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Twenty minutes before his seminar on the new SAT was scheduled to begin, test-prep author Adam Robinson had already attracted a crowd of students and parents eager to hear his tips on acing the stress-inducing exam.
Robinson, who co-founded the Princeton Review test-preparation service, eventually had a standing roomonly audience of about 60 for his Jan. 22 talk at Almaden's Barnes & Noble Booksellers.
Robinson's advice to high-school juniors considering whether to take the SAT on March 12--the first time it will be given in its new, longer form--was simply, "Don't."
"I'm betting there will be lots of problems with it," said Robinson, adding that proctors used to the old test's time limit of 30 minutes per section might forget that students have only 25 minutes to complete each section.
When students do opt to take the SAT, they'll be tackling an essay in addition to the old-school verbal portion of the test. In writing the essay, Robinson said, students should focus as much on quantity as quality.
"The first thing a grader sees is how long your essay is," he added. "You must write fast and fill up the full two pages [provided]. If they see two full pages, they think, 'This person has a lot to say.'"
While the rules allow the use of personal examples in essays, Robinson cautioned against it.
"What impresses English teachers? Books. Use a novel you know really well, and for good measure, throw in an historical example," he advised.
Since the graders will spend an average of 25 seconds on an essay, Robinson added, "They're not going to debate you as to what Jane Austen had in mind. They're just going to know that you read Jane Austen."
Appearance is also important in essay-writing, said the author.
"Indent your paragraphs clearly," he told the future test-takers. "It suggests you organize your thoughts. So do commas: When in doubt, throw in a comma."
Students scribbled notes throughout the seminar, and afterward parents purchased Robinson's book, The RocketReview Revolution: The Ultimate Guide to the New SAT. Several adults confessed that the thought of taking the SAT still filled them with dread.
"I think it's because we didn't do any prep," said one mother. "We didn't take any courses or pretests. We just went in cold."
Robinson cautioned his audience against going in cold or taking the SAT "just to see how you'll do."
"Once you get a bad score, it's not easy to recover, so you should prepare," he said, adding that preparing for the SAT is very different than preparing for a classroom test.
"If you want a high score on the SAT, you have to change the way you take tests," Robinson said. "In school, harder questions are worth more, so you spend more time answering them. If you do that on the SAT, you're in big trouble. Every question is worth the same amount."
Robinson suggested taking three passes at the test.
"The first pass is for the questions you know," he said. "Then you go back and scoop up the questions you know but will take a little time. Then you scoop up the questions you don't know if you can do."
Elizabeth Wimmer, a junior at Pioneer High School, said she'll probably take some of Robinson's advice when she takes the SAT in May. Wimmer said she's actually looking forward to writing an essay.
"It will probably help me some because math isn't my strong point," she added.
Changes to the SAT
Writing
* A new writing section will be added to the test. Students will be asked to write an essay that requires them to take a position on an issue and use reasoning and examples to support their position.
* The essay will be similar to the type of writing required on in-class college essay exams.
* Multiple-choice questions will measure a student's ability to identify sentence errors, improve sentences, and improve paragraphs.
Math
* The new math section will include topics from third-year college-preparatory math, such as exponential growth, absolute value, functional notation, and negative and fractional exponents.
* Quantitative comparisons will be eliminated.
Critical Reading
* The critical reading section, currently known as the verbal section, will include short and long reading passages.
* Analogies will be eliminated, but sentence-completion questions will remain.
Total Testing Time: 3 hours and 45 minutes, including an unscored 25-minute variable section (which helps in the development of future test questions).
Current SAT: Math
Time: 75 minutes
Two 30-minute sections;
one 15-minute section.
Content:
Multiple-Choice Items, Student-Produced Responses, Quantitative
Comparisons
Measuring: Number and Operations, Algebra I and Functions Geometry; Statistics, Probability, and Data
Analysis.
Score
M 200-800
New SAT: Math
Time: 70 minutes
Two 25-minute sections;
one 20-minute section.
Content:
Multiple-Choice Items, Student-Produced Responses
Measuring: Number and Operations, Algebra I, II, and Functions Geometry; Statistics, Probability, and Data
Analysis
Score
M 200-800
Current SAT: Critical Reading
Time: 75 minutes
Two 30-minute sections;
one 15-minute section
Content:
Sentence Completions,
Passage-Based Reading, Analogies
Measuring: Extended Reasoning, Literal Comprehension, Vocabulary in Context
Score
V 200-800
New SAT: Critical Reading
Time: 70 minutes
Two 25-minute sections;
one 20-minute section.
Content:
Sentence Completions,
Passage-Based Reading
Measuring: Extended Reasoning,
Literal Comprehension, Vocabulary
in Context
Score
CR 200-800
Current SAT: Writing
Time: No test currently
Content: No test currently
Score: Not applicable
New SAT: Writing
Time: 60 minutes
35-minute multiple choice;
25-minute essay
Content:
Multiple-Choice: Identifying Errors, Improving Sentences and Paragraphs
Student-Written Essay: Effectively Communicate a Viewpoint, Defining and Supporting a Position
Score: W 200-800
Multiple-Choice Subscore: 20-80
Essay Subscore: 2-12
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Photograph by Anne Gelhaus