Beginner’s Mindset for Advanced Results
Sophisticated standardized exams like the SAT & ACT are, by their very nature and purpose, designed to be challenging yet accessible to all test takers. The architects of these instruments accomplish those twin goals by testing fundamental reading, writing, and math skills that everyone, in theory, should know in ways that exploit what they don’t know. That said, most teens bring little awareness of how these tests are designed the first time they sit down to take one. How hard can a test like this be anyway for someone who has been learning reading, writing, and math since kindergarten? Instead, like the fabled citizens of Lake Wobegone, most of us suffer from a tendency to overestimate our achievements and capabilities in relation to others. Yet, we cannot all be better than average on a test meticulously scaled to ensure that exactly half of test takers fall at or below the…