First SAT in October

[chocolate-chip chooky]

My daughter's first SAT is coming up in early October. Not only is this her first SAT; it's her first experience of an exam of any kind. 

So far she's done a lot of prep on Khan Academy and that's been a fantastic resource.

My one niggly concern is that she's never 'bubbled' answers before. I'll have her do some paper practice tests so that she gets the hang of it and doesn't lose too much time in the bubbling. I feel like those grid-in problems could chew up a bit of time.

How do your children bubble? Question by question? Or all at the end? Any hints or tips?

[Roadrunner]

Question by question.

Mine took his first test at 12 with just vague familiarity and did just fine in terms of format. I would have her do one test at home on a paper just so it isn’t anything new, and that will be more than enough. My priority would be getting to the test site a little earlier to find parking and to make sure you are in a right line and can find a right testing room. Sometimes those big schools can be really confusing to navigate, and the signs can be lacking. 

[chocolate-chip chooky]

7 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Question by question.

Mine took his first test at 12 with just vague familiarity and did just fine in terms of format. I would have her do one test at home on a paper just so it isn’t anything new, and that will be more than enough. My priority would be getting to the test site a little earlier to find parking and to make sure you are in a right line and can find a right testing room. Sometimes those big schools can be really confusing to navigate, and the signs can be lacking. 

Thank you 🌻

I'm actually feeling better about the testing site now because I got in touch with the person who will be supervising on the day. I've been quite concerned that my daughter's home education student card wouldn't pass muster as ID, even though it is actually government issued.

Anyhoo, the school that is our testing centre is a small Steiner school, the supervisor has been really friendly and helpful, and he's told me that at this stage there are only 12 test-takers. He even said we could visit and have a look around beforehand if we like. The benefits of doing SAT testing in Australia, I guess - not many test-takers 🙂 

Edited September 6, 2019 by chocolate-chip chooky

[gstharr]

We work in a recovery practice.  Make sure she writes/marks/circles her answer next to each question before she grids. Have her do some kind of mental check every now an then, something like  "question 8, answer 8".  Take one of her  completed test grids, and re- mark  it,  so that it is out of sync.  The answer she wrote on the test will  let her recover quickly. .   Practice erasing.  a partial erase will result in a wrong answer being recorded.  My 9th grader has taken over 20 standard tests, and we still do this once before each one. good luck

[chocolate-chip chooky]

6 hours ago, gstharr said:

We work in a recovery practice.  Make sure she writes/marks/circles her answer next to each question before she grids. Have her do some kind of mental check every now an then, something like  "question 8, answer 8".  Take one of her  completed test grids, and re- mark  it,  so that it is out of sync.  The answer she wrote on the test will  let her recover quickly. .   Practice erasing.  a partial erase will result in a wrong answer being recorded.  My 9th grader has taken over 20 standard tests, and we still do this once before each one. good luck

This is really helpful advice - thank you!

Do you mean that she should write her answer on the question booklet? I assume you don't mean the answer bubble sheet next to the question number? This would mess up the scantron process wouldn't it?

[gstharr]

On 9/7/2019 at 12:00 PM, chocolate-chip chooky said:

This is really helpful advice - thank you!

Do you mean that she should write her answer on the question booklet? I assume you don't mean the answer bubble sheet next to the question number? This would mess up the scantron process wouldn't it?

 Yes.. Next to the question n the question book, not on the answer sheet. good luck