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Barb.b
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| Posted: Sept 04 2012 at 8:13am | IP Logged
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I thought a topic on how we have prepared our kids for the SAT and ACT test could be helpful. As a background - dd is just entered 9th grade. She is my 2nd oldest. Her older brother is a sophomore is college and did well on tests. So as kiddo #2 comes into high school I find my self reflecting on what I did right with my son and what I should do with dd.
I like to attack this test prep on multiple levels. On one - we buy test prep books and go through them - when one book is finished we start another. I may start this as early as this January. But definitely by fall of sophomore year. I tell them - 30 minutes per day. Also - at some point we begin weekly practice tests (at first not timed; then later timed). I will start throwing in a once per week timed essay.
Also, I am trying to think of how our everyday curriculum will help prepare. I am including a grammar text in her curriculum until she is done with testing. I am including direct essay instruction - this year with THe Lively Art of Writing and essay writing practice. I will always have a literature book we are reading, and going through a study guide. I like always finding a study guide as they all seem to have questions they ask after every chapter or every several. Along with that I think discussing books is important to continue those analytical thinking skills.
Math - I use Saxon and will have her through the 1st half of Advanced Math by the time she first take the SAT in spring of Sophomore year.
I also have picked an American History text that has a 75 question multiple choice test after every chapter - so many schools think essay tests are MORE important then multiple choice. But it is very important to get kids used to multiple choice too as they need different test taking skills to do well on them. As an aside my son (sophomore in college) says MOST of his tests in school are multiple choice (even Math - multiple choice, no partial credit given!!.
Sorry for babbling! It is my hope that others are pondering this topic of preparing our kids over multiple years for these tests. I hope you all will share because I am always open to learning for you all and incorporating your ideas as well!
Actually, what got me thinking of test prep is my oldest son commented today when he called - that he predicts dd will get a 2200 composite on the SAT! He actually said "OK, I calling it now - I think she will get a 2200 on the SAT". Actually, she is smart and a good test taker! BUt, I don't want to drop the ball and think she doesn't need preparation either!
Barb
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Erica Sanchez
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I just have a second, but dd will take a practice SAT test at the College Board website and then use Kahn Academy for help with the questions/topics she missed at least for the math portion.
Lissa also mentioned that there is a course at Bravewriter this month (?) to work on the written part of the SAT. I'm off to check that out right now.
Thank you for sharing, Barb.
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(dh)Cash, Emily, Grace, Nicholas, Isabella, Annie, Luke, Max, Peter, 2 little souls ++, and sweet Rose who is legally ours!
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Misty
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| Posted: Sept 05 2012 at 7:13am | IP Logged
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What are your thoughts for someone who has not done anything yet (oldest is in 8th) to prepare for ACT or SAT? Where would you begin? We have to do a yearly testing and use Peabody and that's the most we have done. Thoughts and suggestions would be great. What books would you recommend?
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Mackfam
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| Posted: Sept 05 2012 at 7:49am | IP Logged
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We don't do a great deal of formal preparing for these tests and my student has done well on them. Frankly, I don't place a whole lot of value on them, therefore our simple preparations are on the peripheral and reasonable. They do not change or influence our book/curriculum choices.
Here are the few things we do:
1) I found a book that prepares the student for the particular exam to be helpful for the first test (PSAT). So much of test taking is strategy for the test and not actually knowledge of content. Knowing that allows the student to make the most of the experience. We used Barrons for a few minutes a day for a few weeks and then my daughter benefited from a few practice tests. We independently addressed a couple of content areas to beef up knowledge, but this took no more than 1 hour.
2) For the SAT, we signed up with the college board and my dd gets the SAT question of the day emailed to her. She works through the question and lets me know how she did.
3) 15 minutes a day is spent working with some SAT prep apps I got for her on the ipad.4) Marie's Words - As a family, we enjoy pulling out a new word card from our deck a couple of times each week. The images are quite humorous and memorable! And everyone benefits - this is not something we do with only the high schooler, it's a part of our Morning Basket! And it does have the benefit of building vocabulary for the SAT, with the added help that the example sentences are similarly structured to those presented on the SAT. The kids really like that on the back of the card you can find the phonetic pronuciation of a word! We've used these informally for a couple of years now:**child pulls out a new card, reads the word, definition, and we all enjoy the illustrative image for the vocabulary word and then hang the card on our Morning Basket board where our art from Picture Study hangs as well as portraits of our poet, artist, composer for the term hang. The whole family enjoys them!
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Mackfam
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| Posted: Sept 05 2012 at 7:54am | IP Logged
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Wanted to add that there are a number of threads here on SAT test prep.
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19, ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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SallyT
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| Posted: Sept 05 2012 at 7:57am | IP Logged
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I think that having done yearly testing, so that your child is acclimated to taking these kinds of tests, really helps. When our first child took the ACT/SAT, we hadn't been living all that long in a state that mandates testing, and she was kind of freaked out by the format/atmosphere of the test itself. Her scores were respectable enough, and she's in college now, so happy ending, but I did wish I'd thought to accustom her more to the testing thing.
We did have her do a few sessions with an English-professor friend who has an SAT-prep business on the side, just to work on the essay part of the tests. She's a good writer, but there are tricks to succeeding on the essays. I forget how exactly what they are, and which essay is which, but what he had her to do prepare was to pre-write a couple of paragraphs about some kind of life experience (a learning experience of some kind), which could then easily be adapted to whatever the specific prompt was, because it *would* be about drawing general conclusions about something like education from a specific life experience. She did do very well on the essay portion of the SAT, so I think that must have been the one! Her ACT essay score was less good, though still okay -- the prompt was some kind of opinion question about life in school, so she wound up making up a lot of details, not thinking in the stress of the moment that she could write about some aspect of homeschooling (though I think the question had to do with things about school culture specifically, so she was kind of like, "Uh . . . ").
Otherwise, we focus on covering content which we know will be on the tests in the course of our school year -- guides are helpful in that respect. Like Barb, we do grammar formally all four years of high school, for example, and I do evaluate math programs with not only the student, but with testing in mind (which sounds terrible, but is just kind of a fact of life). My first daughter's verbal scores were excellent, with little formal preparation other than having read and been read to her whole life. Her math scores, not so much, which again was a pretty accurate reflection of reality, even with a lot of review and prepping. So I am more mindful of ensuring that what my second child does on a daily basis really does address what he's going to be asked to do on the tests.
My 9th grader is taking the ACT this weekend -- in our state that counts as one of our mandated standardized tests, and the scores don't "follow" you (ie a college would only see the specific set of scores you wish them to see, as opposed to all the times you took the test), so we thought, why not? He has been working through a free downloadable ACT prep workbook that you can get from the test site, and we'll see how it goes. He's been taking the CAT for four years now and scoring well, but we agreed that it might be useful for him to start getting used to these bigger testing venues and situations. My big worry is his handwriting, which is awful -- they will downgrade his essay if they can't read it, which would be a shame, because he writes very well. Maybe doing poorly on that section would motivate him to practice writing more clearly . . .
I do think those practice tests are helpful, too!
Sally
eta: I realize, rereading this, that it sounds like we're all about "teach to the test" around here, and that's not really true! What is true that any thorough high-school course of study will intersect with what's on these tests. I worry more about being on track and comfortably competent in algebra and geometry, which do appear in the math sections of the tests, than anything else -- the verbal part comes pretty naturally to us, though I find that being comfortably conversant in actual, formal grammar/mechanics helps.
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Barb.b
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| Posted: Sept 05 2012 at 11:06am | IP Logged
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Good things in all your responses! I haven't much time now but will read them more in depth later.
Jen, thanks for the ipad app suggestions!
Barb
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Misty
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| Posted: Sept 07 2012 at 2:50pm | IP Logged
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Jen - saved some of the links and am totally ordering from timberdoodle for Christmas gift. That looks like fun more than work.
Sally - you said you are working through a FREE downloadable ACT prep workbook.. could you supply a link for this?
So very helpful thanks!
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SallyT
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| Posted: Sept 07 2012 at 10:15pm | IP Logged
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Hm, I think it was free . . . let me see.
Yes, here it is, on the ACT site itself. You have to scroll down past the for-purchase options.
Sally
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Misty
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| Posted: Sept 12 2012 at 6:29am | IP Logged
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Would you say it's necessary or a very good idea if your child has only done the Peabody testing that they should do a bubble test (like IOWA ) in a group setting before they need to do this for things like PLAN testing? And where do you go or how do you do those type of tests?
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Barb.b
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| Posted: Sept 12 2012 at 7:28am | IP Logged
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If you think your child will need to get used to the group testing situation then by all means. Also, you can use the PSAT as a prep for that.
For the SAT you need to go to the college board site. You register online and have the option to pick where near you to test. The ACT has a web site too where you register.
Also, for both SAT and ACT your child can take them multiple times and only send the scores you want to colleges (in other words - colleges don't automatically see ALL the test scores).
Barb
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SallyT
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| Posted: Sept 12 2012 at 7:46am | IP Logged
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I wouldn't say that it's necessary, but it can be a good idea to be acclimated to the format of a bubble-type test. I'm not familiar with the Peabody and how it works, but one thing that comes to mind as having been an issue for my first child was dealing with the time element in a standardized test: the volume of questions presented vs. the time allowed.
We haven't done group testing, except for the ACT/SAT, but we do do the California Achievement Test yearly, per our state mandates, at home, and I present it as I would in a group or classroom setting. I do think that familiarity with that kind of format is a plus, so that everything isn't absolutely new and strange on the day of a college-entrance-type test. It's kind of nice to be able to think, "Yeah, yeah, I know this drill," to the scripted test instructions, which really don't seem to change all that much from test to test, rather than thinking, "Oh no! Oh no! What if I misunderstand the directions?" And just having that bubble-in-the-oval thing not be new and different, so that you're worrying about whether you've made the mark dark enough . . . I have some really talented worriers in my house, so anything I can do to eliminate some of the more superficial worries, I try to do!
Our old homeschool group in Memphis used to organize an Iowa testing day in the spring. One mom volunteered to be the test administrator; as I recall, you didn't have to have any particular qualifications to administer the test. If you want to do a group test, I think all you really have to do is to have several interested families and someplace to administer it (our group used space in a friendly parish church -- I know in some places, though, it can be hard to find parish churches friendly to homeschool groups!).
Looking ahead, in tenth and eleventh grade you might opt to have your child take the PSAT, which is administered only once a year (more info here). You *can* take the PSAT as early as 9th grade, but I don't know that there's any real benefit to doing that. It is a good way to become more familiar with the format and expectations of the SAT, and high-scoring high-school juniors are eligible for National Merit scholarships. The PSAT isn't itself a college-entrance exam (test scores don't count on college applications), but there are definitely benefits to taking it.
Just as general info, I've seen it consistently recommended that a student take each college-entrance test twice, but no more than three times, as scores typically don't rise appreciably after the second "sitting." I've also read that it's not a good idea to take the SAT, especially, more than three times, because when scores are sent to colleges, they see *all* that student's scores and how many times the student has taken the test, and too many sittings can be a kind of red flag -- why did that student have to take the SAT six times? ACT scores, on the other hand, don't "follow" you that way -- when you send scores, colleges see only *that* score, not all scores in the student's entire ACT-taking career.
My 9th grader did take the ACT last Saturday, as an experiment and a dipping-his-toes-in. He thought it went fairly well, all things considered -- there were some advanced algebra and trig questions covering concepts he hasn't gotten to yet, but otherwise he felt pretty on top of the material. We had him take it mostly because he just wanted to, but also for the practice *and* because the ACT fulfills our state's yearly testing mandate (Oddly enough, the SAT doesn't count, maybe because it tests aptitudes rather than subject areas). So, several birds/one stone, and I think it was probably a valuable experience for him.
I'm really not that Tiger-Mom-ish about all this -- test scores certainly aren't a reflection of who you are as a person, as I have often told my kids -- but last time around I think I was a little too blase and anti-standardized-testing, and it might have helped my daughter to have been more prepared than she was. Her scores were decent, and she's doing well in college now (except that sophomore year is a beast!), but her performance on those tests really didn't reflect her actual capabilities. She was stressed about it all, despite all my attempts to convey low-key-ness and non-stressed-ness and this-test-won't-determine-your-whole-future-ness and you-are-not-your-scores-ness, and especially in her less-strong academic areas (read: math), she really kind of fell apart. All that's in the past now, and all's well that ends well, but I am being far more proactive in preparing my current high-schooler, for his own peace of mind if nothing else.
So it's definitely worth considering all the factors which might affect your child's comfort and confidence levels on test day, in terms of both content and format. No child wants to come out of a test feeling discouraged or dumb, because everyone else knew what to expect and that child didn't (which isn't ever true, but is how some kids tend to feel). But then, we all really know this already -- that's why we're talking about test prep!
Sally
eta: Hm, just saw Barb's response -- perhaps I'm wrong about SAT scores "following" you. Things may have changed since I received my received wisdom!
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Barb.b
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Sally, Yes they changed their policy maybe 4 year ago (something like that). It is nice. We opted to have my then 10th grader take the SAT because there was no pressure if he didn't do well (but THAT sitting was his best math score!).
Barb
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SallyT
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| Posted: Sept 12 2012 at 9:05am | IP Logged
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That is good to know, Barb. The last time I had a really exhaustive test-prep conversation was when my now-college student was in 8th grade! Good thing I'm catching up. And that is good to know about the SAT.
When we first came to Belmont Abbey, a colleague of my husband's advised us a) to have our teenagers essentially go to college for high school (one of his 18-year-old twins several years ago was valedictorian of his college graduating class; so far we've not opted for the B.A.-as-high-school-diploma approach), but b) not to take the SAT, because an 8th-grader's SAT scores would "haunt" him forever. I'm glad to know that's no longer the case.
It's also worth noting that a growing number of colleges will accept an application without standardized-test scores. Unless that's changed in the last year, Belmont Abbey is one of them. The rationale is that with the (expensive) availability of intense test-prep-coaching, kids with the money for that kind of preparation are privileged over ones who can't afford the extra prep. Also, it's a reflection of the fact that you can't always draw an accurate perception of a student's gifts from a test score. This is definitely worth researching, though how applicable it is to homeschoolers, especially ones coming from home-designed, unaccredited programs, would be something I'd want to find out. My sense is that admissions departments do want to see that the courses and grades on the homemade transcript correlate with something in what's generally (though perhaps mistakenly) understood as "the real world."
HOWEVER, at least at the Abbey, scholarships *are* still tied to test scores. The Honors Institute, for one, is very competitive -- ironically, my daughter's scores weren't high enough for the Honors program at the Abbey, though she's doing comparable work, with good grades, at UD, and though she'd actually, as a high-school student, been taking classes at the Abbey, also with good grades. Funny world.
Just more food for thought.
Sally
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SallyT
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PS: I wonder if the change in the SAT policy is due to the increasing numbers of seventh graders who take the SAT for admission to things like the Duke TIP program. It does seem as though every other seventh grader we know, especially among kids in school, has already taken the SAT at least once, and I'd wondered about that . . .
Sally
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Misty
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| Posted: Sept 12 2012 at 10:45am | IP Logged
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thanks ladies - I think I will look into a more "school" type test for my older kids. Wonderful food for thought.
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Topic: Test prep. . .
