Test Day Nightmares: Delayed Start Time
Sir Topham Hatt, the magisterial Fat Controller in the Thomas & Friends series, is notorious for his commitment to making the trains run on time. Nothing chafes him more that the twin terrors of confusion and delay. Nothing should irk you more either on test day, especially when the confusion and delay come from clueless proctors. Such was the sorry situation during the April 2016 administration of the ACT in a school district that shall remain nameless. One of our students was on the waitlist, so she arrived at the exam over an hour early. The proctors placed her on a line with other students who were skipping the ACT Writing Test, but allowed students taking Writing to enter. She remained on that line for more than two hours. Consequently, she and other students began their exam somewhere between one and two hours late. No timing strategies can compensate for…
Always Know More Than The Proctor
Do you know that feeling when something you’ve anticipated or even dreaded for a long time finally occurs? Now that the new SAT looms just a few days away, many teens are experiencing that exhilarating mix of expectation and anxiety. But smart students prepare for tests, and we’ve had the privilege of seeing some really bright and motivated high schoolers integrate information about the new test into their existing understanding of the ACT and former SAT. In fact, I fully expect some of our students, for better or worse, to know more than the test proctors. Standardized tests offer valuable data to admissions and licensing authorities because of the rigid consistency with which each exam is meticulously designed and administered. Yet for all the psychometric precision applied to test development, much less standardization occurs at the point where many important tests meet the testing public. For example, most SAT and…
Test Day Nightmares: Wild Weather
This past weekend, a massive Nor’easter named Jonas slammed the East Coast, dumping feet of snow on states that rarely see inches of accumulation in a given winter. Unfortunately, this past Saturday was also the last scheduled administration of the version of the SAT first introduced in 2005. Something had to give, and you can be sure it wasn’t the weather! This time around, wild weather shut down test centers from Massachusetts to Georgia and as far west as Mississippi. Nobody can predict where inclement conditions will postpone tests in the future, but anybody can and should prepare for the worst. How will I know if bad weather will postpone my test? The best way to find out if your test administration is being cancelled due to inclement weather is to listen to the local radio or television station that normally carries school announcements. If you are taking the…
ACT’s Ludicrous Break Policy
The current ACT takes over four hours from the proctor’s lengthy monologue to the last furious moments of the Writing Test. By any standard, working intently over that span of time takes a considerable toll on a test taker’s physical, mental, and even emotional resources. That’s why these lengthy standardized tests tend to include breaks. Why are breaks important? Basically, our bodies and brains need periodic breaks to maintain peak performance. Nobody is going to physically collapse after the strain of four hours of continuous testing, but scores suffer without occasional respite. Even a microbreak–from 30 seconds to 5 minutes–flushes fatigue and promotes productivity, problem solving and creativity. Test breaks become more effective when students can get up and move around or stretch and drink water and eat healthy, performance-sustaining food Unfortunately for today’s teens, ACT does not seem to support beneficial breaks. An official administration of the ACT incorporates…
Test Day Nightmares: Misprinted Test Booklets
Something every successful test taker must bring to the SAT or ACT–apart from pencils, a calculator, a watch, and acceptable ID–is an imperturbable ability to ignore or overcome all manner of crisis. Whether other test takers are freaking out, proctors are messing up, or wildlife is crashing the party, distractions abound to distract test takers from their best scores. But trained minds can cope with any and all of these external crises. What about when the problem is the test itself? Students taking the SAT this past Saturday were almost finished with their exams when they had to contend with a printing error in the standard test books provided by ETS. The time allotted for the last reading section was incorrectly written as 25 minutes in the student test books but correctly identified as 20 minutes in the script and manual provided to test center supervisors. While the misprint appeared…
Cell Phones on Test Day
Cell phones… how did we ever live without them? To students who have grown up enjoying the unparalleled convenience of being able to contact anyone or look up any question at any time, the prospect of going without a mobile phone seems utterly horrifying. And yet, as you sit for some of the most important tests of your high school career, your phone cannot help you. In fact, it may hurt you. Obviously–and this should go without saying–you may not use a cell phone during an official administration of the ACT, SAT, or PSAT. — You may not make or receive calls. — You may not send or receive messages. — You may not record or stream audio or video. — You may not even use a phone in place of a calculator. Obvious, cell phones are at the top of the list of prohibited devices for test day. In…