Practice test ACT and SAT back to back? Bad idea?

[cintinative]

Several people have mentioned that you should practice test both to see which might be better for your dc.  We are doing IOWA for my younger son so I wondered if it would make sense to have my oldest take the practice test for the ACT one day and the SAT the next while my youngest was doing his IOWA testing.  Is this a horrible idea? What sort of spacing between the two do you recommend? Also, I am assuming I can give this to him cold with no prep and that it will still give a good idea of which test might be best for him? Or am I wrong on that as well? TIA!

Edited April 23, 2021 by cintinative

[Arcadia]

Assuming the child doing the IOWA is not the child doing the practice test for SAT/ACT, it is okay to do on consecutive days as long as your child is willing. My kids did the actual tests cold with no prep in 6th grade. I didn’t want test prep fatigue so I let them decide if they want to prep.

My slower at reading kid does better at SAT since that has two math sections while ACT’s science is also heavy on reading speed. I would prep a month before the test date. My younger one does not like test prep so we prep a week before. 
 

[cintinative]

36 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

Assuming the child doing the IOWA is not the child doing the practice test for SAT/ACT, it is okay to do on consecutive days as long as your child is willing. My kids did the actual tests cold with no prep in 6th grade. I didn’t want test prep fatigue so I let them decide if they want to prep.

My slower at reading kid does better at SAT since that has two math sections while ACT’s science is also heavy on reading speed. I would prep a month before the test date. My younger one does not like test prep so we prep a week before. 
 

Yes, my 9th grader would be taking the practice tests while my 8th grader does the IOWA. The days will be set aside for testing for my youngest (the 8th grader) so I figured I might as well get one practice test in.

Are you saying you use prep even just to determine which test might be the best fit? I don't think we have time to work in a month of test prep before I run a practice test at home. If that is needed, I would have to move it back.

[Arcadia]

13 minutes ago, cintinative said:

Are you saying you use prep even just to determine which test might be the best fit?

No. Prep a month before the actual test date. 
ETA: my younger could not finish in the time given so he completed after to see whether he was able to do those questions if he had the time.

Edited April 22, 2021 by Arcadia

[Not_a_Number]

1 hour ago, cintinative said:

Yes, my 9th grader would be taking the practice tests while my 8th grader does the IOWA. The days will be set aside for testing for my youngest (the 8th grader) so I figured I might as well get one practice test in.

Are you saying you use prep even just to determine which test might be the best fit? I don't think we have time to work in a month of test prep before I run a practice test at home. If that is needed, I would have to move it back.

I only have much younger kids, but for us, doing a practice test every week for a while decreased test anxiety much more than focused test prep. This was also the case for me personally in college.

[Swimmer1112]

31 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I only have much younger kids, but for us, doing a practice test every week for a while decreased test anxiety much more than focused test prep. This was also the case for me personally in college.

How long did you do weekly testing before you saw a reduction in test anxiety? DS has the same issue. 

[Not_a_Number]

25 minutes ago, Swimmer1112 said:

How long did you do weekly testing before you saw a reduction in test anxiety? DS has the same issue. 

A while! And we had to add positive motivation: when DD8 did well, she got extra money for allowance and she earned ice cream 😄 . We defined “well” pretty loosely at the start — there were basically rewards attached to trying hard and not bombing it. We did it in test conditions every week — timed and with no help. We’d talk test strategies beforehand and we tried very hard never to give negative feedback.

Anyway, it slowly reset the associations to more positive ones. I think it took a good number of months, but now she’s firmly desensitized. With the caveat that the tests were online this year, she did very well on all the tests she took recently. (And one had weird buggy software for online proctoring, so it wasn’t even stress-free.)

This is experience with an 8.5 year old and not a bigger kid, but it was very successful.

Edited April 22, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Arcadia]

25 minutes ago, Swimmer1112 said:

How long did you do weekly testing before you saw a reduction in test anxiety? DS has the same issue. 

How old is your son? My teens don’t have test anxiety but they had a lot of practice taking no risk testing since elementary school with the California standardized tests and also AMC 8 competition. We purposely let them take the SAT and ACT in 6th grade as a first go round. At this point we are more wary about test fatigue than test anxiety.

I did bribe with M&Ms, Skittles, gummi worms and lots of chocolates during test prep. They get to choose where to dine after each SAT/ACT/AP exam pre-COVID. 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Arcadia said:

How old is your son? My teens don’t have test anxiety but they had a lot of practice taking no risk testing since elementary school with the California standardized tests and also AMC 8 competition. We purposely let them take the SAT and ACT in 6th grade as a first go round. At this point we are more wary about test fatigue than test anxiety.

We did tests every week for a few months and didn't wind up with test fatigue. Kids in school take tests quite often, so it felt like a test a week wasn't ridiculous and really helped with timing. 

 

1 minute ago, Arcadia said:

I did bribe with M&Ms, Skittles, gummi worms and lots of chocolates during test prep. They get to choose where to dine after each SAT/ACT/AP exam pre-COVID. 

Yeah, food bribes are good! 😄 

[Arcadia]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

We did tests every week for a few months and didn't wind up with test fatigue. Kids in school take tests quite often, so it felt like a test a week wasn't ridiculous and really helped with timing. 

I don’t know how old @Swimmer1112 son is. For local high school kids, GPAs, AP exam scores, SAT and ACT scores matter. 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Arcadia said:

I don’t know how old @Swimmer1112 son is. For local high school kids, GPAs, AP exam scores, SAT and ACT scores matter. 

Right? I believe that. I'm not sure what that has to do with taking a test a week, though? When I did that for the Putnam, it mattered, too, and it helped. 

[Arcadia]

Just now, Not_a_Number said:

Right? I believe that. I'm not sure what that has to do with taking a test a week, though? When I did that for the Putnam, it mattered, too, and it helped. 

My older is a fast test taker. He would either finish that weekly test fast and accurate or be flippant about it. My younger would just be so sick and tired of test prep that he would just “give up”. 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Arcadia said:

My older is a fast test taker. He would either finish that weekly test fast and accurate or be flippant about it. My younger would just be so sick and tired of test prep that he would just “give up”. 

Yeah, I'm sure it depends on the kid. It has worked both for me at age 20 and for DD at age 8, so I don't think it's a function of age, though. If the experience of taking a test is causing anxiety, then doing lots of tests can be good way to desensitize one. But again, I'm sure it's not for everyone.  

Edited April 22, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Swimmer1112]

14 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

How old is your son? My teens don’t have test anxiety but they had a lot of practice taking no risk testing since elementary school with the California standardized tests and also AMC 8 competition. We purposely let them take the SAT and ACT in 6th grade as a first go round. At this point we are more wary about test fatigue than test anxiety.

I did bribe with M&Ms, Skittles, gummi worms and lots of chocolates during test prep. They get to choose where to dine after each SAT/ACT/AP exam pre-COVID. 

My son is 13. We have him doing AMC 8,  kangaroo math, AMC10, etc. He get so much anxiety that his hand shakes, while he is writing. This also happens during is math class at the CC. 

[Not_a_Number]

3 minutes ago, Swimmer1112 said:

My son is 13. We have him doing AMC 8,  kangaroo math, AMC10, etc. He get so much anxiety that his hand shakes, while he is writing. This also happens during is math class at the CC. 

Yes. This happened for us with the Math Kangaroo in grade 1, actually. That's why we started doing the weekly tests. 

I really recommend having some tests where the ONLY things that could happen are good. If he's really stressed, you could even just give a reward for finishing. The idea is kind of to trick your body into thinking "testing is normal and actually kind of fun." At least, that's how it worked for me and my kids... when I was a sophomore in college, my then-boyfriend and I wrote a practice Putnam every single weekend on Saturday 🙂 . We'd get up early, buy some coffee at the university library, book a study room, and time ourselves doing an old contest. It really desensitized both of us -- we were both in the top 30 that year and weren't any of the other years.

Edited April 22, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Arcadia]

25 minutes ago, Swimmer1112 said:

My son is 13. We have him doing AMC 8,  kangaroo math, AMC10, etc. He get so much anxiety that his hand shakes, while he is writing. This also happens during is math class at the CC. 

Is his expectations high? Chewing gum (or sucking candy) discreetly might help for math class. My teens do tend to have higher expectations on themselves for math class at CC since they want a good GPA, but they don’t care about their math kangaroo and AMC 8/10/12 scores. The math contests are social outings for them. 
 

If your son is in 8th grade, I would let him try the SAT or ACT this year as middle school scores are not automatically kept.

22 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

 

I really recommend having some tests where the ONLY things that could happen are good.

I agree. Or very low stakes tests.

Edited April 22, 2021 by Arcadia
Typo

[Not_a_Number]

51 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

I agree. Or very low stakes tests.

Yeah, agreed. For us, AMCs wouldn’t be low stakes, though, since I think math contests are likely to help DD8 stand out... So we tend to talk about them like they matter.

Edited April 22, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Swimmer1112]

On 4/22/2021 at 1:03 PM, Arcadia said:

Is his expectations high? Chewing gum (or sucking candy) discreetly might help for math class. My teens do tend to have higher expectations on themselves for math class at CC since they want a good GPA, but they don’t care about their math kangaroo and AMC 8/10/12 scores. The math contests are social outings for them. 
 

If your son is in 8th grade, I would let him try the SAT or ACT this year as middle school scores are not automatically kept.

I agree. Or very low stakes tests.

He is a perfectionist and has very high expectations. We have been helping him overcome the perfectionist issues. 
I think my son would see the SAT and ACT as high stakes, just because that is how he views things. 

[Arcadia]

1 minute ago, Swimmer1112 said:

He is a perfectionist and has very high expectations. We have been helping him overcome the perfectionist issues. 
I think my son would see the SAT and ACT as high stakes, just because that is how he views things. 

I kind of guess that since my teens and I are perfectionists, just on different things.

On one hand, my DS16 had his November 2020 and March 2021 SAT registration cancelled as the test site is closed. So I don't know how easy it would be for you to get a seat for the June SAT or the June ACT or July ACT. (We are waiting for local high schools which are test sites for ACT/SAT to reopen to decide whether to register again)

If he is already in high school, he can delete ACT scores but not SAT scores after receiving the score reports. So that might lessen his anxiety to try out the ACT.

https://www.act.org/content/act/en/products-and-services/the-act/help.html#scores

"How do I delete a test date record?

Students own their test scores and may direct ACT to delete their scores for a particular test date from our records.  (Note: Students may not delete scores used to document participation in State and District Testing.)

To delete your scores for a particular test date, you must submit a written request. Provide us with your name and home address, and we will mail you a form to complete and return to us. We will then permanently remove your record for that test date from our files. All scores from that test date will be deleted.

Write to:

ACT Institutional Services
P.O. Box 168
Iowa City, IA 52243-0168
USA"

 

[EKS]

I would space practice tests by a week.  Also, be sure that you don't use practice tests indiscriminately.  There aren't very many of them.

[madteaparty]

2 hours ago, EKS said:

I would space practice tests by a week.  Also, be sure that you don't use practice tests indiscriminately.  There aren't very many of them.

To this point, there are a ton more ACTs than SATs. 

[EKS]

10 hours ago, madteaparty said:

To this point, there are a ton more ACTs than SATs. 

That's good to know.  I believe though that even though the ACT hasn't had an official redesign the way the SAT has, that it has evolved somewhat over time.  I could be wrong, but it is something to look into before using the practice tests.