Changes to ACT Extended Time Accommodations
Extended time on the ACT and SAT has always been a boon to those students who require that accommodation. However, the two testing organizations deployed the 150% time allotment differently, such that ACT Extended Time has been widely perceived as more advantageous than the SAT version. Too bad that’s all about to change. To clarify, students who qualify for National Extended Time on the ACT currently receive a total of five hours for the four multiple choice sections alone, with an additional hour for the optional Writing Test. Test takers have the freedom to allocate their time on the multiple-choice sections as they see fit, which means a student could conceivably spend double time or more on some sections and even less than standard time on others. This contrasts with the SAT policy of granting 50% more time per section than usual. However, ACT is about to adopt an extended…
Pacing for SAT & ACT Passages
Your best scores on test day depend heavily on effective management of one of your most precious resources: TIME. As anyone who has ever been forced to leave the last ten or twenty questions on a test section blank, these exams are not designed for relaxed—or even comfortable—pacing. The designers of the SAT and ACT fully expect many test takers to run out of time. How can you make sure that you don’t suffer that fate on test day? The non-Math sections of both the SAT & ACT are passage-based, requiring students to grasp the essential elements of a block of text, tables, graphs, and/or figures. Those who spend too much time with a passage miss the opportunity to answer all the questions. On the other hand, those who skim too lightly risk a superficial or flawed understanding of what the passage was written to say. Your right-size time management…
Three Major Components of a Standardized Test
Into each and every life, some rain and a whole lot of standardized tests have got to fall. That’s just the way of the world. Why are standardized tests as regular as rain? For one, norm-referenced tests exceed all other assessments in ranking large populations in a given cohort. Consequently, most school-based groups make better decisions when incorporating properly designed standardized tests into admissions, evaluation, and planning processes. Students and strivers of the world, shake off that test anxiety: the path to most professions includes lots of bubbling answers in little ovals. Even without knowing what specific exams you’ll be facing, you can begin to prepare today by understanding the three major components of any standardized test: CONTENT Content describes the pool of knowledge and skills an exam is designed to assess. Some exams, such as APs and SAT Subject Tests, lean more towards discrete information and rules, whereas other…
Five Minutes Left…
Few words evoke more panic during a standardized test than the proctor’s mandated warning: Five minutes left. Some test takers are jarred out of their micro-slumbers, wasting precious resources by resting their heads on their desks instead of working through problems. But the shock to the system delivered just by hearing someone speak after a long period of focused silence increases exponentially in intensity for those testers who clearly don’t have enough time to answer all the remaining questions in the section. How do you make the most of that limited time? Your goal going into a test is to master the content, strategies, and state of mind needed to earn as many points as you need in the time you have. But all is not lost if you lose track of time. Stay calm and implement a Five-Minute Drill to make the most of a bad situation on any…
Strategic Laziness: Putting Downtime on Your Calendar
Now that another school year has ended and both students and teachers are looking forward to a much-needed summertime break, the time has come to praise the productive side of “downtime.” Do you ever look at your scribbled-over calendar days, resting your eyes with relief on an upcoming “blank” day when nothing is planned? You are not alone. Our busy world tends to valorize constant activity, but the truth is that taking breaks and having strategic downtime is crucial to doing your best work. Even the Harvard Business Review acknowledges The Upside of Downtime. What is downtime? For most students, the grinding schedule of weekday school hours suddenly melts away in the summer, and the student gains control of his or her time. Jobs, camps, trips, and summer sports begin to provide some structure to the upcoming days, but overall most students have more power to design their own days…
Top Timing Tips for Tests
Most standardized tests require maximum production in minimal time from those pushing for the best scores. In fact, the race against the clock adds an additional dimension of complexity to most exams. That’s why your test day preparations should always involve a watch. Three Steps to Making a Watch Work on Test Day Step 1. Find a watch; parents are perfect sources of functional if not fashionable wristwatches! Step 2. Wear a watch. Step 3. Use a watch… it doesn’t do much good if you don’t look at it! Analog or Digital? If my kids are representative of their generation, the ability to read an analog clock is gradually being relegated to the same dustbin of history where we find cobbling and calligraphy. Yet some argue that analog watches make keeping time easier: With an analog clock you can actually see where time has traveled and where it’s going…