Any last minute stuff on taking the SAT?

[Dmmetler]

DD10 is taking the SAT Saturday (she wants to apply to a competitive high school/early college program that requires it). She has her ticket, a state issued photo ID (not supposed to be required for under 13 since she has a letter from CTY, but we have it anyway), pencils, the same calculator she used for the EXPLORE...anything else we need to do? The test site is a private boys high school in our area (it wasn't her first choice, but was the one she was assigned to).

 

It's been..um...about 30 years since I took the SAT. Anything else we should know?

[Cosmos]

Snack! You can't have food in the testing room, but she'll want one during the breaks. And water. It's a LONG morning.

 

When my ds took it for the first time (also young) we talked about what cheating looks like to the proctors. He would NEVER dream of cheating, but he does stare off into space and sometimes twists his head and body around. It never occurred to him that some of those behaviors could look like a person trying to cheat (and might be distracting to other test-takers), so he had to work on a little bit more conventional test-taking postures.

 

Good luck to her!

[cbollin]

I remembering hearing a story on this forum once that someone had to deal with the dress code of a private school while taking SAT or ACT or PSAT???   so, it couldn't hurt to double check with the school if this will be an issue.
  It could have been a weird fluke of one school out there. or may have been the PSAT during school hours or something . thought I'd mention it anyway. hopefully that's not a real issue for you this weekend.

 

 

(edit to add for others in the future:  as you saw on another thread/status update (College Board wants the registration number from when he took it three years ago as a 12yo)...... you will want to keep the registration number and paperwork in your case for future needs.  most of us don't need that as we won't have that 3 year gap issue.. . but yeah... might be good to keep that handy)

[73349]

Wear a watch. Sometimes there's not a working clock in the room and the proctor uses his/her own watch, making it hard for students to know how much time is left unless they have their own.

[Junie]

Make sure the calculator has working batteries.  Ds15's calculator died during the PSAT.  He had to do all the work on paper.

[JoanHomeEd]

Depending on the kid, you might want to mention to her not to be distracted with strange behaviors, outfits, and uncomfortable furniture.

Mine had the SAT with a bunch of non-high school kids and at least one student napped for the SAT essay portion and another made loud groans on other sections.

For the ACT, she took it with high school kids who had skull underpants :laugh: and the tables were narrow and shaky.

[Arcadia]

Oldest took the ACT at our local high school which also host the SAT. The tables are the attached to chairs kind which means a smaller writing surface. His passport was checked by the gatekeeper even with the CTY talent search letter. After checking, I could keep his passport for him so not a hassle for him.

 

The chairs were in an L shape formation instead of rows of tables and chairs. Kind of weird because it is easy to look into someone's else desk unintentionally.

 

The clock wasn't easy to see in the room oldest was in.

 

I put food (nut free just in case) and packet drinks in a ziploc bag. He finished all up and was starving when test ended.

 

Depending on how hard your child is on pencils, bring more if needed. He brought a solar and battery powered calculator and the invigilators did check all calculators before the test. They had two invigilators in that room.

[mumto2]

The watch is really important. Also make sure she wears layers so she can adjuust her clothing to the temperature of the room. My kids have had all sorts of odd things happen during testing. Power outages and lack of heating in building (cool day but at least springtime) among the issues, both were fixed during the exam. Snacks are really important, I send something for each break.

[Dmmetler]

How many breaks are there?

[Arcadia]

How many breaks are there?

3

 

"There are three five-minute breaks. You can consume snacks and drinks during the breaks."

https://professionals.collegeboard.com/testing/sat-reasoning/test-day/expect

 

Good luck to your daughter

[quark]

This was something we had no way of knowing. I don't know how much of a problem it is for most but for DS who is very sensitive and conscientious, it troubled him very much:

1. There might be some posters etc on the classroom walls that to a very conscientious child would seem like offering a license to cheat

2. The test paper was very, very thin and DS could read all the words on the other side so when the proctor said not to open the booklet he must have panicked. He was very worried when he came out that he had inadvertently cheated.

3. She will have to sign off at the end of the test with a statement that she didn't cheat etc. DS was told by the proctor that it HAD to be in cursive (he doesn't write in cursive).

 

These probably sound silly to many people but it felt like real issues to him (he was 11).

 

ETA: we scouted out the venue a few days ahead so he could see where restrooms were. I think this helped relax him a little.

[Jenny in Florida]

Does she know how scoring works on the SAT? Specifically, does she know that there is a 1/4-point penalty for wrong answers? You might want to go over that math with her quickly, making sure she knows that guessing is usually advantageous if she can eliminate at least two of the five possible answers, since her odds of getting the question right (33%) outweigh the potential penalty of getting it wrong (25%). If she truly has no idea about the answer, though, it's better to leave it blank than to guess from five answers.