THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 24, 1997 TAG: 9701240056
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Grace Hsiu
LENGTH: 76 lines
HAVE YOU EVER had one of those sixth-sense premonitions about something you've been worrying about in the back of your head for some time?
Like misplacing your wallet somewhere and all of a sudden you know it's in the left back pocket of those jeans sitting on the dryer, so you look and there is is?
Well, the same thing happened to me when I was in the seventh grade, except with something called Scholastic Aptitude Test scores. I literally knew that my scores of evaluation had come that afternoon, and I had an odd feeling that I had done well enough to think that, well, that I had done well.
At least well enough for an average, snotty-nosed seventh-grader. Let me tell you, it was an enormous relief to get that premonition.
It was also an enormous mistake. A fat, loathsome, disgusting, revolting, horrific mistake based on wishful thinking.
While the scores did come that very afternoon - I got that part right - they also heralded that my skills in reading comprehension were only an eighth of an inch past the National Cretin mark. Not very impressive. But then who wants to read long-winded reading selections about the social ramifications of midwifery in the 1700s on a Saturday morning?
By this time, I had managed to get through middle school and enter high school, where I learned of something extremely important my sophomore year. That is, important if you are looking to upgrade your SAT scores.
And that was achievement test workshops sponsored by Glenn LaFerriere, who has tutored many students in the math section of the SAT. As you might expect, LaFerriere is extremely well-informed on all the arcane rules of the mathematical portion of the test. Like whether or not you ought to guess like a rascal or just omit the problem entirely and just how that will affect your score.
LaFerriere's group of educators, called TEAMS for Teachers Educating and Motivating Students, are willing to help students upgrade their scores, and they have offered programs and workshops (Beat the SAT, Dream Team) before the dreaded evaluation. And the advice works surprisingly well. These workshops have proven extremely successful and proudly boast of boosting such depressing scores as 1090 to a stunning 1450, and an already excellent 1320 to a take-the-cake score of 1500. The secret?
``It's all a game. Are you going to play?'' replies LaFerriere.
Since the January testing date is the Saturday, you may feel as if you're going in half-blind and slightly discombobulated. So here are some pointers that the Beat the SAT workshops propose:
1. Do I always go on my first hunch? That depends. What kind of math/verbal student are you? (Not Strong Yet/Strong/Stronger than Hercules.) The key thing is that you have to be honest with yourself here. The second factor is how hard is the problem? (Easy/Medium/Harder Than Tacks.) It shouldn't take you more than a few minutes to figure out which answer is not going to work with the other.
2. Try to substitute the answers that they give you into the math problems when you don't know how to approach the problem.
3. Build a bridge between the two words in the Analogies section and then use it for each of the answers.
4. Finish the sentence in the Sentence Completion section before looking at the answer, and then compare your word with one of the answers. Be sure to look for such words as ``but'' or ``and '' that show the comparing/contrasting nature of the sentence.
5. Never read the reading selection. Not unless you really want to. The only parts you really need to read are the first and last lines of each paragraph, as well as the italicized intro. Most of the time, reading the entire selection will cause confusion because it is, after all, long-winded.
Maureen Thorson, a 19-year-old, first-year student at the University of Virginia (who also got a whopping good score compared with my piddling one), is about the only other person who agrees with my philosophy of SAT scores: ``Their only true purpose is to make excellent impressions on people at cocktail parties.''
And you may or may not agree. MEMO: Grace Hsiu is a junior at Cox High School. Her column appears
twice a month in Teenology. If you'd like to comment on her column, call
INFOLINE at 640-5555 and enter category 6778 or write to her at 4565
Virginia Beach Blvd., Virginia Beach, Va. 23462.