What’s the most “painless” way to help a kid work on SATs?

[Ginevra]

Like, I think I remember hearing about something you can sign up for that gives you an SAT Word of the Day, or a math problem every day. Ds did the PSAT and scored low end of average. He would benefit from chipping away at study a tiny bit daily, but it really does have to be a small commitment. Suggestions? 

[Katy]

Have you tried khan academy?

[Not_a_Number]

18 minutes ago, Quill said:

Like, I think I remember hearing about something you can sign up for that gives you an SAT Word of the Day, or a math problem every day. Ds did the PSAT and scored low end of average. He would benefit from chipping away at study a tiny bit daily, but it really does have to be a small commitment. Suggestions? 

We did Prep Scholar. I don't know how much of a commitment it was, but it was very good. Not cheap, though. 

You can also always just buy old tests and work through them. 

[katilac]

For a very low daily commitment, I like Varsity Tutors ACT Flashcards.

[Guest]

26 minutes ago, kand said:

My dd occasionally used an SAT question of the day app on her phone. That was it for prep. How's that for low commitment? LOL

Really, I think that’s about right for DS. Might as well tell it like it is. 

[Guest]

38 minutes ago, Katy said:

Have you tried khan academy?

Not for that in particular, but I do like khan.

[TechWife]

I purchased one review book for the SAT and one for the ACT. I handed them to ds and told him he should make time to work through them. He didn't touch them. He did so-so on the SAT and great on the ACT. Once and done.

Honestly, by the time we got to this point in our homeschooling, I was done trying to convince him to do anything. If he had not done well enough on either the SAT or the ACT to get into his preferred college, I would have had him start at the community college instead.

Kudos to you if you have a motivated student. I didn't have one and thankfully for my sanity, realized that I wasn't responsible for how he did - I provided both the education and study materials that he needed to succeed and the rest was up to him.

[LAS in LA]

DS did Khan Academy. His KA account was linked to his College Board account and he received KA recommendations based on his PSAT scores. I think KA sent him reminders to practice (no mom-nagging required!!) and he also did several practice SATs. His SAT was 150 points higher than his 11th grade PSAT, so we were pretty happy with that. 

[StillStanding]

Another vote for Khan. It works.

[MEmama]

Yes to Khan. Also, he might be interested in the SAT subreddit. There is lots of great info there.

[Terabith]

Listening because my oldest also would benefit from some targeted SAT math prep, although they did okay on the PSAT, but math was definitely their weakest area.  Which is weird because in real life, they do far better in math than English classes, but I think it's been long enough since algebra 2 and geometry for them that they've forgotten some.  

[Guest]

1 hour ago, TechWife said:

I purchased one review book for the SAT and one for the ACT. I handed them to ds and told him he should make time to work through them. He didn't touch them. He did so-so on the SAT and great on the ACT. Once and done.

Honestly, by the time we got to this point in our homeschooling, I was done trying to convince him to do anything. If he had not done well enough on either the SAT or the ACT to get into his preferred college, I would have had him start at the community college instead.

Kudos to you if you have a motivated student. I didn't have one and thankfully for my sanity, realized that I wasn't responsible for how he did - I provided both the education and study materials that he needed to succeed and the rest was up to him.

I took this approach with my two big kids. My dd took PSAT once, SAT once, didn’t study any book, did fairly well and then said, “Can I just accept that score and be done?” I said, “If you want.” So it worked out. My second took ACT, absolutely bombed it, took SAT once and did okay-good enough, and accepted that. 

Younger ds’ PSAT scores are worse than the older two’s, though, so it worries me more. And his high school situation has been so weird because of COVID. I think he would do well to work on it, but I know he’s not motivated to succeed with the SAT. Im definitely not interested in bringing out the cattle prod. 

[Roadrunner]

2 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

We did Prep Scholar. I don't know how much of a commitment it was, but it was very good. Not cheap, though. 

You can also always just buy old tests and work through them. 

Do you know if it was good for English as well? Or just math?

[Zoo Keeper]

We used Khan Academy as well.  I stuck it on the school schedule so that I then had the ability to nag about it. 🙂  Other than that, I was totally uninvolved.

[MEmama]

10 hours ago, Terabith said:

Listening because my oldest also would benefit from some targeted SAT math prep, although they did okay on the PSAT, but math was definitely their weakest area.  Which is weird because in real life, they do far better in math than English classes, but I think it's been long enough since algebra 2 and geometry for them that they've forgotten some.  

This was DS too. Math and science were his weakest, even though he’s a total maths and science kid. He felt silly reviewing algebra concepts while simultaneously taking Calculus 2, but he hadn’t taken algebra since 6 th grade so it made sense. Lol
 

A lot of mathy kids do better at the ACT. It does require somewhat different prep (IIRC there’s more geometry), but DS and his engineering type friends all found it to be easier and more reflective.

[Jaybee]

12 hours ago, LAS in LA said:

DS did Khan Academy. His KA account was linked to his College Board account and he received KA recommendations based on his PSAT scores. I think KA sent him reminders to practice (no mom-nagging required!!) and he also did several practice SATs. His SAT was 150 points higher than his 11th grade PSAT, so we were pretty happy with that. 

Yes, our ds also used KA linked to College Board. Then the questions were related to his weak points. I don't remember the difference, but it brought his score up considerably, and in his case, I believe was much more effective than a class would have been. He was motivated to do it though, because of scholarship possibilities (which it did affect).

ETA: This ds is generally pretty motivated in this way, but it was aided by watching older siblings. Oldest ds was more like many listed above--I was done with being his motivation. He later saw how much easier his younger sibs had it, because they had more scholarships--due to SAT scores. Oh well.

Edited December 22, 2020 by Jaybee

[Lanny]

It is not painless and it is not 1 minute per day, but the College Board has a tie-in with KhanAcademy. It is FREE. Your DS should have an account on CollegeBoard and also on KhanAcademy and they should be linked together.  My DD used those almost exclusively for the PSAT/NMSQT and then the SAT.

Good luck to your DS

[Terabith]

8 hours ago, MEmama said:

This was DS too. Math and science were his weakest, even though he’s a total maths and science kid. He felt silly reviewing algebra concepts while simultaneously taking Calculus 2, but he hadn’t taken algebra since 6 th grade so it made sense. Lol
 

A lot of mathy kids do better at the ACT. It does require somewhat different prep (IIRC there’s more geometry), but DS and his engineering type friends all found it to be easier and more reflective.

I really should, over break, have my kids take a sample SAT and ACT and see if they do significantly better on one or the other, so we can pick which one to prep for.  

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Lanny said:

It is not painless and it is not 1 minute per day, but the College Board has a tie-in with KhanAcademy. It is FREE. Your DS should have an account on CollegeBoard and also on KhanAcademy and they should be linked together.  My DD used those almost exclusively for the PSAT/NMSQT and then the SAT.

Good luck to your DS

Yeah I linked that up for him yesterday. So we’ll see! 

[Arcadia]

Very small commitment, like less than 5 mins if using the app 

http://secure-media.collegeboard.org/email/libraries/samples/sample_qotd.html

I had to bribe my kids with M&Ms and Skittles when they were doing the practice tests.

ETA:

DS16’s November SAT was canceled and we don’t know if the March SAT would take place. My school district do not expect to be back to B&M until at least April. They aren’t having PSAT this academic year and told the juniors to go for NMS by the alternative route using SAT scores.

Edited December 22, 2020 by Arcadia

[Roadrunner]

1 hour ago, Arcadia said:

Very small commitment, like less than 5 mins if using the app 

http://secure-media.collegeboard.org/email/libraries/samples/sample_qotd.html

I had to bribe my kids with M&Ms and Skittles when they were doing the practice tests.

ETA:

DS16’s November SAT was canceled and we don’t know if the March SAT would take place. My school district do not expect to be back to B&M until at least April. They aren’t having PSAT this academic year and told the juniors to go for NMS by the alternative route using SAT scores.

What is the name of the app?

[Arcadia]

15 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

What is the name of the app?

CollegeBoard discontinued the app in June. We downloaded the app when it was first released. 

https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/practice/daily-practice-app

[Roadrunner]

46 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

CollegeBoard discontinued the app in June. We downloaded the app when it was first released. 

https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/practice/daily-practice-app

Oh, 

now it just takes you to Khan. 😞 We hate Khan around here. Not the most user friendly interface. 

[Roadrunner]

I went looking for apps, and I am finding a lot that could be used painlessly. I downloaded SAT Prep (light green icon) and it seems to be  something I could sell my kid on for 15 minutes a day. 

[madteaparty]

14 hours ago, MEmama said:

This was DS too. Math and science were his weakest, even though he’s a total maths and science kid. He felt silly reviewing algebra concepts while simultaneously taking Calculus 2, but he hadn’t taken algebra since 6 th grade so it made sense. Lol
 

A lot of mathy kids do better at the ACT. It does require somewhat different prep (IIRC there’s more geometry), but DS and his engineering type friends all found it to be easier and more reflective.

This is so interesting to me. All the kids that I’ve known that do well on ACT were liberal arts type kids. 

[J-rap]

3 minutes ago, madteaparty said:

This is so interesting to me. All the kids that I’ve known that do well on ACT were liberal arts type kids. 

This was our experience too.