Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Strategies for raising SAT math w/o "prepping"

Okay, the title is a bit weird so I'll explain. I want DS11 to take the SAT during this coming school year (rather than during 2015-16) before the College Board changes the test. He needs 700 at age 12 or under to qualify for Hopkins' SET (Study of Exceptional Talent). When I had him take the 2014-15 practice test from the College Board website, he came up just a bit shy of the 700.

My initial thought was that his score should improve by next spring once he covers most of the Geometry course in school. However, when I gave him the incorrect/unanswered questions to retry, he easily got all of them correct so I don't think that it is a question of not yet having taken Geometry or Algebra 2. According to DS, he simply ran out of time on the couple of unanswered questions and was careless on the few incorrect questions.

If it is an issue of being just a bit quicker and not quite so careless, what are the best ways to improve his score without wasting time prepping? Or is doing many practice tests the only solution? On the other hand, I don't know if perhaps there were several careless errors because he knew it didn't count.

In addition to the current practice test, DS took one other practice test in spring 2013 and answered a total of maybe 100 random questions that his Algebra teacher gave him once a week during the last school year.

The reason why I don't want to tell DS to prep is because I don't think that it is a good use of his time. The AMC10 type problems are much more worthwhile if he is going to spend time prepping.

Any suggestions? BTDT?

I can talk about how to prepare efficiently for the SAT but not how to prepare without "prepping" .

There are SAT preparation books for the general population and also books for students who are already scoring well and want to do even better. The latter category of books, which is more suitable for your son, can be found on Amazon by searching "SAT 2400". We bought a book by John Chung. SAT math questions increase in order of difficulty within a section, and his practice should be on the more difficult released questions.

LOL. Okay, I was thinking perhaps of the difference between a surgeon's scalpel versus a sledge-hammer approach.

I suppose focusing on the more difficult questions would be one efficiency. In DS' case though, he actually missed a couple of really easy questions (level 2) as well as a couple of harder ones (level 4/5). Of course, it also may be that he is taking too long to answer some of the high difficulty questions such that practicing those question could ensure that he has enough time to complete the test.

Specific familiarity with the types of math questions which appear on the SAT is likely to be the only strategy that really works with such a student-- and honestly, I don't really consider this "prepping" in the traditional sense, since your DS (like most of the kids here) is completely capable of a perfect score-- under ideal conditions.

So you're trying to tweak the match between your DS and the conditions of the test. Nothing wrong with that.

Practice tests under timed conditions which mimic test site conditions is one method-- let him figure out what "pace" is best. DD found that there was a sweet spot-- if she worked slower, her error rate increased on the lower level items, and if she worked any faster, she made errors on the harder items.

She used extra time to run back through the section and rework problems-- which also helped her catch errors.

I have to say, though, that the SAT math sections were just not favorable for showing what she can do. She's not an algorithm type of mathy kid, and that's really what it tends to take to earn 750+ on it.

The ACT was much better for "thinker/tinkerer" kids like my DD.

Eldest used the Dr.Chung book and liked it, but a lot of folks aren't fond of it. Middle kid is using PWN the SAT. It is (a lot) less serious than Dr. Chung. However, if you don't like "near curse word" terms, perhaps PWN is not for him. He could go through the articles on the PWN website - most of the same info as the book, but free. PWN gives a lot of good techniques and describes the type of questions that appear on the SAT.

You really don't need Geometry to solve the SAT problems - middle kid understood most of the Geometry problems on the SAT in middle school. Just need to know how to apply basic facts(and perhaps do a bit of simple algebra). It is more about critical thinking and quickly seeing how to set up the problem rather than higher level math.

At this point, timing does appear to be one of the big issues. I probably should have given DS a watch and "x minutes left" warnings but it was kind of chaotic with other things happening at the time.

DS does need to use his time wisely but he really doesn't have practice with that. Running out of time is an alien concept for him. He had half the time left on SCAT and about a third of the time left on the Explore and really never runs out of time on anything.

I'll take a look at Chung's book and the PWN site to see if they may be of interest to DS.

I don't doubt that you are correct regarding the Geometry. The reason why I thought it may make a difference was due to posts from some old threads that I read a year and more ago. Some of these posts indicated that with Algebra, their kids were able to get up to around 700 (DS was at about 600 with just Pre-algebra and is now close to 700 with Algebra so that was accurate) and then after Geometry and Algebra 2, their kids moved higher into the 700's. Of course, I now realize that it may be an issue of maturity and additional exposure to problem-solving itself.

At age 11 practicing and trying out for a mathcounts team can be great prep for the math section of the SAT. Also like you mentioned AMC 8 and 10/12 can be good prep with out actually calling it that.

Or so I've heard.

I am not sure if DS' middle school participates in Mathcounts although some of the schools in our district does. That would certainly help with the timing aspect as that seem to be an important component for success.