Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Saturn SATs

My brother has to take the SAT's next year so I have been trying to help him study. I was a lot more freaked out about the whole thing when I was going through the process than he seems to be. By the time I took the National Merit Qualifying test my Jr year, I had already taken the PSATs two official times and one unofficial time. All those times, my score hovered around a 210. As I got a perfect score on the Math Section, you can imagine how abysmal the verbal sections were for me. I am an avid reader and I love to learn new words, but the format of the test was confusing to me and I often felt rushed and flustered when taking it.
At the beginning of my Jr. year, I borrowed some books from the library that helped me not only to buld my vocabulary, but also to understand how to approach words I didn't know the meaning of. It is far more difficult to learn every word in the English language than it is to learn how to make educated guesses. (if you really want to see the kinds of words, check out this page: http://www.freevocabulary.com/) In the end, the SAT is really just another multiple choice test and it can be learned to some extent. The most important thing I did was to sign up for the SAT question of the day and word of the day at collegeboard.com. This is important because its a small task I could do every day to get me thinking in the way of the SAT and it wasn't an overwhelming commitment by any means.
I went into the PSAT only with this practice and improved my score so much that I actually won a National Merit Scholarship. Even if you don't choose to go to a school that offers a full ride to these scholars, you still win $2500 which at least covers all the collegeboard tests and applications you will ever fill out. I live in California and my score was a 225 and I actually completely messed up the math section. I was unbearably proud that math was my lowest score because that meant that I had been careless in that section, but that all the other studying had paid off.
My next step before taking the SATs was to take practiced timed tests with my friends about once a week. By this time, I was used to the test, but still had problems with the time limits when it came to reading the passages. Practicing in this way made me learn more about my own pace and how long I should spend on a hard question before skipping it. I also became more in tune with the questions themselves. After a while, you just know which concept is being tested in a certain question and therefore, it is easier to find the answer.
When I took the SAT my junior year, it was my first official time taking it. I scored near perfect on the multiple choice. However, my essay score was far below what someone who loves to write and got a 5 on the AP English test should get. I hadn't practiced the essay section because I was over confident that I would do well on it. Without a score on essay writing from the PSAT and no one to score me on the practice tests, I assumed that I would do fine. However, I had not realized that I had a tendency to need more than 25 minutes to develop an essay and was only in my 3rd paragraph when time was called. The SAT essay section does not care about the beauty of your prose. It cares about beginning, conclusion, length, hand-writing, spelling, and examples. You can pull these examples out of your butt if you want, just give them a story. I have heard people quote non-existant figures and cite battles that never happened who got perfect scores. The essay is a fake piece of plaster. If you get a high score and are an honest writer, you are surely not proud of it. However, it is another style you have to learn and had I been severely upset with my score i probably would have timed myself with several lame prompts such as "What does freedom mean to the USA" or "Is lying a sign of cowardice" in which I might have referrenced P. R. Reynolds and his heroic work as a spy during the cold war where he lied for 10 years and was therefore a hero. (made him up, in case you were wondering)
Anyway, if you are really lacking discipline, there are always ways you can be forced to study
Peterson's Online Course for the SAT. To be honest, the SAT is really not such a big deal as it once was because now everyone just studies for it and does really well. What was once an aptitude test is now just an excuse for the collegeboard and various other prep companies to squeeze money out of scared students and their overbearing parents, but that doesn't mean that you want to fight the power and be the only one to walk into the test unprepared. I admit that I did buy the prep book and do the online work, but like I said, my scholarship and college acceptance make it all worth it. Good Luck and please comment on this post if you are having trouble with a problem or studying in general.

<3 Darkling Perriwinkle

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