Quad Shot Academy Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 Quick Questions: 1. Is the written essay mandatory for the talent search test takers? 2. Does the SAT mark off more for questions gotten wrong vs left blank? IOW, should he make educated guesses? 3. Is there a snack break or do they eat while taking the test? 4. Can they bring a bag, or do they need to carry everything in their hands? Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KAR120C Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 1. Is the written essay mandatory for the talent search test takers? Yes, although there's nothing particularly wrong with just sitting there daydreaming if attempting an essay would be stressful. You'll still get a multiple-choice section score for the multiple choice parts. DS left it blank the first time and wrote something the second time. 2. Does the SAT mark off more for questions gotten wrong vs left blank? IOW, should he make educated guesses? I think it's 1/4 off for a wrong answer... so you shouldn't fill in circles willy-nilly, but if you have any idea it's probably worth a shot. 3. Is there a snack break or do they eat while taking the test? Snack breaks, but very short... pack something that doesn't take any work. (Granola bars good, anything requiring assembly is probably too much.) 4. Can they bring a bag, or do they need to carry everything in their hands? DS has always been allowed a small bag.... it just has his snack, calculator, and pencils. I never thought to ask if it was okay - just sent him with it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quad Shot Academy Posted November 9, 2011 Author Share Posted November 9, 2011 Thank you so much! You just saved me about 20 minutes of searching! ;) My son also has to bring a pack of kleenexes, so a bag would be helpful. He gets bloody noses and learned during the Explore, that they will not just let him leave. He had to wait to be escorted, got blood all over himself and missed 10 minutes of the test! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeanM Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 My ds is taking the SAT in December. It is definitely 1/4 point off for incorrect answers and 1 point for correct answers. So don't randomly fill in the blanks. I have another question though for KAR120C, or anyone else who knows. The paper registration form had a statement that the student had to copy in cursive. Do you know if the students will have to do something like that at the actual test? My ds has handwriting issues, and it took him a really long time to write it in cursive in the amount of space provided. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quad Shot Academy Posted November 10, 2011 Author Share Posted November 10, 2011 I have another question though for KAR120C, or anyone else who knows. The paper registration form had a statement that the student had to copy in cursive. Do you know if the students will have to do something like that at the actual test? My ds has handwriting issues, and it took him a really long time to write it in cursive in the amount of space provided. As a future FYI, my son printed the paragraph, but signed his name in cursive and they accepted his registration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KAR120C Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 My ds is taking the SAT in December. It is definitely 1/4 point off for incorrect answers and 1 point for correct answers. So don't randomly fill in the blanks. I have another question though for KAR120C, or anyone else who knows. The paper registration form had a statement that the student had to copy in cursive. Do you know if the students will have to do something like that at the actual test? My ds has handwriting issues, and it took him a really long time to write it in cursive in the amount of space provided. I believe it's the last thing they do - so if it takes a while, at least it doesn't hold up anything else. I've (only rarely) heard of proctors being pains-in-the-neck about it... but if the proctor doesn't care, I don't think the College Board people are going to make a big deal about it. Basically it's meant to be two comparable samples of handwriting to prove you didn't get someone to take your exam for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iucounu Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 (edited) If the multiple choice questions all have four choices, wrong answers are scored as -1/4, and right answers are scored as +1, there will actually be an average net gain from making even uneducated guesses. ETA: I did a quick search and came up with a graphic showing four answers, because I couldn't remember off the top of my head how many choices there were. It turns out that there are 5. This means that guessing is still a good idea, since most of the time a student should be able to eliminate at least one answer correctly. Completely random guesses are break-even. http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/books/newsat/chapter3section1.rhtml Edited November 10, 2011 by Iucounu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeanM Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 I believe it's the last thing they do - so if it takes a while, at least it doesn't hold up anything else. I've (only rarely) heard of proctors being pains-in-the-neck about it... but if the proctor doesn't care, I don't think the College Board people are going to make a big deal about it. Basically it's meant to be two comparable samples of handwriting to prove you didn't get someone to take your exam for you. Oh dear, he isn't going to like that, but at least it's at the end. He'll like it much better if he can print, and he could probably make it fit on the lines without much trouble. For some reason his cursive is much larger than his print. :confused: Iucounu, you have a good point about it probably being worth guessing, especially if the student can eliminate even one choice. Thanks! I'll tell ds. Now we just need to figure out which calculator ds is going to use. He has a tiny one that just does the 4 basic operations, and an HP graphing calculator that was DH's that he doesn't really know how to use. I'm thinking maybe we should buy him a new calculator of his own. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 If the multiple choice questions all have four choices, wrong answers are scored as -1/4, and right answers are scored as +1, there will actually be an average net gain from making even uneducated guesses. Wrong answers are scored as -1.25. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quad Shot Academy Posted November 11, 2011 Author Share Posted November 11, 2011 [quote name=JeanM;3314898 Now we just need to figure out which calculator ds is going to use. He has a tiny one that just does the 4 basic operations' date=' and an HP graphing calculator that was DH's that he doesn't really know how to use. I'm thinking maybe we should buy him a new calculator of his own.[/quote] As someone told me last year, just make sure it has order of operations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iucounu Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 Wrong answers are scored as -1.25. Are you sure? That would be an over-strong penalty. The scoring seems to have been set up so that there's no gain from random guessing. http://www.math.com/students/kaplan/sat_intro/guess2.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 Are you sure? That would be an over-strong penalty. The scoring seems to have been set up so that there's no gain from random guessing. http://www.math.com/students/kaplan/sat_intro/guess2.htm Maybe we're actually talking about the same thing. What I mean is that if there are 20 questions and 5 are wrong, the score will be 15-5x0.25=13.75. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caroline Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 There is not a penalty for getting the free response math answers wrong on the SAT. There are a few questions where you actually write in (and grid in) your number answer. Make sure to practice those with your student before the test. It is a bit of a tricky format. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iucounu Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 Maybe we're actually talking about the same thing. What I mean is that if there are 20 questions and 5 are wrong, the score will be 15-5x0.25=13.75. Yep, we're on the same page. So if students getting 3/4 of questions right based on knowledge, not by guessing, get 1/5 more right on average by completely random guessing, the average score for 20 questions will be: 15 known answers - (4 wrong guesses X 0.25 point penalty each) + 1 right guess = 15 points Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted November 11, 2011 Share Posted November 11, 2011 There is not a penalty for getting the free response math answers wrong on the SAT. Yes, I always forget about those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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