Full Description

Other than how to get into college, the question students and parents are most likely to ask is how to prepare for the all-important SAT test.

Fiske Nailing the New SAT will help students and parents plot their strategy not only for how to take the test, but also for how to prepare for taking the test. Based on extensive surveys and the real experiences of students, parents and college counseling professionals, this book gives the lowdown on how to prepare.

- Evaluating the preparation options: books, software, online courses, one-on-one tutoring, classroom prep courses, etc.
- What kind of student you are, and which approaches tend to work best for your ability, style, attitude, etc.
- Keys to SAT success
- The new SAT—how the test changed (and is changing) and why
- Chapters on the verbal, math and writing sections

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Inside the New SAT
Goodbye 1600, Hello 2400
The New PSAT and the National Merit Program
How Important Is the SAT?
What about the ACT?
SAT vs. ACT: How the scores stack up
Is It Possible to Psych out the SAT?
What It Takes to Beat the SAT
Developing Your Own Approach

2. SAT Prep Courses: Straight Talk from Students
The Story behind the Survey
Eye-Opening Results
Princeton Review and Kaplan
Score Increase Claims: A Closer Look
Why the Myth Won’t Go Away
Students Talk about Their Prep Courses
The Test-Prep Syndrome
A Closer Look at the Questionnaires

3. Taking Charge of Your SAT Prep
When Should I Take the SAT?
How Many Times Should I Take It?
Registering for the Tests
Late Registration and Score Reporting
Students with Disabilities
Making Your Own Prep Course
Beating Anxiety and Time Pressure
Your Game Plan
The Zen of Test Day

4. Writing
The Essay
Getting Your Brain in Gear
The First Paragraph
The Body and the Conclusion
The Nitty-Gritty of How to Prepare
Know Your Audience
Hitting the Fast-Forward Button
Keys to Success
Identifying Sentence Errors
Verb Tenses
Keys to Success
Improving Sentences
Style and Sentence Structure
Keys to Success
Improving Paragraphs
Keys to Success

5. Critical Reading
Sentence Completion
Keys to Success
Passage-Based Reading
Paragraph-Length Passages
Honing Your Strategy
Finding the Point of View
Keys to Success

6. Math
It’s Not about the Math
Inside the Bag of Tricks
Taking the Pressure Off
Grinning Through the Grid-ins
Oh Yeah, the Math
The New SAT’s Math
Keys to Success

7. The Fiske SAT Practice Tests
Practice Test #1
Scoring Practice Test #1
Answer key Practice Test #1
Practice Test #2
Scoring Practice Test #2
Answer Key Practice Test #2
Acknowledgments
About the Authors

Excerpt

To hear students talk, you’d think that college admission was all about SAT scores—with maybe a quick glance at a student’s transcript and ltters of recommendation. Keenly aware of the hype, colleges are quick to downplay the importance of scores. High school counselors fall somewhere in the middle; they seek to ease student overemphasis on the SAT while believing in their heart of hearts that the SAT is more important than the colleges are willing to admit.

We spoke to several college admission officers to get their views. “The SAT is one factor in our evaluation of academic achievement and potential,” says Jerome Lucido, vice provost for enrollment at the highly selective University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “This evaluation includes coursework, grades, rank in class (or its many proxies), awards, achievements, and teacher recommendations. We also consider many personal factors. It is clear, then, that SAT plays a much smaller role in the overall decision than students would believe from the rumors they hear, from the rhetoric of the coaching companies, or from the popular press.”

If you polled the admissions directors of fifty highly selective colleges, every one of them would probably agree with this statement. While downplaying the importance of the SAT, admissions officers defend its usefulness as one part of the application. In doing so, they walk a fine line. Even the College Board admits that grades in school are the best indicator of college readiness. But the colleges (and the College Board) maintain that the combination of high school grades and SATs is a better predictor than either measure by itself. “The tests are a national measure for all applicants, so it helps to equalize consideration of candidates across a wide national and international spectrum,” says Karl Furstenberg, dean of admissions and financial aid at Dartmouth College.

David Erdmann, dean of admissions and enrollment at somewhat selective Rollins College, expands on this reasoning: “Our experience is that grading systems, rigor, curriculum, standards, and expectations vary from school to school. Recommendations have the same flaw. The best recommendation for the top student at one high school may have the same praise that might have been heaped on the middle student at another high school. We believe that recommendations typically favor independent school students where the teaching load is lighter, where putting the best foot forward is an expectation, and where the recommendation is generally in greater depth. Essays suffer the same inherent flaw, or can, where the opportunity for assistance is greater. SAT or ACT scores help to level the playing field.”

We suspect that many admissions officers would also agree with this statement. Yet if it is true that the SAT is the only universal yardstick—or at least true that admissions officers perceive it to be—that fact strengthens the hand of those who say that the SAT may be more important than the colleges say it is. Public perception of the SAT as a universal yardstick also plays a role. To a greater or lesser degree, all admissions offices feel pressure to maintain high average SAT scores among their entering classes—high scores look good, and scores are a factor in the rankings produced by U.S. News and World Report.

Of course, the colleges would be quick to point out that students who have high scores tend to bring other qualities that make them stand out. Then again, many of the low scorers who get in are athletes or others with special talents.

The gulf in perception that separates those on the high school side and those in college admission offices may lie in how each one sizes up the competition. Top students see themselves as competing against other top students. The student with a 2.5 GPA in a particular high school is not likely to be applying to the same colleges as classmates with a 3.7 or 3.8. Given that students with similar academic records apply to the same schools, what makes the difference? These students all get good recommendations and can generally write a good essay. Today’s trend toward grade inflation accentuates the issue. Capable, hard-working students inhabit an increasingly narrow band of grades in the A/A-/B+ range. The SAT is often the only factor that puts meaningful distance between them. A strong student who does not test well may score in the 500s or 600s on each section for a combined score in the 1200s; a student with the same A average who is an SAT whiz may get 700s for a combined score in the 1400s or 1500s.

All this begs an important question: Does the SAT measure real abilities? Or merely test-taking skills? We’ll weigh in on this raging debate a bit later. For now, suffice to say that if you’re an able student with a strong transcript, your SAT score will determine your fate at selective institutions as much as or more than any other part of your application.

Before we leave the topic of the SAT’s importance in admission, it is worth noting that most public universities that are less selective than UNC at Chapel Hill use a different model. With lots of applicants and relatively few admission officers, these institutions tend to rely on test score cut-offs for admission, though there is often an alternate route to getting in for students who do not achieve the requisite scores. The University of Arizona is a typical example. For in-staters, U of A requires that students meet one of the following four criteria for automatic admission: 1.) rank in the top 25 percent of the high school class, or 2.) have a 3.0 GPA, or 3.) a 1040 SAT, or 4.) a 22 ACT. Students who do not meet any of these requirements may be admitted if they fulfill other criteria.

Still other schools create a formula for admission that encompasses minimum GPA and test score requirements. Depending on the formula, it is sometimes possible to compensate for a low test score with a high GPA. Most colleges that use a specific score formula are up-front about it on their websites. Standardized test scores are not necessarily more important at these institutions than at the highly selective places, but at least you know where you stand.

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