Reply to SAT "adversity" adjustment

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]https://www.wsj.com/articles/sat-to-give-students-adversity-score-to-capture-social-and-economic-background-11557999000

Wonder how they'll define adversity.

It is hard for me to support it as a "donut hole" parent, but I do recognize that this is appropriate direction g[b]iven how prep classes routinely up SAT scores by 200-300 points[/b].

Thoughts?[/quote]

this is a fallacy--I think external studies have that when you use a real SAT for pre and a real SAT for post (not some in-house equivalent amassed from selecting problems from prior tests or creating analogues)prep raised scores on average 30-40 pts (which is not unsubstantial, but not drastic) and that most prep places massaged data in ways to make gains appear far larger than an external assessment would find.[/quote]

I taught LSAT and SAT Math prep in law school as my side gig for Princeton Review.  This is true. Most of the gain then were in math, because verbal is hard to move.   Now, reading comp is hard to move, and English sentence, grammar section is less so.  Most gains are based on test familiarity, which kids can get without spending thousands of dollars.   I was able to move my kids scores 60 points in about 10-15 hours with just the SAT Book of 8 released tests.

So, as an aside, I will save you thousands of dollars.

Have your kid take a released copy. Look at what they missed.  How many in each section.  Pick their weakest section that isn’t reading comp— the RC score is very hard to move. Your kid has either read their whole life or not.   So, look where they can get the most points back with the least effort.

Have your kid work through the SAT Test Book pointers on their worst, no RC section, and do some Kahn Academy on that section.

Have your kid kid retake their worst section only several times using the released tests and really look and understand what they missed and why.

Repeat if you have time and they missed a significant number of questions on their second worst non RC section.

Take another couple full tests in the lead up to the SAT.

That’s all most test prep companies do.  And they are less efficient, because they are teaching to a class and do both language and math, which your kid might not need.  And they have to pretend RC will move. It won’t.  [/quote]

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