-A for the May test, then didn’t get it back in time for his re-test in the fall, which was totally avoidable. Order early, and assume it will take 8 weeks at least to arrive.
More information is available on College Board’s website: http://sat.collegeboard.com/scores/verify-sat-scores
When I began my career in test prep back in 1998, the ACT was a rarity in this area of the country. It was a regional test, used by some colleges in the midwest and parts of the south, but very rarely anywhere else.
That has changed. Around the time the SAT changed format in 1995, the ACT began to experience a surge in popularity. Students were unhappy that the SAT had ballooned to a ridiculous four hours in length, while universities became increasingly open to alternatives. As the ACT became a viable alternative, students began to consider which test would be better for them. Nowadays most of my students ask me to prep them for both tests.
Which one is better for you? Here’s a rundown on the differences as I see them.
READING
In my experience, the #1 reason students choose the ACT instead of the SAT is that the Reading section of the ACT is easier for them. For many students who struggle with the difficult words and abstract passages of the SAT, the ACT can be a very attractive alternative.
The SAT has loads of tough vocabulary, while the ACT has none at all. There are 19 sentence completion questions on the SAT but nothing comparable on the ACT. Obviously, if vocabulary is the major weak point of a student, the ACT can be much more amenable to a good score. On the other hand, if you knew the word “amenable” in the previous sentence, the SAT is right up your alley!
Both tests contain reading passages but there are significant differences. The SAT has more questions asking the test-taker to “read between the lines” and decipher prose that subtly implies something (for example through tactful understatement or irony) rather than being direct and literal. That’s okay for students with more of a poetic or creative bent, but others struggle with it. The SAT also likes to ask difficult theoretical questions such as “Which of the following statements, if true, would most effectively undermine the authors argument?” ACT questions are generally simpler and more direct. However, ACT reading questions are not presented in any order, which can force students to spend more time searching through the passage for answers.
Overall I think the ACT reading section is significantly less difficult. If you’re a great math student but not the world’s best reader, you should take a hard look at the ACT.
MATH
The math on the SAT is almost entirely at a junior high school level: arithmetic, algebra, and geometry. The test even gives you all the formulas you need for geometry problems at the beginning of each section, which is a nice gift. The catch is that to compensate for the low-level math, the SAT asks questions in very tricky ways, such as confusing word problems. The SAT is a better choice for students who
haven’t taken higher-level high school math courses or who have not performed as well in them. It might also be a better choice for students who excel at puzzles and games, since that kind of analytical thought is strongly rewarded on the SAT.
The ACT has much higher-level math. It goes deep into trigonometry and even includes a little bit of pre-calculus, such as matrices. However, the test asks for that material in a more straightforward way. That means the ACT is ideal for a student who is getting good test scores in trig or above, but might have trouble with more abstract math problems where it isn’t immediately obvious what you should do. A student who already has important information memorized from classwork (such as the equation for a circle, or the Quadratic Formula) and knows how to apply it should do very well on ACT math.
WRITING/ENGLISH
Both tests contain a section that tests grammar and usage; the SAT calls it “writing” and the ACT calls it “English”. The material covered is very similar on both tests. The ACT asks a few questions about punctuation while the SAT asks a few about more formal and nitpicky conventions of grammar, but most of the multiple choice questions are interchangeable.
The real difference is that the SAT includes an essay which is rated and becomes part of your Writing score. The ACT essay is optional, since some colleges require it and others do not. Even if the ACT essay section is purchased (it costs a little extra) it doesn’t affect your score — it’s sent directly to colleges and isn’t officially graded. The ACT essay prompts are also much easier, asking simple yes-or-no questions about student life such as “Should all schools require school uniforms?” The SAT has broader, philosophical prompts such as “Do the ends sometimes justify the means?” Students often spend so much time trying to figure out how to answer such questions and what arguments and examples to use that they don’t have enough time to actually compose a solid essay.
Another interesting factor is that colleges sometimes discount the Writing section when determining an applicant’s overall SAT score, preferring to combine just math and reading into a score from 400 to 1600 just it was for decades before the Writing section was added in 2005. There’s no such fudging on the ACT — your English score counts for your ACT composite, period. That’s a bit of an advantage for students who are scoring very high in this section.
SCIENCE
Finally, the ACT has yet another section that asks students to interpret scientific charts and graphs. No actual scientific knowledge is needed, but familiarity with basic ideas of science (such as the concept of a “control group”) is vital. The section also asks students to extract data and infer conclusions from some fairly elaborate graphs. Some students find this pretty difficult.
The SAT has nothing comparable.
SO WHAT’S RIGHT FOR YOU?
In the end, your choice really depends on which test actually gives you a better score, and which your desired colleges prefer.
If you’re unsure which test gives you a better shot at a great score, you should make sure to take the PLAN as well as the PSAT. Those two test results will likely point you toward one path or the other. If it’s the wrong time of year to take the PLAN, you can always take a practice ACT from
The Real ACT Prep Guide, which contains three actual ACT tests. An experienced tutor can help you decipher the scores and advise which direction you should go. It’s also important to be sure which test carries more weight with the colleges where you plan to apply. The SAT is still preferred by most of the more competitive institutions on the east coast and in many cases is the only test accepted. For all the gains made by the ACT, the SAT is still very much the big dog in college entrance exams (there’s a reason this site is called MASTERtheSAT.com!)