Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment ACT/SAT Early?

In our high school, most kids don't take ACT/SAT until they're juniors or seniors. Is there any advantage to taking them as a sophomore?

Dot-

The National Merit Qualifying Exam is the PSAT. It is supposed to be taken junior year - the year BEFORE a student finishes high school. The National Merit scholarships are not large- just a couple grand, I think, but they are prestigious. Colleges like to have bragging rights about how many NM semi-finalists or finalists they have. Some people chose to avoid early high school graduation in order to pursue the NM awards. Is this the conflict you are talking about?

Cym-

I think early test taking is good for practice and also to get a feel for how they may do later. My oldest took the SAT at 13 and was recognized at the state level for his scores. We anticipated that he'd get near perfect scores four years later, but he barely went up at all in math, though his verbal scores were almost perfect. He just wasn't a mathy kid and he didn't put much effort into it.

My 11 yo has taken a couple practice tests at home for the SAT and ACT, and he has scored well on these but has yet to take a test for real. He will be taking the ACT soon and the SAT next year.

I'm not a big fan of test prep, but I do think it is good for the student to be familiar with the format. It's also nice for the kids to actually go through the test process when the stakes are not so high.

I REALLY should not be answering, but...

I took the SAT every year between 7th grade and senior year, except for the year when you take the PSAT.

The big advantages I felt like I had were that the SAT didn't make me even a wee bit nervous by the time it really mattered, and that I was very well-prepped, having studied several years in a row instead of merely cramming for a week or two beforehand, as most kids do. Also, I think I improved at figuring out how to read the questions. I had a better sense of what they were asking and didn't get tripped up easily by tricky phrasings.

I think the practice also gave me something of an advantage when I took the GRE, the standardized test required for grad school, BTW. By that time, I had gotten very good at learning just enough to do really well on standardized tests.

FWIW...

Oh, and by the time I took the PSAT, it was a breeze because I'd already taken the full SAT 4 or 5 times by then. LOL!

Unlike the talent search results, the high school ones will stay "on your permanent record" I don't know if that matters or not if the scores are high.

I know that this is many years ago, but I took the PSAT as a Junior, the SAT once as a Senior, got good, but not great scores and was accepted by an excellent, competitive college. My parents were not rich and they were not going to shell out for multiple tests. Most of my friends from college were in the same situation; it really never occurred to us that it was an option to take it more than once. Most of these folks now have advanced degrees.

So, I guess my point is that, if there is something that you are looking for (practice for a person who gets nervous, opportunity to guage progress etc), then go ahead and take it, but if a child doesn't take it as a sophomore, you probably aren't depriving them. Heck, a free Satuday morning and $40 saved are nothing to sneeze at, either!

I was asking because of two reasons. My son took the SAT/ACT in 7th and 8th grade. I didn't want him to wait 3 years before taking them again (and be out of practice, blow their importance out of proportion). Secondly I wondered if it would help with college planning (narrowing down which schools to visit)--People make fun, but I try to plan early (maybe because I can't take the stress of last minute).

I believe the practice experience is useful for all the reasons listed by Kriston and others. If I hadn�t visited this site on a regular basis, I might not have thought to have my kids test young, so thanks everyone.

My daughter took the ACT and the SAT for the first time this year as an 8th grade student. Her confidence level was much higher for the SAT, which followed the ACT testing.

I have a question regarding the scores staying on their permanent record in high school. For some reason, I was under the impression that the SAT maintained scores for testing done after 8th grade, but ACT didn�t include scores in the student�s permanent record until 10th grade.

Can anyone clarify whether ACT also keeps records beginning in 9th grade? Than

I believe the ACT doesn't send any scores you don't specify, so they're not a "permanent record" in the same way.... even if you take it eight times in a year you can just send the good ones. (Well I guess they only offer it like five times a year, but ykwim! LOL)

The ACT has Algebra (mostly what I'd consider "1") and Geometry questions, and then about three Trig questions. If you memorize the ratios (O/H, A/H, O/A) you can do those three with one hand behind your back and no calculator.

As homeschoolers in NC we have to do a test every year, and the ACT qualifies for that, so we'll probably be doing it several times... DS is only 8 now, but he has taken the Explore twice (same format) and did rather well with that. The ACT would be a longer test, so that's a down-side, but cheaper (since we could register directly instead of through a talent search). It also gives you the option of ordering the whole question-by-question test results, which I think I would find much more helpful than the plain report (I never know whether he was just petering out at the end, or missed a whole "type" of problem, or made silly mistakes...) Also it has online score reports after 2 weeks instead mailed in "4-6 weeks" (meaning 6-8... grrr...) and impatience may trump everything else here... lol

But on the "con" side again, did I mention DS is eight?? And tiny?? Shall we attempt a statistical analysis of the effect on his scores of half a dozen people interrupting his test to ask him if he's lost and can't find his mommy?

Like Kriston, I took the SAT or ACT just about every year starting with 7th grade, and I found that each year it got easier (not just content, but anxiety and just dealing with the testing situation). Also because of switching schools and various other things I had taken a standardized test of some kind just about every year starting with 1st grade. By the time the GRE came around, I didn't even blink. I actually took the GRE in a lovely blue and white dress because I needed to finish, run out the door to meet my dad, and drive six hours to a friend's wedding in another state. I looked like a weirdo, but I did great, and we made it to the wedding right on time.

So I guess I'm not too worried about burning him out on tests in general, although I do wonder if we'll really use the ACT for our annual testing requirement for eight years straight! We might do the Explore one more time just for that... but I have the $20 ACT test prep book too (for the kid I tutor) and I just might have DS try one of the practice tests just to see how it goes.... I'd be curious enough to see a) what he knows and b) how significant the time issues are, both in pace and in total length.

Thanks for the response and answer Erica.

I had also purchased two ACT test prep books from Amazon. They weren�t the most recent prep books so they were on clearance.

My kids had no interest in studying for a practice test. They each took the ACT cold and my daughter took the SAT soon afterwards, which I registered her for directly, rather than going through a talent search (and saved some $$).

My daughter enjoyed the SAT testing more than the ACT.

In addition to the �shocking� number of questions to complete within the time parameters, both kids complained that the classroom proctor for the ACT stood behind students for a long period, one at a time, and read over their shoulders, watching while they selected their answers. Neither one was traumatized, just peeved.

DD took the SAT at different school. The experience gained from the ACT combined with a non-intrusive teacher made for a much more pleasant academic challenge, so in her case, RL practice did improved her comfort level and performance.

I�ll have her take the ACT again next year as a 9th grader.

I guess I'm surprised that you'd take it in high school when it "counts"--wasn't that the whole idea behind the talent search, allowing students to take above-level tests before they show up on your record? I'm confused. DS13 wanted to make sure his ACT scores would stay on his record (he worries he won't be able to do that well again), so I called and they said they stay and won't be erased miraculously.

Cost of testing--not to make you all jealous, but the one (possibly only?) goood thing about going to a Title I school is that our testing is subsidized. We pay $5 for each AP test (compared to about $89 normally) so everyone is encouraged to "give it a whirl". SAT/ACT are free. Pretty cool. At least that's something.