ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE!!!!! HERE'S HOW THEY HELP:
For many (many) details about how to get the points, see http://www.coolrocketschool.org/
THE Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is a readymade, snap together way:
a) to teach yourself organizational skills;
b) to teach yourself critical thinking skills,
c) to teach yourself planning skills, and
d) to teach yourself knowledge-building skills. ..and
e) to realize (metacognition--self-knowledge) that all of this has resulted in a large body of knowledge added to your education. You are smarter.
To summarize how you do this:
a) You organize around a specific date to take a specific standardized test and increase your performance score;
b) you study the reason and purpose for the test, so you can predict and answer all of the styles of questions on the test;
c) you use the scores on the test for packaging your materials to apply for college or scholarships, grants, contests, or jobs.
You build your ongoing international baccalaureate style portfolio; (For more about this, see my other columns or write to me at cooperhomeschool@yahoo.com or http://www.coolrocketschool.com/ or http://www.coolrocketschool.org
judiethcarol&rocketcat feb 2010 c.
d) if you learn to use the College Board site to your advantage, you can keep an ongoing portfolio there, as well. (Be sure to back up ALL folios. You do NOT want to lose your archives! They are always your responsibility.
e) If you realize, as early as possible, that you are the person who will always understand how you learn, you will use the preparation for this test to add chunks rather than small jigsaw pieces to your knowledge base.
I believe you can learn to look forward to taking the tests just to see what you have improved, as a game with yourself. The main thing I have improved over the years is my rest before a test and my ability to get to the place of testing early enough to go to the restroom and to choose my seat in the testing room, settling in with whatever comforts (water?, tissue?, extra pencils?) are allowed.
As a teacher, I take tests often. (You may have noticed at the top of my column that I keep up nine certifications. I take ongoing courses to keep up on everything from brain-based exercises –go to www.lumosity.com-- for really fun games pretending to snap photos while trying to see a letter in a box. Talk about turning away for just a second! --to using computers for original research (see the national archives website to find notes by some of your favorite authors in their own handwriting). You can see more about my teaching and about my assistant, Rocketcat, at http://www.coolrocketschool.com/ and http://www.coolrocketschool.org/ (this site).
So, as I have said, my favorite comfort is to go to the testing location ahead of time to find out where it is, how to drive there, and where to park—and to get there early on test day. If someone else will drive, that’s good, too. That person has to be reliable, though. For me, if anyone else is in the car on a test day, he or she has to be a positive person or quiet. If you do not have that kind of control over your driver, maybe you can listen to music on the way. I suggest listening to several songs in a row like ‘The Climb’ by Miley Cyrus. If you don’t sleep well the night before, this is not the end of the world. You will find that you will still be fine throughout the day of the test. You will be exhausted that night.
Never, never, never intentionally do some extremely late night partying or extended exercising or nervewracking ANYTHING two days before a demanding test, audition, or interview. That really will put your physical well-being at risk. Sleep deprivation is a serious matter. So is dehydration. Take care of you. Get sleep; healthy food; fresh water. Take some peppermints, water, a banana, an apple, and a cereal bar. Peanut butter and crackers is a good supplement if you are definitely not allergic to peanuts. Some hard cheddar and crackers is also good, if you are not allergic to cheese! Take some peppermints.
The book I recommend for your SAT book club (yes, I recommend an SAT book club, but you can just make it a 'book club') is BIG HELP NO SWEAT NO FEAR MATH. I have a site about book clubs. First thing to do is to call a friend or two and get each one of them to call a friend. Make this one about the SAT. Plan a place and the first meeting. Make it two weeks away. READ THE ENTIRE BOOK. Do not worry about the fact that it includes math problems. When you do the SAT questions for the day, you will sometimes forget that there are math problems that you DO know how to do.
For math, all you need is reminding close to time for the test to be able to do some math problems that you absolutely do NOT remember how to do right now. You just need a five or ten minute reminder to get point after point. This book is written in story form. You need to put an example of several different types of problem into your brain storage areas. What you want are the patterns. You will use the patterns.
Decimals, percentages, and fractions are all the same. One-fourth is the same as .25 is the same as 25%. The Order of Operations is absolutely necessary to get the correct answer. You just have to do what is inside the Parentheses then whatever has to do with Exponents, any Multiplication, Division, Addition, and, last, any Subtraction. The acronym to remember is PEMDAS. When you have the scratch paper in front of you--or if you can write in the book, above the formulae you can use, you write PEMDAS with your version of the explanation. You need one pattern problem that you understand to use as your pattern for using the Order of Operations.
I am a writer, and I have on-line columns, book clubs, tutoring, book reviews, and blogs. You are reading my ongoing private school teaching blog to help you to prepare for the March 13 or May 1, 2010, Scholastic Aptitude Test. If you are planning to do your best work on the May 1 test, you are in the right time frame. If you are going to give your best shot to the March 13 test, you need to get moving on the exercises in the Princeton Review, and read my archived articles. It’s all good, and it’s easy. All of this helps with your other school work. All of it will help with graduation tests and even Advanced Placement tests and Graduate tests. Let me know what you need to study, and I will give you some tips.
SEE OTHER POSTS FOR MORE TIPS FROM THIS NO SWEAT MATH BOOK It's Good! It's published by Barnes & Noble and written by Anna Medvedovsky It is available used and new.
judiecarol & rocketcat feb 20 2010 c.
