Community Conversations
Want to talk about something? Ask about something? EMAIL us at team@voliSAT.com and we will post your comment/question and our reply.🗣️🗣️🗣️
Are Only Long Things Difficult?
We were sent an article that pointed out that the longest Reading passage within the current SAT® “is only 150 words”. This was cited as evidence that the test is “not tough” anymore.
So, only long things are difficult to comprehend?
Reading a sentence about the morphological novelty of echinoderms or a 14-word piece of dialogue from a Shakespeare play cannot pose a challenge?
Hmmm. We’re wondering a bit how much the person who wrote that article really knows about the current exam and what our students are facing. Noticing that a particular question type is shorter feels a bit superficial of an analysis.
We haven’t word-counted things yet, but that 150 number sounds right. When the SAT® officially switched to its current format in March of 2024, one of the more noticeable changes was indeed that the traditional long Reading Comp passages were gone.
Our resident expert(who will be teaching free Zoom sessions this week!) has also trained students on the LSAT, the entrance exam for law schools. Two-thirds of the current format of this exam is tied to blurbs that are the same length as current SAT® Reading blurbs. Does the brevity of these questions also make the LSAT “not tough”?
(Thank you to Bill U. from Austin, TX for sending us the article!)
Applying Test Optional
Colleges know the challenge that the SAT® presents. This is relevant to our conversation here about applying test optional.
We have been asked many times over the years about the validity/viability of applying test optional. Our general answer is pretty simple: it is clearly a legitimate option. A different question to consider is whether applying test optional is the most advantageous path to take. Consider this scenario.
A college is comparing two candidates from two different states. Both applicants have virtually the same G.P.A. They both are active, whether it be with sports, volunteer work, school clubs, etc. But, one of them has an SAT® score of 1200(which puts a student roughly within the 75% percentile nationally, meaning she or he is generally within the top quarter of testers) and the other applicant is applying test optional.
Earning a top quarter score is not something that most of us can do just by strolling in to the exam. Colleges know this.
In short, clearly students applying test optional are admitted to amazing institutions, such as the University of California(U.C.) schools and Wake Forest. What we wonder is how many more applicants are being admitted from the non-test optional pool compared to the test optional pool of applicants.
When in Doubt, Guess Blindly?
We just finished writing something for our students, and we thought we’d take a moment to post this corollary as well.
The idea of when in doubt, guess C stuck around for a good bit of time(and maybe is even still floating around). We’re here to tell you it was kind of never a thing.
We’re also here to pass along practical advice that you can pass along to someone testing: a pure guess is better than a tainted “educated” guess.
Many questions are written so that people will be influenced toward particular wrong answers. And so, sometimes, it is actually better to give essentially zero attention to a question and just guess blindly, making it less likely to being unduly influenced toward a careful crafted wrong answer. This may feel like an odd skill to potentially cultivate but this process is a rather odd/unique beast.
Some tester on some past test picked a bunch of C’s and got a better score than may have been expected, giving rise to a folktale-ish maxim. We are better informed. Goodbye ‘when in doubt, guess C’. Hello to seeing the power of a blind guess.
Why Some Colleges Went Test Optional
Some colleges went test-optional not because the SAT® wasn’t deemed to still be a strong criterion to be weighed. The issue was that the standardized test process was deemed economically unfair. We agreed.
We can talk a lot about the content side of the test. But, there are two other direct things we want to acknowledge here, two things that colleges have acknowledged the reality of for decades.
1. There is a how-we-can-handle-pressure aspect to this process that many colleges have likely always been interested in getting a sense of via students’ scores.
2. There is a willingness to train for something that colleges have also long valued gaining a sense of.
Everyone who knows a lot about the SAT(which certainly includes colleges) knows that nearly all of us are compelled to make time to prepare for the test in order to reach scores that better reflect what we’re capable of producing.
This reality was butting up against another reality: many students, without comfortable access to excellent test training, have been at a disadvantage. We are very interested to see what happens as we help remove this barrier.
There’s quite a bit more to talk about here, and we’d love to move in directions you would like us to go. So, let us know and we’ll keep these conversations going.
Neutralizing Possible State Bias
One reason an exam like the SAT® exists is to give colleges a less-subjective measurement.
Even within the same state, it can be difficult to know whether an ‘A’ in a math class within one school is comparable to an ‘A’ in a math class within a different school. Or, is one school’s ‘A’ better or worse than another school’s 92? Add different states to the mix and things can be even tougher to discern.
We typed “which state ranks last in education” in to Google and got back a response of West Virginia. Does this mean that colleges view an ‘A’ from a WV high school differently than an ‘A’ from a NJ high school? Whether any representative from any college would ever say so, the reality is, they might!
Enter a national test like the SAT, one that gives students an opportunity to neutralize potential state bias. A 1200 earned in Maine(shoutout Brenda!) is the same as a 1200 earned in Hawaii(shoutout Sabrina!).
Does a student from California have a better chance of being accepted to a college in Pennsylvania than a student from Mississippi(Google’s current answer for second-to-last)? As we may not be likely to get a direct answer from someone in authority, we put it to you to better control the situation on your own.
The Chicken or The Egg
When we get asked whether our free group sessions cover mostly factual information or mostly test-taking strategies, it makes us wonder if there are other services that exist that mostly only do one or the other. We are constantly talking about both.
Depending on the question, it’s….
….fact first, strategy second
In order to crisply execute some questions, a direct fact is compulsory to know.
(A) dogs. They
(B) dogs; they
For instance, all students want to know that a classic semicolon is used to connect two complete sentences. Knowing this fact, a student can then execute a test-taking idea, which is that, without even consulting the sentence tied to the hypothetical Writing Question we’ve provided options to up above, options (A) and (B) can be immediately eliminated, since they are grammatically identical.
….strategy first, fact second
If question #15 out of 22(which is the format of both current Math sections) is a question with an exceptionally bulky setup, one involving a right rectangular prism that is inscribed within a sphere, the strategic move is to flag the question and return to it later(or quite possibly never actually!) We know the test writers are intentionally placing this formidable obstacle ahead of other questions that we will undoubtedly find much more comfortable.
Upon returning to the question(which even a student seeking to score a 750 in Math would never have to do), the first fact that we’d have to have at our fingertips is that a “right rectangular prism” is just a goofy way of saying that we’re dealing with a box. The additional facts potentially tied to knowing how to compute volume or manipulate other geometry ideas are secondary to the initial savvy choice to leave the question so that we can execute other subsequent questions first.
So, between content knowledge and strategic know-how, which is more important? As our title reveals, we believe that one cannot exist without the other, and we are training a legion of students to have a complete understanding of how we can adapt to become masters of taking this very particular test.
how we conduct our orchestra
We start collaborating with students at various stages within this process. We meet some students who have already tested 2 or 3 times and have scores in the 1300, 1400s. Of course, many of our students we know from the very start of their test-taking journeys. A student who knows nothing yet of this test and a very seasoned student should not be in the same session, and so, with us, they never are.
Now, it could also seem like two experienced students with different questions/concerns might not belong in the same session either. But here, we will respectfully protest.
To achieve essentially any goal-score, students are compelled to do two things….
i) consistently get questions right that they already possess the knowledge and ability to get
ii) acquire the ability/knowledge to get questions that they are currently missing
An expertly orchestrated session harmonizes both of these objectives.
In every one of our sessions, there will be questions and ideas that everyone in attendance will want to have addressed. For all students, there will also be moments when they encounter a question they already know. There is a psychological benefit to these moments, as positive reinforcement is often integral within any rigorous undertaking. There is also a pedagogical benefit, as framing something we know against other concepts that are less certain(or completely unknown) is a powerful way to gain a crystal clear sense of what we know and what there is to continue to work toward. This ability to differentiate is an often overlooked part of this process.
And, to ensure that things are as excellent as they can be, at the front of any exceptional orchestra is a masterful conductor. If you have not already read our Why Train With Us? page, we invite you to read part of the formula that makes our maestro who he is.
