Reply to Prep classes for HGC and MS magnet tests

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "Prep classes for HGC and MS magnet tests"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not prepping in summer but will start with Li or A plus in August = when school starts.   In the summer, my DC needs to redo 4th and 5th grade Math (pre- 2.0 curriculum) because this year the 4th grade HGC Math was a complete and utter waste. Having an older kid who went through accelerated Math in pre 2.0, I know what was being taught then.

[/quote]

So are you teaching him yourself this summer?[/quote]

Yup.  There are Math concepts that were not taught well in school this year.  So I am working with my kiddo every day with that (and trust me that I have to battle huge inertia for this).

Regardless of what A -Plus and Li tells you - the kids who do well are the kids who would have done well without the coaching (now I will be flamed - whatever!), so the acceptance rate is roughly 30% - 40%.  Now, the kids who are going for these classes are mainly HGC kids or accelerated kids at school, they are also well-off enough to afford the 1 K fee.

So - you have a bunch of self selected, high performing, well-off kids (Mostly Asians (including Indians), with very involved parents.

So, what is the benefit of these classes for my kids?
1) it is the discipline to sit down for a few hours and practice taking the test. 
2) The endurance to go through each section and not lose focus.
3) To revise, revisit, refresh material, to be familiar with the content area of what is being asked, so they do not draw a blank when they are asked something that was taught to them many months ago...(what the hell is GCF and LCM again?)
4) To take this whole thing seriously because his peer group is also taking the classes.
5) To actually learn to be a good test taker, ie - watch out for common mistakes when marking answers, to understand how the question may be worded to trick them etc.,  use process of elimination,  evaluate all the answers...etc.

Can you do a better job at home? Probably - if you have the patience and discipline to do that.  Or maybe you can pay your kid that 1 K for agreeing to sit down with you for a few hours every saturday for months and months and months.

Another thing - I will be sending my kid to one or the other - no question about it, and I do recommend it to my friends as well - but understand that they will not be able to help a weak student in this particular format.  For that - you may try getting your kid TUTORED by an MCPS teacher etc.  These guys are COACHING.

And by the way, when a particularly smart (or hardworking) student gets accepted in multiple programs (like for  HS in MCPS - student X gets accepted to RMIB, Poolsville SMACS, Poolsville Humaninties, Poolsville Global ecology) they count it as multiple acceptances.   So, you will see that there are some kids who will get into multiple programs, and many others who don't get into any - but these Coaching centers will count a single student's multiple acceptance as multiple acceptances from the program.  Just a wee bit deceptive.

Still - I will send my kid because there is no way we as a family have the discipline of making him study on his own.

My humble honest review!

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics