College Board SAT Partnership
khanacademy.org
khanacademy.org
Two summers ago I took courses at Summa [1], an SAT prep course in the San Diego area. The valuable material wasn't the classes reviewing geometry or speed-reading -- it's taking and reviewing the SAT repeatedly. Organizations like Summa can produce SAT-like practice tests, because the highly-prepared kids have probably taken all of the example tests the College Board provides.
The SAT is an easy test; no individual question is really that hard. Getting a high score is about knowing how to take the test, and this is learned by taking it many times. Unless the College Board releases many more practice tests (with answer keys and explanations), I don't think this program will mean much.
Note that I'm talking about getting very high scores -- the SAT is a completely different game when your goal is to get into ultra-competitive schools. For the average person who might not really understand what to study for, this program will be great.
I ask because I got a very respectable SAT score and only took one practice test. All my other studying was just working problems of the type which are on the test. I found the only skill required was knowing how to solve the problems asked.
I have heard this said many times, that standardized tests are just testing your skill at taking tests. But it does not match with my perception of my experience. I am willing to be shown otherwise, which is why I ask.
The material on the SAT is super easy. It's about knowing how to read and analyze simple text and being able to do basic high school math. Despite this, kids taking advanced (or college-level) courses in math and the humanities don't do terribly well on the SAT on the first try. SAT prep is about mastering the esoteric parts of the SAT, not its basic subject-matter.
EDIT: I was taking college-level courses before the SAT, and I got a 1700-1900 on the first few tries. After a summer taking a dozen tests, I got to a 2280. The only new genuine "knowledge" I picked up was the meaning of some arcane words. The rest was familiarity.
Obviously you want to know what types of problems will be included, but familiarizing yourself with the types of problems seems so basic that it would hardly take multiple practice tests.
Again, it's been a long time since I've taken the SAT, and I only took it once, so I'll be the first to admit I could be wrong. I'm just trying to understand a comment I've heard many times and never understood.
That said, SAT prep is a great way to separate rich, anxious parents from their money, given that in NY (where else...) tutoring companies charge up to $800/hr.
It isn't so much that someone who knows the material won't do well unless they know the test, it's that someone who knows the material less well can do better simply by learning some tricks.
While we don't have an ideal test-like practice environment yet, I hope that we will be able to provide one in the future.
College Board has been offering daily SAT questions by email for awhile now (and there's no lack of individual test questions online either), but what's useful is a full test, with questions of varying difficulty and a time limit enforced. Taking it on paper is important too; your score when you take the test in front a screen versus when you have paper, pencil, and a calculator won't be the same. There needs to be dozens of these tests -- I found myself getting better each time, but re-taking tests isn't helpful because I simply remembered my mistakes rather than improving my capacity to anticipate mistakes.
This is not at all to downplay the amazing work Khan Academy has been doing! I think this will be a big deal for a majority of high schoolers.
What they seem to be aiming at is limiting the benefit of tutoring in the middle of the bell curve. The SAT is not a difficult test – there is no vocabulary in the CR section foreign to the average middle-brow New Yorker reader and the Maths section is as near a verbatim review of Massachusetts' 8th Grade Algebra I curriculum as you can find. Lazy but capable students who have otherwise been well-educated are enjoying the greatest boon from test practice, and this seems aimed at creating a more level playing field for those who are unable to afford such specialised tutoring.
Whether it will have much effect is anyone's guess...for those most affected by the inequity of US public schooling, I doubt a few months practising process of elimination and test taking strategies is going to rectify years of substandard tuition
This is silly. One way to learn to get a high score is to take the damn thing many times and waste hundreds of hours. The other way is to have a rich life full of deep conversations, lots of reading and writing, play with various sorts of puzzles and games, schoolwork taken seriously, real extracurricular projects, etc.
About half of the people I know who got above 1500 on the SAT, including a few who aced it, never studied for it explicitly, beyond a couple of practice tests given directly by their public high schools.
I mean, all you've said is what is pretty self-evidently true, almost tautological: Be smart and you'll do well on the test. Well, obviously. If you were a genius you would not need to study very much at all for most things, SAT or not.
The point is that the best way to practice for the SAT, assuming you need practice is to take many tests.
This is basically what my experience was like as a home-schooled student. A lot of self-guided learning, school days significantly less than 7 or 8 hours, and lots of extra-curricular activities.
I went to her school and asked her about special programs for her, potentially skipping grades, etc. Their response was essentially that in a couple years time the other kids would catch up. Well, of course the other kids will catch up, you're going to tie a big anchor to my daughter that she has to drag through a bunch of boring curriculum she already knows.
One could argue that high school is a bit unnecessary, and a good move would be to simply skip it.
I do have a friend from Israel who got his Bachelor's degree at 18 at the same time he finished high school. I can't see that happening in the U.S. system.
The first two years of undergrad at UC, by design, are for the general education requirements. You're not even supposed to take classes in your major until year 3. It shouldn't be hard to skip much of that.
I didn't know at the time that they kick you out after a certain number of credits (around 240?), and this actually affected my choice of double major. I took a watered-down "linguistics and computer science" BA as my double instead of the full "linguistics" BA, partly because the unit cap was bearing down on me.
Edit: it was "watered-down" because it required a ton of CS classes that I had already taken.
Further, finishing most of the physical sciences requirements in high school meant that I wasn't exposed to some awesome professors in college. I imagine that some students who might have a deep interest in chemistry but a disinterested high school teacher never bother to explore the subject in college if they pass the Chem AP test.
* The deal with Khan Academy feels exciting and I want to see it succeed, but the vast majority of high school kids do not stick with online/self-guided test prep and those who do tend to be two standard deviations to the right anyway. I've heard from countless parents who hired us for in person tutoring after their kid didn't stay motivated with online prep. Moreover, students preparing on their own have a massive inclination to prep on sections they enjoy rather than their weakest sections.
* Video explanations inevitably fail to significantly change results because: A) learning becomes passive B) immediate feedback lacks C) individual explanations for questions tend toward "tactics" rather than "strategy" or a cohesive approach that can be applied to a wide variety of problems
* the first online test prep that will be effective will be the prep that solves A, B, and C
* Seceral people here have stated the only way to prepare for this test is to take practice tests over and over again. That's like suggesting a MLB pitcher becomes an MLB pitcher just by throwing a ball over and over again. Sure practice is essential but if you don't have the right technique or the right muscle strength then you will never significantly improve.
* While the SAT and ACT are not IQ tests, SAT/ACT scores are correlated with IQ scores. If the tests don't feel "fair" well at least they are a heck of a lot more fair than gpa (grade inflation, teacher variance, school type, etc).
* Understanding how to "beat the test" is never explained by people who say that's all it takes. Developing smart test taking strategies develops good decision making strategies so preparing for the test is arguably as valuable as a strong test score.
* Those of you who say the SAT/ACT are really easy are being douchey. If you're on y combinator you're probably smart so you don't need to show your insecurity with statements like that. It isn't unlike amazing painters or violinists telling you what they do is "really easy."
* The real interesting thing is how the SAT is changing to become a better test.
The usual thing to point out here is that the SAT correlates with IQ tests roughly as well as two IQ tests correlate with each other. Discounting the branding, what is the sense in which the SAT and ACT aren't IQ tests?
> The real interesting thing is how the SAT is changing to become a better test.
The changes to the SAT over time usually reduce its discriminating power. Often the accompanying rhetoric indicates that they're supposed to reduce its discriminating power, but it's hard to describe that as "improving" the test.
The only free resources I had access to during my time in high school were the after-school prep courses that were voluntarily run by a few of the teachers. I found those sessions to be invaluable for getting acclimated to the format of the SAT.
I still have my gripes with the college application process, though. I think the biggest issue America has with college placement is how much we as a society place on our alma mater. It's a bragging right for parents to say that their kid went to X when their neighbor's kid went to Y. The market for getting into a respectable university has become increasingly competitive, to the point where families that have enough income will spend good money on tutors for the SATs, tutors for the AP/IB courses their kid is taking, and even tutors that will help their kid make their application look good for the admissions officer.
I really do hope this will even out the playing field for this one aspect of the application process.
http://www.fairtest.org/university/optional
>Indeed, students' grades and the academic rigor of their courses weighs more heavily in college admissions decision than standardized test scores, class rank or professed interest in a particular school, according to the National Association for College Admission Counseling's 2013 "State of College Admission" report released in January.
Another example is BYU which officially at states that gpa, act/sat and extra-curriculars each way 1/3 in the admissions process but an admissions officer confided that "it basically comes down to ACT scores."
Goal: "This exam should be about merit & hard work equally available to all."
Sal's chat with the CEO of College Board [3:57]: https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/sat/overview-sat-prep/...