When preparing
students for the ISEE or SSAT exams, there is more pressure than ever. Most
private and independent schools require that students take one of these exams,
which are similar to college entrance exams in that they play a key role in
admission and are highly challenging.
Admissions
officers say that they prefer students not to prepare for these tests, because
they want students to accurately portray their skill set when they apply to
schools. But since the schools are getting more and more competitive, in order
to gain admission, parents feel like they have no other choice. Moreover, the
same admissions officers who say that they do not want students to prep admit
that there is a test score cut-off required for admission. As such, preparing students
for these private school admission tests is incredibly important and should not
be put off.
I recommend
starting test prep as early as possible, because there is so much material to
cover and so many test-taking strategies to acquire. For one, there are
thousands of vocabulary words that the student ought to learn, because the
verbal section of the tests is incredibly demanding. Without advanced
vocabulary, students typically receive scores only within the 10th to 25th
percentile. There are prefixes and roots to learn as well, and this takes time.
When students cram last-minute, they are not able to acquire very much new
vocabulary at all, and it's hard to see much score improvement.
Besides
vocabulary, the math is incredibly challenging. When I work with young students
in fifth and sixth grade, this is the place where they struggle the most,
because they are being asked to learn completely new content in order to
perform well on this test. I've had to introduce, from scratch, the concepts of
algebra, statistics, probability, and high-level problems on percentages,
ratios, and geometry. The content on this test is not the content that students
are used to learning in school. It is often many grades above their current
level, and it takes time to acquire so much new material.
Fortunately, my
students learn so many new skills that they often end up far ahead of their
math class in school, and a lot of students have ended up being moved into
advanced levels because they are so far ahead now. I always tell them that they
don't have to worry about learning algebra again many years later, because they
are already experts.
Most
importantly, it takes time to learn the test-taking strategies. The ISEE does
not take off points for wrong answers, so you never want to leave a problem
blank. However, you don't want to actually spend time focusing your energy on
every single problem, because unlike tests at school, this test is not designed
so that you can actually finish it in time. You are expected to perform the best
you can, knowing that you have less than one minute to answer each question.
Test preparation
allows students to learn which problems they should focus the most energy on
and which ones to just glance at, because it's not possible to actually attempt
to solve every problem on the test.
The SSAT does
take a quarter of a point off for every wrong answer, so the strategy in this
case is to know which problems to leave blank, so that you don't lose many
points by attempting problems you shouldn't. This also gives you more time to
focus on the problems that you should be solving. I always say that is much
better to answer less problems, and get all those problems correct, than
rushing through and trying to answer every single problem, making careless mistakes
along the way and inevitably getting a much lower score as a result.
In my
experience, students are able to perform very well on this test once they have
enough preparation. They can learn vocabulary, prefixes and roots, reading
comprehension skills, essay writing skills, and a massive amount of new
mathematical knowledge. They can acquire test-taking strategies that will give
them the confidence to plow through the test with focus. It all takes time, and
work, but in the end, not only does it gain you entrance to the top private and
independent schools, but it teaches you skills and knowledge that you will be
able to use for the rest of your education.
Guest Blog by: Alexandra
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