Help Desk: retaking the SATs?

800 - critical reading; 750 - math; 590 - writing

These are the scores obtained by the son of a friend of mine when he took the SATs for the first time this year as a high school junior. I should mention that he's no longer a high school junior: a few weeks ago he decided to drop out of school because he found it too boring. (The school in question is one of the very top public high schools in Philadelphia). He hasn't taken the PSATs, or done any test prep whatsoever. Nor, as of yet, has he taken any SAT IIs.

So here's the question: given this boy's current scores, would it be a good idea for him to retake the SATs?

the writing test and the math test

Chemprof (and others, I'm sure) pointed out in Comments that math/science professors value the SAT math test for the same reason I value the SAT writing test: both exams test standard mistakes that college students make.

Btw -- this is something I haven't gotten around to putting inside a post -- when I mention "the main errors student writers make," I'm referring to the Connor and Lunsford list of errors compiled in 1988, which is pretty close to the SAT list.

The Connor-Lunsford list is close to the SAT list except for the fact that Connor and Lunsford did not see ginormous numbers of parallel structure problems in the student papers they read, apparently. I find that hard to fathom. I personally do see ginormous numbers of non-parallel structures in the student writing that comes my way.

Faulty comparison, tested on the SAT, does not make the Connor-Lunsford list, either. (I'm not surprised by that.)

In any event, while musing about chemprof's observation (which I agree with, btw), an essential difference between the two tests, one that I hadn't focused on, suddenly leapt out at me: where SAT Math tests content and procedures students have been seeing in school for years,^* SAT Writing tests content students have never seen or even heard tell of unless their Spanish teacher happened to explain what a gerund is in Spanish class.

(I use that example because I asked C. this week whether he knew what a gerund was, and he said he did because he'd learned it in Spanish. I myself had no idea what a gerund was until this semester. Public schools don't teach formal grammar today and haven't taught formal grammar in decades.)

So....when you think about it....isn't the Writing Test a bit of an odd concept?

Students have never been taught grammar, and now they're being tested on grammar?

And why would I be in favor of testing students on content the schools don't teach?

Now I'm thinking: well, maybe I'm not!

Mulling over chemprof's comment, I realize that what I value about the writing test is almost exclusively the test prep kids do for the writing test. The fact of the writing test, the fact that that the writing test exists and students have to take it, gives parents an excuse to insist their kids learn some formal grammar before they graduate high school.

And that's pretty much it; that's what I value about the test.

So, since high scores on writing come entirely from test prep (at least in my experience), what does a high score on the writing test actually mean? Does a high score on the writing section tell us anything about the student's writing?

I don't know the answer to that, and I don't have a good guess.

Basically, I think it's a good thing for a student to recognize a comma splice in an SAT sentence regardless of whether he recognizes a comma splice in his own writing, and effective SAT prep can make that happen. This is a statement of value: I value knowledge of comma splices, and I want my kid to possess it.

^* Most of the content anyway. That's a subject for another post: these days the SAT now features counting problems, and students taking traditional algebra classes don't seem to have counting "units" in their courses (although chapters on counting  units are included in traditional texts). Ditto for the algebra 2 material on the SAT if a student has not taken algebra 2.

the essay

C. was talking to his friend J. about their writing scores on the SAT.

After he hung up, he said, "I can't believe J. wrote the stupidest essay I've ever heard of and got a 9."

J.'s essay was about his family having to steal food in order to eat. Never happened.

"How come he wrote that?" I said.

"He spent too much time on the introduction and couldn't think of anything else to say."

Last year my neighbor's son got an 8 on an essay about why the essay question was stupid.

writers should take the SAT

I was just talking to Debbie S, who reminded me that a passage from one of my books appeared on an SAT critical reading section. I think it was a section of Animals in Translation, but I don't recall at the moment and can't seem to scare up the email she sent me with the passage attached).

Meanwhile Debbie is no slouch in the professional writing department, either. Her book will be published by a major house, and her advance puts her in a small and select group.

We both have 10s.

I think other writers should take the SAT and see how they do. We can compile a database. I'm serious:  I'd love to see how 'real writers' do on the SAT essay. I'm guessing we'd see a lot of 10s.

Actually, I'd like to see professors take the SAT. I'd be willing to wager a small sum of money that college professors would consistently score lower than top-scoring high school students.

I'm not exactly sure why I think this, but I imagine it has to do with the K-12 grading I've been dealing with over the years.<sup>*

*</sup>grade deflation posts

I'm a 10

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

Dartmouth testing profile for perfect scores

Critical reading - 800
8.2% of applicants have 800 CR
32.0% accepted

Writing - 800
9.4% of applicants have 800 on Writing
30% accepted

Math - 800
16.2% have 800 on math
18.7% accepted

source: Dartmouth College Undergraduate Admissions

I wonder if there's a case of left-digit bias in these scores.

Is it Weird or is it Wrong?*

*From the Introduction to The Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar.

"Is it weird or is it wrong" was my process for the SAT Writing Section (pre-Erica).



Here's how I scored in 2011, "by ear," as an adult:



It is worth noting that:

1) I do not recall ever being taught grammar in school.

2) I do remember being told by an English teacher that a comma happens when you feel a pause. I believed that was "the official comma rule" for about 35 years.

3) I worked in book publishing for over two decades and am a voracious reader.

Point #1 is probably a universal truth for American-educated kids facing the SAT today, as is some variation of point #2.

According to Erica:

Most of my students had little to no familiarity with grammatical terminology, so rather than simply reviewing concepts and offering up a couple of tricks, I had to teach them virtually all of the fundamentals of grammar.

Point #3 probably makes me an anomaly.

Given that the average SAT Writing score is 492, I can not think of one reason why every student facing the SAT should not own their own copy of The Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar. This is THE definitive guide to the SAT Writing section (and trust me, I've examined most others).

Erica is the most precise human being I have ever met with regard to SAT grammar. I have visions of her picking through single words in the Blue Book as if individual blades of grass. To give you some idea:

Furthermore, I noticed that specific kinds of questions always showed up at specific points in the test. For example:

-Faulty comparisons almost always showed up in the last three Error-Identification questions, as did certain kinds of tricky subject-verb agreement questions.

-The final Fixing Sentences question (#11 in the first Writing section, #14 in the second) very frequently dealt with parallel structure.

Are you starting to get the picture?

When I first started picking apart exams and grouping their questions by category, I did not quite understand why the College Board chose to focus so heavily on certain types of errors (subject-verb agreement, pronoun agreement, parallel structure) and virtually ignore others. Contrary to what most guides say, “who vs. whom” is not actually tested on the SAT, even though who, and very occasionally whom, are underlined on various questions. Then, as a tutor, I read the writing of high school students – lots of them. And I started to notice that most of their writing was full of the exact errors tested on the SAT. Here it seems that the College Board does actually know what it’s doing.

The other point worth noting about this book is that she includes the indices from the Blue Book broken down by category. So in other words, if you need to find a bunch of dangling modifier questions to practice on, flip to the back of this book and you'll find them cross referenced by page and test/problem number.

Illustration by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

Full disclosure: I scoured the book about 10 times for missing punctuation and spacing errors in the 11th hour, in exchange for tutoring time with Erica. It was a labor of love and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Cross-posted on The Perfect Score Project

SAT grammar rules from Erica Meltzer

Complete SAT Grammar Rules

If we didn't have the SAT to prep for, C would never have learned what terms like pronoun case or pronoun antecedent meant. I'm convinced C. is going to develop more quickly as a writer because of it.

Hack the SAT on the writing section

Hack the SAT on tutoring the writing section:

The grammar portions [of the SAT writing test are far more important [than the essay]. And they're very easy to prepare for. In fact, there are only a handful of grammar rules that the SAT loves to test, and they repeat them over and over. So if you can just memorize the rules that we'll lay out in this section, you'll find that the actual test won't be that much of a challenge. During test prep, scores on the writing section tend to increase most reliably, and by the most number of points.
Hack the SAT by Eliot Schrefer
p. 159

I believe it.

Last week I skimmed an SAT roster for our high school from a couple of years back. I saw no 800s on math, one 800 on reading, and four 800s on writing. (Not sure how many students in that group -- perhaps 125?)

I think that's consistent with Schrefer's observation that the writing section is easiest to coach.

SAT Critical Reading & Writing Tips

I've started keeping track the SAT lessons that might be helpful to others. The first posts are Critical Reading and Writing tips from my meeting with Erica Meltzer.

The list will be stored here: Solutions

UPDATED with clarification that this example is merely to point out what to look for when reading these sentences for errors.

(Cross posted on Perfect Score Project)

Excellent SAT Critical Reading and Writing blog

I've spent the last few days picking through every nook and cranny of The Ultimate SAT Verbal blog. I'd say it's the most extensive and accurate SAT Critical Reading and Writing advice I can find.

Any other SAT site suggestions?

(cross-posted on the Perfect Score Project)

SAT Love

dangling modifiers at PWN

brand new!

Now I have to get Mr. PWN to write some SAT geometry questions.

dangling modifiers on SAT writing

Say you're taking the SAT next Saturday, and you want to know the one thing you can do to improve your writing score.

For my money, the answer is: figure out dangling modifiers.

Dangling modifiers are ubiquitous on the test, and they are especially ubiquitous in the multiple choice selections. Not infrequently, you can identify the correct answer simply by identifying the only answer that is not a dangling modifier.

This is so often the case that I now routinely read through the multiple choice options and cross out all the dangling modifiers (and the comma splices) before I even bother thinking about what's wrong with the sentence. I don't know whether that's a good idea for everyone, but it's a shortcut for me.

My goal with C. is to get him to the point where dangling modifiers 'jump' off the page at him, which is what they do with me. 

Here's an example of what I mean (based on College Board materials, but clunkier):

One of the first women to serve in Congress, more than twenty significant laws were introduced by Jane Doe, making her a leader in her era.

(A) more than twenty significant laws were introduced by Jane Doe, making her

(B) Jane Doe's introduction of more than twenty significant laws made her

(C) introducing more than twenty significant laws made Jane Doe 

(D) her introduction of more than twenty significant laws led to Jane Doe being considered 

(E) Jane Doe introduced more than twenty significant laws, making her

Choices A, B, C, and D all contain dangling modifiers. You don't have to read the final sentence to make sure it's correct because a dangling modifier is always wrong. Choice E has to be right, and it is.

The problem with a dangling modifier is that it isn't close enough to the thing it modifies, which is presumably why it is said to be 'dangling.' A dangling modifier is not firmly attached to the thing it modifies.

(Modifies means adds information to.)

When I get further along with Martha Kolln, I'll come back to this, but for now I'll say that generally speaking a modifier needs to be directly 'next door' to the thing it is modifying.^*

Since the phrase "one of the first women" modifies (adds information to) Jane, Jane has to come next in the sentence -- and just Jane, not Jane-apostrophe-s. Jane-apostrophe-s isn't Jane-the-person; Jane-apostrophe-s is a modifier, too.

So:

Choice A is wrong because "One of the first women to serve in Congress" modifies "more than twenty significant laws," which amounts to saying that the laws were women.

Sometimes you can see this better when you cross out the 'extra' words:

(A) One of the first women to serve in Congress, more than twenty significant laws 

means:

the laws, not Jane, were the first women to serve in Congress

(B) One of the first women to serve in Congress, Jane Doe's introduction of more than twenty significant laws made her

means:

the introduction of laws was one of the first women

(C) One of the first women to serve in Congress, introducing more than twenty significant laws made Jane Doe a

means:

introducing [20 laws] was a woman

(D)  One of the first women to serve in Congress, her introduction of more than twenty significant laws allowed Jane Doe to be considered a

means:

the introduction was a woman

(E) One of the first womento serve in Congress, Jane Doe introduced more than twenty significant laws

means:

Jane Doe was [one of the first] women, which is correct.

I am positive that sentence diagramming would help with SAT writing.

Too bad no one knows how to do it.


update: Martha Kolln on dangling modifiers:

The participle can open the sentence only when its subject is also the subject of the sentence and is located in regular subject position. Otherwise, the participle dangles.



^* I'm sure there's more to it that that. 

C's SAT writing section minority rule

A couple of weeks ago, C. told me that on the Identifying Sentence Errors portion of SAT writing, sentences pertaining to minorities are error free. The correct choice is always E.

Darned if I haven't seen the same thing ever since he pointed it out.

Then today C. missed an answer because the sentence was about minorities and had an error.

"I used my rule," he said, "and it was wrong."

Starting this week, I am going to re-direct his attention to dangling participles, subject-verb agreement, pronoun antecedent agreement, tense consistency, parallelism, and idiomatic usage, among other things.

If that's possible.

Mark Twain on the almost-right word

My favorite saying about writing:

The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.
- Letter to George Bainton, 10/15/1888

Steve's SAT reading question - 2nd pass

(fyi: I deleted the first post I wrote on this subject)

I mentioned in the Comments thread that I reliably miss 0 to 1 items on SAT I reading and writing tests. I don't find the tests easy -- I find them taxing -- but I finish the sections five minutes early and never miss more than 1 item.

I don't know why that is, though.

So a couple of minutes ago I tried to analyze why I chose the correct answer to the question Steve posted:

The following line is from an SAT excerpt where the author really(!) dislikes the way science was being taught (in 1939).

(24) "As to the learning of scientific method, the whole thing is palpably a farce."

3. The word ‘palpably’ (line 24) most nearly means
A. empirically
B. obviously
C. tentatively
D. markedly
E. ridiculously

The answer is B.

1st step: I rapidly eliminate and cross out the three obviously wrong answers.

For me, answers a., c., and e. are obviously wrong:

a. empirically
c. tentatively
e. ridiculously

Why are these 3 answers obviously wrong?

a. Empirically is wrong because the author has said nothing explicit about running an experiment or observing actual students who were learning (or attempting to learn) the scientific method. Thus I conclude that the author is voicing an opinion, not describing an empirical observation or experimental result.

This is an example of former SAT tutor LexAequita's advice that to do well on the SAT you'd better start thinking like a 13-year old with Asperger syndrome.

Students should read SAT reading and writing questions the same way they're told to read SAT math diagrams: add nothing to the text that isn't explicitly stated. Easier said than done since reading is all about making inferences, but that's a conundrum for another day.

c. Tentatively is wrong because it's inconsistent with the tone of the passage, which is emphatic, not tentative. Tentative is the opposite of emphatic, so it's wrong.

e. Ridiculously is redundant. The writer says that "the learning of the scientific method is a farce," and farce means ridiculous. So you don't need to add the word ridiculously.

Second step: I choose the "more right" of the two answers that remain.

As far as I can tell, SAT reading and writing questions always come down to two arguably correct answers. Your job is to figure out which answer is more correct and choose that one.

In this case, the two arguably correct answers I'm left with are:

b. obviously
d. markedly

As I tried to reconstruct why the word obviously leapt out as me as the correct answer, it struck me that I may have been influenced by the conventions of idiomatic usage and good writing. If you substitute the word obviously for palpably, the sentence works; if you substitute the word markedly, the sentence doesn't work.

...the whole thing is obviously a farce

...the whole thing is markedly a farce

See?

Maybe markedly a farce sounded wrong to me because it's bad writing.

I'm going to start keeping an eye out for how often the right answer is also the better written answer.