Short-term prep vs. long-term prep

When people SAT prep, they have a tendency to lump it all together in one undifferentiated mass. So here I want to talk about the differences between these kinds of preparation and what different types of students can realistically expect to gain from them. Short-Term Prep I tend to classify anything from a couple of sessions through about three months as short-term prep. Short-term prep itself falls into two categories: the kind that focuses narrowly on improving a small number of skills, and the kind that focuses primarily on finding strategies that will best leverage the students existing skills. On the whole, I find that short-term prep is most successful for high-scoring students who know their strengths and weaknesses and have identified a few specific goals to accomplish. In my experience and quite contrary to popular test-prep wisdom, it can actually be much simpler to raise a score from somewhere above 650 to an 800 than it can be to raise a 570 to a 650 or even a 610. Theres almost no way to hit the high 600s, or even the mid-600s, without having solid skills, and at that point improving ones score primarily becomes a question of identifying and focusing on a handful of discrete concepts. When a single problem such as timing in involved, it is sometimes enough to work through a representative sampling of questions to illustrate various principles and strategies, which the student can then practice applying independently. Let me give you an example. In the past year, Ive worked with two students who already had 800s in both Math and Writing but whose Reading scores lagged more than 100 points behind. Both of them came to me with very specific issues: one needed work only on timing, so we talked about how getting the gist of each paragraph from reading the first few sentences eliminated the need to waste time trying to comprehend every single word, and about how to identify overall structure quickly by reading topic sentences. The other student needed work understanding hard humanities passages, function (purpose) questions, and big picture questions. The former jumped to an 800 from a 680 after only a single meeting (I had also done a couple of sessions with him months earlier, before the PSAT) and a few practice tests; the latter rose to a 720 from a 650 after about three months of more or less consistent work. We starting off just doing the most difficult humanities passages I could find so he could practice figuring out the important points without getting bogged down in confusing language, then worked up to full tests. Short-Term prep for lower-scoring students (below 600) students can be effective, but its maximum benefits tend to show up in the Math and Writing sections, which are rule-based and relatively straightforward. In my experience, it rarely produces the kinds of significant gains in Critical Reading that higher-scoring students see. Here I do have to mention that students with solid skills who are just beginning SAT prep may not score well because they havent learned to transfer their skills to the test; theres often a very big difference between someone who scores a 550 CR on their-first ever practice test and someone whos still scoring 550 after a year of prep. Provided that they are willing to spend lots of time learning vocabulary and do not have difficulty thinking strategically, a student starting at 580 and aiming for a mid-600s score can sometimes learn enough to parlay their skills into a 50-70 point increase in the space of a few months. (If they want to spend more than a couple of months prepping seriously, however, they can often raise their scores well into the 700s). For students scoring persistently below 600 (lets define persistently as after six months or more), however, short-term prep is usually a much dicier prospect. In such cases, a sub-600 score is usually an indicator of multiple missing skills, and the amount of work involved in acquiring those skills is what sets Critical Reading apart from the other two sections. As one article I came across recently termed it, reading is three-dimensional problem. No matter how self-contained a passage may seem, it always has a real-world context; the more familiar the reader is with its subject matter and the conventions of its genre, the faster and easier the reader will be able to understand it. Theres also the decoding aspect: students who never learned to read phonetically are often either stymied by unfamiliar words and will come to a grinding halt when they encounter them, or simply plug in a similar-looking word that causes them to misunderstand the passage. When this type of confusion happens repeatedly, students can end up with only the most fragmentary idea of what theyve read. A lack of familiarity with complex grammatical structures (multiple clauses, non-essential clauses, inverted subject-verb structure, separation of subject and verb within a sentence) and the ability to intuit where a sentence or a paragraph or an argument is going can also severely impede comprehension and make reading an excruciatingly slow and confusing process. The real problem, however, is that fluid comprehension results from the interaction between all of these skills, in ways that researchers do not entirely understand. What researchers do understand, however, is that the relationship between the acquisition of individual skills and overall reading level is exponential. *All* of the skills must reach a critical point before their interaction results in a jump to a noticeably higher level; drilling concepts in a single area has limited effects. And because, as I discussed in my last post, because persistently low scores often result from a combination attention and memory issues as well as self-management difficulties and lack of contextual knowledge, it can be extraordinarily difficult to find success with a strategy-based approach. Thats not to say that these students cant improve from long-term, skills-based preparation if they are willing to work very, very hard, simply that there are no quick fixes when someone has so many gaps across the board. When the College Board says that test-prep doesnt make much of a difference, this is what they mean, and in this sense I cant help but agree with them. Trying to do short-term prep with a very weak student has made me realize how well-constructed the SAT really is. What seem like simple tricks to a 700-level student are actually huge obstacles to one scoring 250 points lower. Long-Term Prep While long-term prep (six months+) might seem like the better option, the reality is that its efficacy varies widely and, as is the case for short-term prep, depends on the particular students needs. In my experience, there is usually no way to raise a below-600 Reading score to 700+ (or even 600+) without serious, sustained long-term effort, and students who are aiming to cross a major score threshold should be aware of the work involved in achieving such a goal. The most successful students Ive had by far are the ones whose parents came to me with the understanding that test-prep was likely to be a long-term project, one that would require consistent work, and who were actually willing to put in that work or whose parents were willing to force them to put in the work. The father of one of my students kept a massive index-card box full of vocabulary flashcards with which he would proceed to torture his son on a daily basis. It took a year, but he played a huge role in getting his severely ADD (but extremely smart) son from a flat 500 CR to a 670. Let me repeat that, by the way: not a quick fix, a year. This type of prep typically involves acquiring skills that for whatever reason are either not being mastered or not being learned period in school. It also tends to involve some fairly intensive remediation, and that simply takes time. You wouldnt try to learn a years worth of chemistry in one hour a week for a couple of months, would you? So why on earth would you treat the SAT that way? And I would argue that that is in fact a valid analogy: Critical Reading tests concrete, specific comprehension and reasoning skills that can be taught much the way any subject can be taught the only difference is that those skills are not, for the most part, being taught in the classroom, and tutoring must often replace school rather than complement it. I used to argue with Debbie Stier about the amount of time an average student should reasonably expect to spend studying for a 100+ point increase, but having learned the hard way when enough of my mid-range students didnt improve after a couple of months, I now concur with her assessment of a year. Its a safe bet that youll need that long to digest new skills to the point where you can apply them on the fly in a high-pressure situation when youve been up since 6am and are sure that you just completely blew the last section. Trust me: it takes a long time. Given the time, I now treat Reading much the way I used to treat Writing and dont even bother looking at the test until weve worked through the various skills that it involves. It may not be fun to spend a couple of months just discussing how passages are organized (anecdote, commentary, main point, counterargument), but surprisingly enough, its a whole lot easier to transfer skills to a test once you actually have them. For students who start off scoring very well (700+), however, burnout can be a real danger. For them, it makes the most sense to focus in on their weakest areas and spend some time focusing seriously on them rather than take test after test after test for months on end (although granted, if their biggest problem is managing the whole test itself rather than any specific skill, then taking lots of practice test might be necessary.) There is such thing as a point of diminishing returns, and its not pretty once someone goes too far past it especially if their parents are demanding perfect scores. Ive worked with some kids who kept prepping way past the point where it was beneficial for them to do so, and eventually it got to the point where it felt like an exercise in futility for both of us. They clearly no longer cared, and I was exhausted and increasingly uncomfortable trying to hold their interest when it was obvious they just wanted the whole thing to be over. At a certain point, you either have to put in the effort to really get yourself to the next level or decide that youre happy with what you have. I know that some of you wont believe me, but I feel obligated to reiterate this here: An SAT score is only one part of your application. While a low score can keep you out, a high score alone will not get you in. No admissions committee at any elite (non-technical) school will take an otherwise undistinguished kid with a 2350 when they can take a kid with a 2250 or, horror, a 2200 and something genuinely interesting to contribute. It is not worth spending all your time trying to get a 2300+ if doing so will come at the expense of other parts of your application. Im not going to say much about medium-term prep here (4-6) months except that I find it occupies and awkward middle ground: it isnt quite long enough to build and solidify skills from the ground up, but it is often long enough to become frustrating for a kid hovering around the 2200-2250 range and trying to break 2300/2350. If someone wants to spend time just memorizing vocabulary, thats fine, but there are better things to do with ones time than spend months obsessing for the sake of what often comes down to five or six questions on the entire test when simply working more carefully could accomplish the same goal in a few weeks. For a 600-650 ish student who needs a combination of skill- and strategy-work, however, it can be very effective assuming the time is used effectively. I realize that this post has already become a bit long-winded (try as I might to be succinct, I just cant get past my habitual verbosity what can I say, I like to ramble on), so Ill just say this: Ive seen the greatest number of problems arise when people expect long-term results from short-term prep, so whichever one you choose, adjust your expectations accordingly. Take a hard look at your score, your skills, your goals, the amount of work youre honestly willing to put in, and what you want to get out of SAT prep. If you dont want to spend months memorizing vocabulary and your goal is to get the test over with a soon as possible, youre probably best off looking for some short-term strategy-based prep; if youre starting at a 550 and wont settle for anything less than a 700, plan on a year, and expect to do a lot of work. There is no one-size fits all, and the best you can do is to choose the option that most suits your needs and be aware that your score will be a reflection of your choice.

American Revolution The War Moves South

The Effects Of Binge Drinking On The Uk And The Health...

Introduction Binge drinking is defined as people drinking plenty of alcohol in a short period of time or get drunk (NHS, 2014). In other words, binge drinking is drinking alcohol lead blood alcohol concentration (BAC) equal to or over 0.08g/dL. It means that when men drink more than 5 units of drinks and women have over 4 units of alcohol in around 2 hours is binge drinking.(NIH News,2014)Nowadays, binge drinking have a large proportion among youths in the UK, which lead to the health problems to them. In this essay, it will show the situation of adolescents of binge drinking in the UK and the health problems to them. Also, the campaigns did by the Department of Health and the Alcohol Concern. Moreover, evaluates the utility of those to help the youths. Situation Binge drinking is a common issue in the UK. According to the Drinkaware (2015) shows that the UK is one of the supreme countries of the rate of binge drinking in Europe. And the circumstance of binge drinking is particularly round adolescents, for example, under the investigation indicated that pupils are more conversant with beer brands than biscuits. (Alcohol Concern, 2015) It indicates that teenagers know about alcohol in early age, so have more chance to heavy drink. One of the reasons why, is that most of the young people know about the alcohol though the internet or the advertisement on TV. Due to the technology, is more wide range in recent years. There are a high percentage of youths do not know theShow MoreRelatedYouth binge drinking1621 Words   |  7 Pagesï » ¿To what extent is youth violence, crimes and anti-social behaviour linked to youths binge drinking. Binge drinking can be defined as an excessive consumption of alcohol within a short period of time to get drunk. This essay will focus on how youth violence, crime and anti-social behaviour is linked to youths binge drinking. 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Alcohol abuse has been a problem throughout the history of humanity; it is a disease which has caused many people to be overcome with trouble, problems, and debts also pattern of drinking that interferes with day-to-day activities. Alcoholism is a term that is widely recognized throughout the United States and the World. Alcoholism is a chronic disease, progressive and often turn fatal; it is a disorder and not due to other diseases or emotional problems. Many scientists have tried to pinpointRead MoreSocial Issues Related to Smoking and Alcohol Consumption Essay1265 Words   |  6 Pagesaccidents, workplace-related problems, family and domestic problems, and interpersonal violence. Work People with alcohol dependence and drinking problems are on sick leave more frequently than other employees. In Great Britain, up to 25% of workplace accidents and around 60% of fatal accidents at work may be linked to alcohol. drinking alcohol at work and hangovers  may reduce productivity. 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My Level Of Emotional Intelligence - 1975 Words

1. Evaluate your level of emotional intelligence and provide specific examples to support your assessment. Describe how your emotional intelligence could be enhanced and a strategy for doing so. I think I have somewhat average emotional intelligence. I am to a certain level able to perceive my feelings but I feel as though at times I can’t effectively identify my own strength and weaknesses. Also sometimes I tend to not think about the situational constraints. An example of this would be that I once accepted work for 15 days straight with no break, and by the end of the 15th day I was down with a fever. I assumed I could handle 9 hour workdays for 15 days straight without perceiving the stress and the hardship it would put on me†¦show more content†¦I am often the individual my friends come to with problems because I am often the most attentive to other problems in my group. I think my involvement with different community organizations has also helped me to gain understanding for different individuals perspectives. So I tend to be open to new ideas and am able to perceive other individuals body language and social cues very accurately. I often tend to know my friends are upset before they even tell me, even during a phone conversation or text conversation. I think I have certain ability to manage others actions and emotions towards me. An example of this would be my ability to change individuals mind about purchasing certain products from where I work. Some individuals come in quite certain that they will never buy the certain product but I usually am successful in selling these products to individuals especially instant credit. I think I need to improve on myself awareness and need to learn to understand my emotions and realize the limitations for myself instead of pushing myself over thresholds. A good way to improve this to be more mindful about my emotions and any physical cues I have. I think I also need to understand my weaknesses and my strengths. I think analysing someone’s emotions throughout the day could be an effective strategy for this but I think keeping a diary and going back and reading over emotions I had experienced and analysing them and

Satan s Location And Physical Attributes - 1096 Words

Lucifer is the infamous angel who rebelled against God in hopes of becoming a God himself. He constructed an army of angels in opposition of God. Despite this, Lucifer was incapable of defeating God and was struck down from the Garden of Eden to hell. In Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, Dante and Virgil encounter Lucifer in the last circle of hell before they ascend to Purgatory. It is here in the circle of Judecca that Lucifer had been condemned for eternity as a result of his treachery against God. In my essay, I will argue that Lucifer’s location and physical attributes ironically reflect qualities of God in such a way that Lucifer becomes mocked. Dante Alighieri utilizes Lucifer’s characterization to illuminate the force of God’s divine power in The Divine Comedy. Before exploring the relationship between Lucifer’s location and Jesus Christ’s tomb, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, I will first explain how the church is relative to the Divine C omedy despite its Christian Orthodox origin. During the first crusade, a Florentine noble named Pazzino de’ Pazzi â€Å"scaled the walls of Jerusalem† and was awarded pieces from the Holy Sepulchre that he brought back to Florence (Murray 613). This started a traditional Easter festival called â€Å"le scoppio del carro,† meaning â€Å"explosion of the cart,† that occurs every Easter in Florence (Murray 613), which is where Alighieri lived. The relevancy of this historical event during Alighieri’s life and city makes it incredibly likely that he wasShow MoreRelatedEssay on Romanticism4035 Words   |  17 PagesRomanticism In spite of its representation of potentially diabolical and satanic powers, its historical and geographic location and its satire on extreme Calvinism, James Hoggs Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner proves to be a novel that a dramatises a crisis of identity, a theme which is very much a Romantic concern. Discuss. Examination of Romantic texts provides us with only a limited and much debated degree of commonality. However despite the disparity of Romanticism (orRead MoreEssay about Billy Budd Ap English Iii3345 Words   |  14 Pagesship that set sail in June 1839. In January of 1841, he sailed again on a whaler named Acushnet and embarked on an excursion to the South Seas; and later the same year he enrolled on an Australian whaler, Lucy Ann, which anchored Tahiti. These two locations are where he found his inspiration for his first novel, Typee (1846), and his second novel Omoo (1847), which both describe Melville’s somewhat romanticized version of his experiences on these islands. Over the next decade, Melville wrote seven moreRead MoreInfluence Of Western Customs Of Wedding Essay9329 Words   |  38 Pages3 Influence of Western Customs of wedding on Islamic marriage 18 2.4 Conceptual Framework 21 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY 22 3.0 Introduction 22 3.1 Research Design 22 3.2 Variables 22 3.2.1 Independent Variables 22 3.2.2 Dependent Variable 23 3.3 Location of the Study 23 3.4 Target Population 23 3.5 Sampling and Sample Size 23 3.5.1 Sampling 23 3.5.2 Sample Size 24 3.6 Research Instruments 25 3.6.1 In-depth Interviews 25 3.6.2 Semi-structured Questionnaire 26 3.7 Reliability and Validity 26 3.8 DataRead MoreCissp Study Guide67657 Words   |  271 Pagesvalidity. Ownership is the correct answer in this statement. However, here is a reference. Fundamentally important to any security program s success us the senior management s high-level statement of commitment to the information security policy process and a senior management s understanding of how important security controls and protections are to the enterprise s continuity. Senior management must be Pass Any Exam. Any Time. - www..com 4 Ac tua lTe sts Explanation: Information securityRead MoreISLAMIC BELIEFS OBSERVANCES LAWS15412 Words   |  62 Pagesand true believers. The Quran says, Allah and his angels shower blessings on the Prophet. They help the believers in adverse conditions like the battle of Badr when 1,000 angels descended to help out the Muslims in the battlefield. Angels are Allah s servants who carry out all the orders and commandments of Allah. The Quran says, By angels who govern the affairs entrusted to them. Some angels have been given particular tasks. The Archangel Jibrail, who gave glad tidings of Holy son to Mariam, deliveredRead MoreLogical Reasoning189930 Words   |  760 Pageslicensed under a Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. That is, you are free to share, copy, distribute, store, and transmit all or any part of the work under the following conditions: (1) Attribution You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author, namely by citing his name, the book title, and the relevant page numbers (but not in any way that suggests that the book Logical Reasoning or its author endorse you or your use of the work). (2)

Film Analysis The Last Metro Essay Example For Students

Film Analysis The Last Metro Essay Francois Truffaut’s classic film The Last Metro depicts the frustration, confusion, and compromise in German occupied WWII France through the lens of theatre. A strong underlying theme of the movie is ambiguity. For instance, the character Bernard Granger is a young, handsome actor who supports the resistance but his actions are very unclear. The portrayal of Bernard Granger parallels France’s romanticized images of resisting the German occupation when in reality who collaborated and how many were part of the resistance is vague at best. Bernard Granger is mostly concerned with using his dashing looks and charm to shamelessly flirt with women, but still finds time to meet with his friend in the resistance. From what we are shown of Bernard he is against the occupation but his actions are, for the most part, passive. Bernard’s involvement and ideals are largely unexplored except for the implication that he turned the theater’s record player into a bomb. However, we never see the explosion or become involved in his fight. The viewer is never shown any action, hear any discussions regarding the various governments or political environment, or come to understand any sense of the resistance as an entire movement. One only comes to understand that Bernard is a â€Å"sexy rebel† who you assume is an active member of the resistance. One defining moment for Bernard is when his friend from the resistance is arrested. Bernard is apparently waiting to meet with a member of the resistance when his friend is swarmed with police right in front of him and he does nothing but watch. Perhaps he realizes that he can only do so much and he is better off continuing the work without his friend, but we never see him take any initiative to continue organizing and acting against the German occupation. What we do see, however, is Bernard Granger’s proposed resignation from the theater in order to follow the resistance. Although he at first appears to have followed through with his plans, we later become suspicious of whether he did in fact go off to fight. This is not far from the overall cultural lack of clarity regarding the resistance. Karen M. Radell states in How Subtext Shapes Narrative in Francois Truffauts The Last Metro and Claude Berris Uranus, â€Å"In French Cinema, especially, we are witness to the struggle between two opposing memories and perhaps two opposing desires: the desire for the affirmation and the desire for truth (Radell, 191). † In The Last Metro Truffaut is giving us neither. Even with his â€Å"epilogue† to sum things up, Truffaut still leaves Bernard’s journey completely open to interpretation. The loss of those two unaccounted for years doesn’t convey anything except the romanticized notion of â€Å"maybe he did something. † Truffaut is playing with the idea that France likes to see itself as Bernard Granger, but what does Granger really do? What are his beliefs and just how involved with the resistance is he? The fact that the details are not only unclear, but are almost neglected entirely, is indicative of the ambiguity of the times and the preferable image of a more active resistance.

Robert Frosts The Road Not Taken Essay Example For Students

Robert Frosts The Road Not Taken Essay The poem The Road Not Taken is about the one thing that every living human being will and does encounter, multiple times through out life, it is the miracle of being able to choose. With that choice we must also face the fact that we can never go back and explore the other road not taken. Some choices are easier to choose while other takes some contemplating and time to resolve. But when it is all said and done and we have made our choice, there is still the road we didnt choose and often times we wonder about the road not taken. In the first stanza is a place where two roads diverged which represents the encounter of having to choose from two paths a direction that will dictate the rest of ones life. The Road Not Taken basically talks about the many obstacles in life, the choices and decisions that you have to make, and how the things you choose affects everything in your life and in your future. Frost also tells how he chose a path or a road, that even though was odd or different from everyone elses, he went on with his instincts and decided that it was the right choice. He tells how one single decision in life can make huge or drastic differences being either good or bad. This was expressed when he said Two roads diverged in a wood, and I I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. I found that throughout this poem there was much symbolism within it. Identifying that it was written in first person form showed that this poem relates to the author on a personal basis, and that it was probably written to symbolize his life. But when talking about peoples lives, you can conclude that peoples lives are generally and individually very different from everyone elses lives, or at least seems to be because nobodys life can ever be the same as another persons. The thing that always holds true though, is that the major issues peoples lives are always ironically similar to each other or, at least can relate to them in many ways. Therefore, I found that this poem not only symbolizes or relates to the author, but it also symbolizes or holds true to almost everybodys lives. One of the major symbols within this poem is the roads. When he says Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, he is using the roads to symbolize the paths, choices, and decisions that he has to make in his life. Those decisions guide the way to his future, because when you come to a two way street or road you have to decide or make a choice on which path to take. Also when he says And sorry I could not travel both And be on traveler, he is telling us how he is insecure on which road to take because he is unsure of whats ahead and would like to travel both roads to come up with a conclusion or a decision on the correct road to take. So overall, what road basically symbolizes in this poem is the options that he has in his life and the decisions that he has to make. Another symbol in this poem is the many observations that he makes. When he says long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth, he is using his observations to symbolize the brainstorming, analyzing, and thinking you have to do before or ahead of time when you are offered two options in your life and only one path to take. He is telling us how we, the people always have to do those things first, to guarantee or insure that your decision is safe. Because who doesnt want the best for themselves? The title The Road Not Taken relates to the poem in many ways because the poem is basically about a road not taken. Deforestation Of The Pacific Northwest Essay Its about a person who is confronted with two options to choose from, a split road. Never really knowing the correct road to take the person chooses one path or road after analyzing .