BakersDozen Posted October 14, 2013 Share Posted October 14, 2013 You all will understand this better than anyone I know IRL. We have done test prep since the beginning of August. From the practice test in August to the one taken yesterday my ds raised his score almost 20 points, most of that in Critical Reading (his very weak point), while my 14yod raised her score 40 points!!! If they can only repeat this on Wednesday then I will be one happy mama! I absolutely love the prep we did! I wasn't sure if I was just wasting both my time and theirs but wow, what improvement! My dd says she understands more math now than in the last few years of doing math thanks to the test prep books and Chalkdust course. Fingers crossed for Wednesday! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted October 14, 2013 Share Posted October 14, 2013 Excellent! I am sure they will repeat their great results on Wednesday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brenda in MA Posted October 14, 2013 Share Posted October 14, 2013 Wonderful! Best wishes to them on Wednesday. I definitely think all the hours that we put into SAT prep last summer really did help my son become a better critical thinker. Brenda Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TranquilMind Posted October 14, 2013 Share Posted October 14, 2013 You all will understand this better than anyone I know IRL. We have done test prep since the beginning of August. From the practice test in August to the one taken yesterday my ds raised his score almost 20 points, most of that in Critical Reading (his very weak point), while my 14yod raised her score 40 points!!! If they can only repeat this on Wednesday then I will be one happy mama! I absolutely love the prep we did! I wasn't sure if I was just wasting both my time and theirs but wow, what improvement! My dd says she understands more math now than in the last few years of doing math thanks to the test prep books and Chalkdust course. Fingers crossed for Wednesday! Yay! Good luck to your kids! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TechWife Posted October 14, 2013 Share Posted October 14, 2013 That's great news. DS hasn't prepped for the PSAT at all. There are only so many hours in our days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BakersDozen Posted October 14, 2013 Author Share Posted October 14, 2013 I definitely think all the hours that we put into SAT prep last summer really did help my son become a better critical thinker. This exactly! Not just the Critical Reading was helped but the math sections as well. Their ability to quickly analyze, sift/sort, and reach conclusions has improved dramatically. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted October 14, 2013 Share Posted October 14, 2013 That's great news. DS hasn't prepped for the PSAT at all. There are only so many hours in our days. We've run into this so we've prepped by doing one 25 min. section a day. Which I realize isn't a true portrait of the test, but at least allows him to see how the questions are formulated. But way back in the day (over 30 years ago!) when I took it, none of us had any kind of test prep for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura in CA Posted October 14, 2013 Share Posted October 14, 2013 We've run into this so we've prepped by doing one 25 min. section a day. Which I realize isn't a true portrait of the test, but at least allows him to see how the questions are formulated. But way back in the day (over 30 years ago!) when I took it, none of us had any kind of test prep for it. This is what we did also. My kids never did more than one section of the PSAT, SAT, or ACT a day for test prep. Ideally we might have gotten a group of kids together (to make it fun) to take a full-length practice test, but we never got around to it. I justify it by saying you don't train for a marathon by running marathons! But the day of the race you have a lot of adrenalin, you're focused because everyone else is, etc. And yes, I remember the good old days with no prep! I like to tell my kids we used to walk in with no idea what the test would be like! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farmgirl70 Posted October 15, 2013 Share Posted October 15, 2013 What kind of prep did you use? I am considering resources for the SAT.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ann.without.an.e Posted October 15, 2013 Share Posted October 15, 2013 DD takes it tomorrow but we haven't done any prep at all. She is only 9th so I look at it as practice anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted October 15, 2013 Share Posted October 15, 2013 OK - ds is the one taking the test. So why am I the one who is so nervous about this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tohru Posted October 15, 2013 Share Posted October 15, 2013 Way cool Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sisyphus Posted October 16, 2013 Share Posted October 16, 2013 That's wonderful! Ds is taking it cold, no prep at all, but I plan to start some after this and before the next test next year. Good to hear about what works, is it a specific chalk dust PSAT course? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BakersDozen Posted October 16, 2013 Author Share Posted October 16, 2013 OK - ds is the one taking the test. So why am I the one who is so nervous about this? I sat in Starbucks all morning trying to read a book yet found myself staring out the window toward the high school and sending good vibes that way. :) How I wish we didn't have to wait so long for the scores!! For prep I used the McGraw Hill prep book combined with the SAT Blue book (I found information in both that was good). We took one practice test full sitting then took one week for each section starting with Critical Reading; we began on Monday with instruction from me then spent the rest of the week practicing that particular section. Each week I added another section to focus on yet also gave the dc practice pages for the sections previously done; for example, the second week our focus was Paragraph Errors yet they also had Critical Reading practice from the first week. By the end of the 4th week we'd focused on all the sections except for math. The last month or so they completed one full section of a practice test every day and we went over all mistakes/skipped problems, plus they began the Chalkdust SAT DVDs (which are AWESOME!). They took a full practice test on Sunday before the actual PSAT. Monday and Tuesday they went back and redid all math problems from all 6 practice tests they'd missed/skipped just to see if they could remember what their mistakes were. Both dc said going back that second time really showed them if they had learned from their mistakes or not so I am very glad we did that. In fact they both got a problem correct that they both said they might not have had they not gone back and reviewed just such a problem that they'd missed on a practice test. They came out of the test very confident so hopefully all this prep was well worth it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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