Best Tips from Private Tutor: Two Days to Improve SAT Score
I am certified in nine teaching areas. I often teach students individually. I tried to condense all the strategies –or some of the best—here. But if you do not feel you have the time or inclination to read some of my columns, including this one, on www.coolrocketschool.org , do these five things:
1. Use the www.collegeboard.com website for practicing to read the varied types of questions and style of answering. DO PRINT OUT THE CHECKLIST FOR THE DAY OF THE TEST. Visualize getting up, dressing, having breakfast…directions, good driver, gas in the car…starting EARLY.
2. Go to a bookstore and/or the library and pull some children’s science, math, and history books along with some reference books with vocabulary.
3. Go to the reference shelves, and get several of the SAT study books.
4. Sit down in one of the chairs, and look at the strategies to make a ‘template’ for yourself in how to answer certain types of questions.
5. Read portions of the children’s books on science, history, and math. Make some notes with little drawings. Is anyone ‘Smarter than a Fifth Grader’? Usually, we have to study!!
6. Using the SAT books, make up a template for answering fill in the blank questions (including, for example, whether the words are positive or negative. Think of a simple small word that would fit, and look for a similar word.
7. To answer sentence completion questions, whether one or two blanks, think of a simple word that would fit and look for that type of word (positive or negative, etc) in the answer lists.
8. Eliminate at least one of the possible answers after choosing the ‘correct’ answer. Make it clear to yourself that you are answer the question that is asked.
9. My pattern for questions that seem ‘too easy’ is to go fast and straight to solve the question—then race backwards through the other answers to eliminate at least one of the ‘wrong’ answers.
10. Try to get plenty of rest. But do not panic if you cannot sleep well the night before a test. Do stay in a relaxed state, whether you can sleep or not.
11. Rest. You may be very tired after the test if you are not able to achieve deep sleep the night before, but you will probably be okay during the test.
12. Plan to take a nap AFTER!
I, personally, usually do fine on standardized tests. Teachers often do well on standardized tests. Some do not. Why am I telling you this as an important strategy? Know your strengths and use those. My greatest strength is a curiosity about what I call ‘code.’ Just studying words in the glossaries of textbooks before a test can help me to get several more answers correct.
Here are some things I do before a standardized test: I notice all the words I encounter, whether on a cereal box or on the directions to setting up my printer. I read the same instructions for putting together my little Eureka vacuum cleaner in English, Spanish, and French. I notice that the word in other languages for ‘Warning’ is a word that looks almost like ‘Advertisement’ but also like ‘Advisement.
The more words you understand—whether vocabulary words, literary terms, mathematical terms, science words, or Latin or Greek root words, the more points you will score on the SAT test.
No, you cannot ‘cram’ a lifetime of new words in two days. What you CAN do is to remind your brain of how it already knows several hundred words that you do not realize you know.
How can you do this increase in vocabulary in two days? Keep reading for enjoyment, AND look at words in the passages and questions on the SAT. Go to a Borders or Barnes and Noble and pick up the SAT books in the ‘Reference’ section and sit down in a chair. Open the books to the pages that explain the answers to the verbal questions. Read some of these passages. Then, open the books to the glossaries. Just read.
Yes, READ PAGES OF GLOSSARIES, especially pages of glossaries in the SAT books. Buy one to take home. But, first, take a stack to a seat in the bookstore and look at the words and the explanations of the problems.
My writing style is often too wordy for fast absorption. Today, I am using ‘cut’ and ‘delete’ often to pare this down for 2 days until a standardized test. Visualize the June 5 testing date for the SAT, and use the ‘deadline’ features to put your brain in the right mode.
1. Go to the www.collegeboard.com site daily to do the question for the day.
2. Read the question from the upper left corner all the way through the end—through the last answer choice.
3. Move smoothly through each question, whether you actually know how to do it right away or not.
4. Have a strategy of what to do for each type of question—whether you understand how to find the correct answer or not.
5. Go to www.collegeboard.com site: PRINT OUT THE CHECKLIST FOR THE DAY OF THE TEST. USE it!!!
6. Use every resource you have—from an understanding friend or grandmother to a good bed for a night’s sleep. Avoid negative people, if you can. Visit them another time.
7. Know how to get to the test site, where to park, what you can take to help you. Please go to the site and use the resources to visualize the day to your highest comfort level. Be as comfortable as you possibly can be! Stay away from every negative thing or person you can avoid.
8. HOW TO WORK ON THE ANSWER SHEET: Check often to make sure you are on the correct number! Do not panic. Just keep making sure you are answering the right question.
9. Read carefully, smoothly, and visually. Keep going. Keep your answer sheet clean and marked with a dot in the correct answer circle, filling in the circles about every two answers. Do NOT wait until the end to ‘color in’—as you may run out of time for that section!
READ THE TITLE OF EVERY SECTION: What are they measuring?
What does the title say you will be doing?
Begin to anticipate how such a measure will be done.
That is, how would you ask a question to measure this ability? Example: ‘Sentence Error’.
How can we find out if you recognize errors? Do you know how to correct errors?
DIRECTIONS: Here is the way to go! Read the Directions—even if you have used this style of directions before. Read the directions every time. This is a ‘brain thing.’
Reading this way puts your brain into the gear for this set of questions by reminding it of the style of the answering procedure while the rest of your brain is moving in on the solution.
Read: title, directions, problem, answers—Jot down notes, patterns, pictures, and graphs (yes, graphs).
Visualize the situation for every type of question.
READ THE HINT for practice questions on www.collegeboard.com . There are often many ways to solve a problem.
Look at the way the explanation says to solve the problem and compare it to your method. Keep using your style if it still makes sense to you, AND notice how to do the same problem with the style that is explained on the website.
10. While practicing from the website: IMMEDIATELY after trying to get the answer, look at the answer on the screen. Read it from top to bottom with the correct answer checked. Read the explanation; and, very important—Write your own explanations!
