Sunday, August 25, 2013

Study materials review: Up Your Score

Up Your Score:  The Underground Guide to the SAT has been around so long it is no longer "underground."  First published in the 1980's, each edition stays fresh by recruiting top-scoring students as co-authors.  The 2013-2014 edition is by Larry Burger, Michael Colton, Jaja Liao, Manek Mistry and Paul Rossi.

This guide is intended as a supplement to The Official SAT Study Guide.  Up Your Score does not include any practice exercises.  Compared to other supplementary guides, this book includes more advice on studying (how to concentrate, how to improve your memory, best time of day to memorize something, etc) stress reduction, and general test-taking strategies.  The section on guessing strategies is one of the most interesting of its type that I've read. There is even a section on bubbling technique.  Apparently some students take a ridiculously long time to color in the bubbles. Who knew? Most of the tips are of the type you see in every guide, but there are a few new ones here. This guide is more fun than most.

When it comes to content, there isn't much here.  One third of the book is devoted to vocabulary.  The book doesn't have a whole lot to say on the rest of the critical reading section.  There are 600 words in the vocabulary list.  The bad news:  they are arranged alphabetically instead of by meaning.  The good news:  after dozen words or so there is a silly alliterative story using those words designed to help you remember them.  Another thing this book does well is to distinguish between words you might need to know to answer the vocabulary questions at the beginning and literary terms you might need to know to answer the passage content questions.

The math section begins on such an elementary level that, honestly, if you don't know how to do that then you aren't the sort of person who can learn math from a book.  It then proceeds to brush lightly over far too much material without either giving an opportunity to practice or referring you to appropriate problems in The Official Guide.

The writing section is short and tries to cover both the multiple choice content and essay advice.

I picked up a copy at BJ's for under $10, so the price isn't all that bad.  However, if you've already read another guide, this one doesn't have enough new stuff to make it worth buying.  Check a copy out at your school or local library and then read just the useful bits.  If this will be your first guide it's worth the price, although if you find out that you need more intensive help in a particular section, this one won't cut it for you.




Thursday, August 15, 2013

The Cost of Calculators


Before calculators, if we spotted a zero as one of the multipliers, we thought something along the lines of: “Woohoo! Less work for me!”  With today’s students a multiplier of zero barely registers. I swear I have had this exact conversation with multiple students:

Student:  (busily using a calculator to multiply a long string of numbers)
Me:  Sweetie, STOP.
Student:  (looks up)
Me:  There’s a zero in there.
Student:  Huh?
Me:  All of those numbers you are multiplying.  One of them is a zero.
Student:  Ok.  (goes back to multiplying)
Me:  STOP.
Student:  (looks up)
Me:  If you multiply something by zero what do you get?
Student:  (long pause)  Zero?
Me:  Exactly!
Student (gives me a look that says plainly, “And that applies to my life, how?”)
Me:  So you are going to multiply along and get some number. You are going to multiply that number by this zero. You will get zero.  You will multiply that zero by this number and get zero, and so on.  What will you have at the end?
Student:  Zero?
Me:  So write it down, and MOVE ON!

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Vocabulary is a stumbling block in reading comprehension

A limited vocabulary is frequently a stumbling block for my students when it comes to reading comprehension.

Both the SAT the ACT include "vocabulary in context" questions:  "In the context of this passage, what does fill-in-the-word mean?" These questions often stump my students.  However, even questions that are not explicitly about vocabulary can present problems.  Consider one question which had as possible answers:  a.  stunned amazement,  b.  silent contempt,  c.  mild concern, and d.  feigned interest.   Imagine trying to answer the question without knowing the meanings of "contempt" or "feigned."  Worse, a student will occasionally miss the entire point of a passage because such a large percentage of the words are unfamiliar that he or she can't work out the gist of the article through the context.

Am I just being a curmudgeon, or have student vocabularies really declined since I was young?  According to an article in today's Huffington Post, it's the latter.  Exam scores recently released by the National Assessment of Educational Progress reveal that the students at the top - those most likely to apply to college - are performing less well than their predecessors.  Furthermore, vocabulary was (as predicted) closely linked to reading comprehension.

If you are the parent of a young child, you will want to take note.  There are vast differences in the rate at which young children are exposed to language.  These differences are usually described as existing between higher and lower socioeconomic groups, but if you are looking at child-care or preschool options, you should pay close attention to the language proficiency of teachers and child-care providers.  Differences in language acquisition in early childhood persist into adulthood.

If you are the parent of a slightly older child, you should continue reading to your child, even if he or she has already learned to read.  Your child should read on his or her own, of course, but by reading aloud, you can introduce your child to literature that is on a more challenging level.  Don't put your child in a position of trying to make up for years of neglect by attempting to learn 2,000 vocabulary words in the month before the college entrance exam.