Prepare for the NEW SAT

After many months of speculation, last month, the College Board announced the new format for the SAT test, the college entrance examination taken by thousands of high school students each year.  The new exam, ostensibly influenced by both the Common Core Standards and the ACT, consists of significant changes in format, scoring and content.

In general, however, the changes are designed to make the SAT more relevant by requiring tasks more reflective of what students need for high school and college.  “The heart of the revised SAT will be analyzing evidence,” according to David Coleman, the new President of the College Board and author of the Common Core Standards.*

Here are some quick but essential facts you should know about the new SAT:

Format & Length

Currently, the SAT consists of 10 individual test sections across three subject areas:   – Math, Reading and Writing.    Individual section durations range from 10 to 25 minutes, for a total of almost 4 hours of testing.

Similar to the ACT, the new SAT will now consist of four longer sections totaling three hours.  An optional essay section adds 50 minutes to the overall duration.

The two evidence-based reading and writing sections consist of:

• Reading Test  (65 minutes, 52 questions)
• Writing and Language Test (35 minutes and 44 questions)

The math sections consist of:

• Calculator allowed section (55 minutes, 37 sections)
• No-calculator allowed sections (25 minutes, 20 questions)

Scoring

There are two significant scoring changes:

• Instead of the current three section test scored to 2400 (800 points per section), the new SAT will revert to its older 1600 maximum score (800 for math, 800 for Reading and Writing).  
• Students will no longer be penalized for incorrect answers.   This change, also aligned with the ACT, will significantly reduce a lot of the strategy typically needed to score well on the SAT.

When Will the New Test be Available?

The College Board will transition to the new format in March of 2016.  This date - right in the middle of the school year – will add a wrinkle into the test plans for many college-bound juniors.  In a future blog post, we will discuss these issues and suggest options for your rising junior.

For more information about Think Tutoring’s premier SAT and ACT prep programs, contact us at 973-593-0050.

Should You Hire a Reading Tutor for SAT Prep?

Early in their junior year, most students start thinking seriously about college for the first time.   For most, the first step is taking the PSAT, a test which is a good predictor on how students will score on the SAT. Unfortunately  for many, PSAT scores are a wake up call -  an unpleasant signal of the long road ahead to score well on the SAT.   Parents and students should both heed these warnings.

Shockingly, many students navigate their school years receiving  good or very good grades, only to have the SAT or ACT test reveal a dirty little secret:  they don’t read  as well as they should.   Too often, many parents students dismiss low scores with the simple  explanation of “She just doesn’t test well.”   To be sure, many test takers suffer from test anxiety, and while this certainly can contribute to low scores, it doesn’t tell the whole story.   Detailed SAT score reports can show, empirically, reading skill deficiencies.

In our experience, any student who scores below 500 on the reading section of the SAT is probably not reading at grade level.   Regrettably, anxiety-ridden parent and students think only in the short term:  “I’ve got to get these scores up so that I can get into xxxxx College.”  And while raising score is important, parents and students should also understand that getting into college is just the next step; succeeding in college, where the difficulty and volume of required reading increases exponentially, will be the big challenge over the next four years.

What’s a Parent To Do?

If your child scores below 500 on the reading section of the SAT, you should be mindful of  the thousands of dollars you are about to invest in your child’s education -- and start thinking about protecting that investment now.   Hiring a reading tutor, or enrolling in a reading program may just be the smartest investment you can make, one that can not only get those SAT scores up, put also pave the way for success in college. 

Think Tutoring Has a High School Reading Program that considers both short and long-term goals, combining strategies for improved comprehension, vocabulary as well as excercises for increasing a student's reading rate.  For more information, call us at 973-593-0050.

Test Prep Strategies: Reduce Stress, Improve Scores

Marlene Caroselli, Ed.D

Help Your Child Focus

Stress causes increased production of a hormone named cortisol. According to Dr. Blair Justice of the University of Texas Health Science Center, the cortex of the adrenal gland releases this hormone. When too much is released, it  can have a negative impact on the cells of our immune systems. Cortisol also reduces the number of "natural killer" (NK) cells. These travel through the body, looking for and destroying aberrant cells. If we don't have enough NK cells doing their job, the abnormal cells can eventually develop into tumors.

When cortisol is racing through our bodies, it can ultimately damage the neurons in our brains. It can also cause our brains to become "frozen" in the short term. 

Don't Be Alarmed.  Be Prepared.

If your child tends toward anxiety before a quiz or,  a final exam, or worse yet,  a college entrance examination (SAT or ACT), you can help him maintain his focus. How? Experts tell us that engaging in mental challenge just prior to a stressful event can sharpen our focus. There are any number of exercises you can encourage your child to use before a potentially stressful events. Even if he only works on it for a minute before starting the exam, he should be able to concentrate better.

Practice This at Home

Continue to practice with the challenge below--at least ten minutes a week. Make up similar exercises and try to better your previous personal best each time. Challenge yourself regularly by making the test items longer--instead of six-letter words, try seven-letters the next time.

Assignment: Once you understand how this is done, then set a timer and proceed. But first, the directions and the example:

What two familiar words are contained in the brackets if you read the letters left, left, left (in the first, second and third brackets) and then right, right, right? [d c] [o a] [g t]?

Did you get "dog" with the bracketed left, left, left letters and then "cat" with the bracketed letters on the right side? If so, you're ready to uncover the longer words below. If you didn't "get it," go back and read the directions and example a second time.

1. [t a] [e d] [d h] [i e] [u r] [m e] ____________ ____________

2. [r s] [i y] [b n] [b t] [o a] [n x] ____________ ____________

3. [u l] [n e] [i s] [s s] [o e] [n n] ____________ ____________

4. [n a] [u n] [m c] [b h] [e o] [r r] ____________ ____________

5. [i a] [n s] [s p] [u e] [r c] [e t] ____________ ____________

6. [c g] [o o] [m v] [m e] [i r] [t n] ____________ ____________

7. [s s] [i u] [g d] [n d] [a e] [l n] ____________ ____________

8. [c d] [o e] [l c] [l a] [a d] [r e] ____________ ____________

9. [f c] [o o] [r l] [e o] [s n] [t y] ____________ ____________

10. [a u] [n n] [s i] [w t] [e e] [r d] ____________ ____________

A Word of Encouragement

You won't know if your child's concentrative ability is improving unless you are keeping a log, detailing how long it takes him to complete each exercise. And, if you are serious about making that improvement, get several friends/family member/other parents to make up the practice sheets. The larger the number of practice sheets, the longer you can assist your child in this focus-improvement effort.

Have Your Child Use These At School

At ThinkTutoring, we are always looking for ways to enable students to perform better in various scholastic settings. These exercises should be worked on for just a minute, at times when your child may find her mental energies scattered. Encourage her to do a short exercise like the one above, just before she has to give an oral report or take a test or do anything else that may cause her to lose confidence. Here are additional possibilities for preventing the temporary freezing of the brain.

1) Name several words, each spelling with six letters, that refer to body parts. (You cannot just use an "s" at the end of a five-letter word.) One example would be "muscle."

2) Name several famous people whose name begins with a vowel.

3) Name as many states as  you can, in alphabetical order.