I probably used too many semicolons.
update: I left out the last 4 grammar questions. Probably failed to transfer my answers from the test booklet to the bubble sheet.
I'm a 10
rat psych: what to do about SAT math (part 1)
rat psych: what to do about SAT math (part 2)
rat psych: what to do about SAT math (part 3)
rat psych: careless reading errors on the SAT
The math score is evidence that a person can prepare for the test. The lowest projected score I ever had on math (averaging from one section) was 570, I think.
ReplyDeleteC. says his special talent is he can work the Civil Rights into any essay he writes.
ReplyDeleteHe has now written about the Civil Rights movement in 3 out of 3 SAT essays. (He got an 11.)
I LOVE IT!!! You did GREAT on the math!!!
ReplyDeleteI wanted to break 700 (left-digit bias!), but my primary goal was to hit the 90th percentile, so that's good.
ReplyDeleteI am aghast that I made grammatical errors.
ReplyDeleteI know the grammar on that test inside-out.
arrrgghhh
Don't know if it's OK to report - but Debbie hit 800!!! On writing!!!
ReplyDelete(That's going to be funny for your publisher --- they know you can write!)
So all you parents out there: get your kids a book on Martin Luther King and make them read it!
ReplyDeleteI better not have missed a dangling participle.
ReplyDeleteI'm just mulling over the fact that a PhD. award winning writer -- whose book they USE on the Reading Section -- did not get a perfect Essay Score.
ReplyDeleteWHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN???
Re the grammar -- you probably forgot to flip a page or something and missed a question or two. Or maybe a mis-bubble.
Collegeboard also makes poor questions, sometimes.
ReplyDeletehttp://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001863.html
Congratulations!!!
ReplyDelete"The math score is evidence that a person can prepare for the test."
How much do you think is general math preparation and how much is preparation for the unique questions/timing on the test?
My son took the PSAT last Saturday. Why will it take until Dec/Jan to get the results?
I'm just mulling over the fact that a PhD. award winning writer -- whose book they USE on the Reading Section -- did not get a perfect Essay Score.
ReplyDeleteoh my god - I forgot!
That's right: there WAS a passage from one of my books (Animals in Translation, right?) ON THE SAT TEST.
That deserves its own post.
I must have missed at least two grammar questions --- or even three?
ReplyDeleteCan't remember how they score.
I'll be interested to see what I missed.
I'm wondering if I did the same thing with writing that I always do with math: miss the things I know best.
The test is SO grueling, that my attention lapses when I perceive a question as easy (or as something I won't have any trouble doing).
With the math sections, after a while (still can't figure out whether that's "a while" or "awhile" - working on it...), I **had** to work as fast as possible just because the odds of missing an early question were so high, while the odds of missing a hard question were pretty low.
Either that, or I misbubbled or didn't turn the page....
I expected to get a 10 on the essay.
ReplyDeleteI can't explain why, but it has to do with the bad scoring I've seen on kids' essays. A friend of mine sent me her daughter's essay, which was dinged for grammatical errors. (Apparently that's part of the rubric.)
There were no grammatical errors anywhere in the essay.
I've disagreed with the scoring on other essays, too.
I think all professional writers should take the SAT just to see what their scores on the essay would be.
ReplyDeleteHow much do you think is general math preparation and how much is preparation for the unique questions/timing on the test?
ReplyDeleteAt this moment, I would say it's all about preparing specifically for the SAT.
In my case, because I'd never studied combinatorics, I worked my way through quite a bit of the Art of Problem Solving book --- BUT I DIDN'T NEED TO.
C. had never been taught combinatorics, either, and he learned all he needed to know to get all those questions right from PWN's book.
I would absolutely buy PWN's book instantly -- PWN's & Phillip Keller's, too. (If you're shooting for an 800, you have to get Chung.)
C's writing score went way up this time -- 60 points, I think.
ReplyDeleteThat confirms something <a href="http://ultimatesatverbal.blogspot.com/>Erica</a> told me, which is that when a kid has a high score on writing (I think C's original score was 680), it's pretty easy to get them up into the 700s.
I would say that it is NOT easy to get a high 600-math kid into the 700s. If I want to get there, I'm going to have to devote myself to the 20 tests of Dr. Chung (& actually read PWN & Keller cover to cover).
The writing test is completely different.
A kid who is a strong reader and a decent h.s. writer can -- easily, I think -- get into the 700s by studying the grammar that is tested and taking numerous practice sections.
I think every kid should do just that; I know I've said this a gazillion times, but SAT writing tests grammar college students use constantly both for writing and for reading).
There was crisis in our household this morning because C's reading score dropped.
ReplyDeleteEd said, "I can see why people hate this test."
Thank God C. is taking statistics. Presumably the teacher will explain the concept of RANGE.
After C. left for school, I got out the Blue Book to show Ed that ranges listed, which run 100 points.
e.g.: in Blue Book test 7, a raw score of 63 (out of 67) produces a scaled score range of 700-800.
A raw score of 63 means that, at worst, you either left 4 questions blank and got everything else right, or you missed 2-3 questions and got everything else right.
Obviously, that's not C's range, but if you take the test 3 times and have 3 scores above 700, your personal performance range as measured by this test is pretty narrow.
lrg - thanks for the link. Very useful.
ReplyDeleteI'd forgotten that aspect of the writing test.
I didn't do any prep for writing (or reading) -- but I did take a couple of sections the summer before last because I was getting C. started preparing.
In fact, I did find answers to a few grammar and usage questions that I disagreed with.
The problem with the writing section -- it all comes back to me now! -- is that often the sentences are badly written (in my view). They're rather wordy and occasionally awkward.
That becomes a problem in the sentences that have errors in idiomatic usage. A couple of times, I got the answer wrong because I chose the awkward phrase as the error, not the non-idiomatic usage.
I remember that happening to C. once or twice, too.
I presume the sentences on the grammar section are poorly written precisely because the test-writers want to make it difficult to spot the error; thus the writers include many words between the pronoun and its antecedent, or between the subject and the verb, etc.
ReplyDeleteThat's annoying, a lot of academic writing is pretty bad in just the way SAT writing is bad, and students need to be able to read it.
Catherine,
ReplyDeleteAll colleges will superscore each section (it's hugely in their favor to only report the highest scores), so as long as long as C. got an 800 CR on one test, he has an 800 period. If his score dropped a little this time, it won't matter. I'm thrilled to hear about his Writing score, though. Yes, I certainly have the impression that going from the high 600s to the mid-high 700s is much easier on that section that it is for Math. I think that's partially because the answers to math questions simply cannot be subjective -- if someone knows all the rules and understands all the principles and how to apply them backwards and forwards, they'll get an 800, whereas the same cannot be said for grammar (stupid idiom questions!) The result is that more people fall into the super-high scoring category on Math than on Writing, and consequently there's a lot less wiggle room for people just below the top.
As for your Writing score, my guess is that you because you were tired, your eye simply filled in what it was expecting to see on a couple of questions, and it didn't occur to you to take another look. There are particular types of questions, such as adjective vs. adverb questions, whose errors are very easy overlook for that reason. That's why I always tell people to put their finger on the page! But yes, some of the preposition/idiom questions I disagree with as well -- there's one in this year's practice PSAT booklet that I actually got wrong because it sounded so strange.
The essay is always the least predictable part of the test, and sometimes the scoring is just plain weird. I've had kids who could barely write coherent English get 8s and others get 10s. I've also seen essays that were truly awful get 12s (I really sincerely hope those people don't think they know how to write because they'd be in for a massive shock in college). To some extent, it just depends on who happens to be grading your essay. Don't try too hard to figure it out -- there probably isn't a good reason.
Erica
As for your Writing score, my guess is that you because you were tired, your eye simply filled in what it was expecting to see on a couple of questions, and it didn't occur to you to take another look.
ReplyDeleteIt'll be interesting to see -- I perceive myself as ALWAYS taking a second look, but that's simply not the case.
Fatigue is fatigue; your performance declines (and, as I say, my performance declines worse on 'easy' questions. I always think that's 'cuz I get a charge of adrenalin when a math problem is hard....but who knows?)
I do remember legitimately missing at least one grammar question 2 summers ago, though.
there's one in this year's practice PSAT booklet that I actually got wrong because it sounded so strange
ReplyDeleteWhere's the booklet!
I have to get it...
But you're right ---- C. and I both have had the experience, at least a couple of times, of thinking that something sounds so BAD that it has to be wrong.
That was a big challenge for C, as I recall. After I took a couple of sections, I 'adjusted' and found myself able to ignore the things that sounded bad...
I've had kids who could barely write coherent English get 8s and others get 10s. I've also seen essays that were truly awful get 12s
ReplyDeleteOh, yeah.
All you have to do is read the exemplars to see the problem with the scoring.
if someone knows all the rules and understands all the principles and how to apply them backwards and forwards, they'll get an 800
ReplyDeleteI don't think that's the case --- the math test is built to trick you into going down the wrong path in a way that the writing & reading tests are not.
The math test really is a video game; you have to "beat" it, not "take" it.
That's how I feel. It's a game.
ReplyDeleteAlso, CHRIS GOT AN 11 AND YOU GOT A 10?
I think he should have some fun with that tonight.
The SAT math test is still an enigma to me. I'm told that it limits the level of the math it tests because, otherwise, it would unfairly penalize kids from schools that didn't teach the higher levels of math. It would be wrong to penalize a kid for not knowing things his school didn't even teach.
ReplyDeleteSo, they limit themselves to lower levels of math, but since so many kids have gone beyond that level, they would have a cluster bunched up at the top--the cluster of most interest to universities--if they didn't do something else to spread them out.
So instead of using higher math to spread out the top students, they use "trickiness" or "depth" or whatever you want to call it. Whatever it is, it is ALSO something that is taught to some kids but not to others. You still unfairly penalize some kids for not knowing things they were never taught.
The biggest difference between higher math and this something else is where it is learned. It seems as though this policy merely switches the advantage from kids in better schools to kids in better homes.
The essay is graded manually on a rubric basis, is it not? No matter how rigorous the training and how many anchor papers and exemplars the graders have to refer to, there is a consistent problem with inter-rater reliability on that sort of assessment. So that may account for some of the otherwise inexplicable variation.
ReplyDelete