Deb­bie Ja­cob

For me, it's that time of year again when I am bom­bard­ed with ques­tions about the SAT ex­am, which is re­quired for en­trance in­to many US-based uni­ver­si­ties. Many stu­dents re­turn­ing to sec­ondary school take that SAT ex­am in Oc­to­ber or No­vem­ber to get it out of the way be­fore De­cem­ber school ex­ams. If you're plan­ning to at­tend uni­ver­si­ty in the US a year from now, you will need your SAT scores by the end of De­cem­ber. I'm not a great fan of ex­ams. I al­ways pre­fer more cre­ative en­deav­ours-like projects-to mea­sure learn­ing, but I do like this ex­am, as far as ex­ams go. That's be­cause the SAT is a fair way to mea­sure your think­ing skills more than your knowl­edge.

Dur­ing the 18 years I have taught SAT Eng­lish, I have found that about 20 per cent of the ex­am comes down to knowl­edge and the rest comes down to how well you can fol­low a process to think your way through ques­tions. Of course you need to be able to read well to get a good score. To­day, I thought I'd an­swer some of the main ques­tions I get about the SAT ex­am, which opens up a whole new world of schol­ar­ship pos­si­bil­i­ties for stu­dents from T&T.

1. Where do I sign up for the SAT ex­am? The SAT Web site has moved from col­lege­board.com to col­leg­board.org. This is where you sign up for the ex­am. The cut-off date for sign­ing up is gen­er­al­ly about one month be­fore the ex­am. Look for use­ful in­for­ma­tion and tips about ac­ing the ex­am on the Web site about the SAT ex­am.

2. What is the dif­fer­ence be­tween the SAT ex­am and the SAT II ex­am? A SAT ex­am score is re­quired for ac­cep­tance by many US-based uni­ver­si­ties. The SAT ex­am mea­sures maths and Eng­lish skills. The SAT II ex­ams are spe­cif­ic sub­jects ex­ams re­quired by some col­leges with­in uni­ver­si­ties. For ex­am­ple, if you want to go in­to pre-med at Har­vard, the de­part­ment of med­i­cine might re­quire ad­di­tion­al ex­ams in var­i­ous sci­ences. These would be SAT II ex­ams.

3. Is it true that his­to­ry and sci­ence are now part of the SAT ex­am? This ru­mour has been go­ing on for years. The SAT ex­am does not mea­sure your knowl­edge in these sub­jects, but read­ing com­pre­hen­sion pas­sages might have ex­cerpts from works in his­to­ry or sci­ence.

4. What is the best way to pre­pare for the SAT ex­am? Read, read, read. You need good read­ing skills to main­tain your con­cen­tra­tion for this marathon ex­am. Read­ing helps you to de­vel­op your an­a­lyt­i­cal skills.

The Col­lege Board says you should be read­ing half an hour a day, and you should read 25 books a year for the en­tire time you're in sec­ondary school in or­der to do well on this ex­am. Read­ing will help you in all of your school work.

You can't af­ford to say you don't have enough time to read, and you can't con­vince me that you can't squeeze time out of your Face­book, tex­ting, idle lim­ing or TV time. Read­ing is an in­vest­ment in your fu­ture.

5. What are the best books to read in or­der to pre­pare for the SAT ex­am? Read a va­ri­ety of books: sci­ence, his­to­ry, good mod­ern lit­er­a­ture and clas­sics. You want books that will help your to build your vo­cab­u­lary and de­vel­op your an­a­lyt­i­cal skills. You need a com­bi­na­tion of fic­tion and non-fic­tion books. Well-writ­ten mys­ter­ies are a fun way to build an­a­lyt­i­cal skills.

6. Should I take a SAT prepa­ra­tion class? You do need a sol­id SAT prepa­ra­tion course be­cause some of the top­ics in maths are not cov­ered at CXC or CAPE lev­el. The es­say writ­ing is a bit dif­fer­ent from the way es­says are set up in school here, and you need to un­der­stand the "tricks" in­her­ent in this ex­am.

7. How is my es­say grad­ed? The es­say is grad­ed in much the same way that CXC es­says are grad­ed. There are two read­ers who fol­low a pre­scribed rubric for grad­ing your es­say. Read­ers score the es­say based on a six-part rubric, which is a fair and good mea­sure of any es­say that you will be re­quired to write in sec­ondary school and uni­ver­si­ty. This is a ba­sic es­say that must be com­plet­ed in 25 min­utes.

8. When should I first take the SAT ex­am? It's not a bad idea to take the SAT ex­am af­ter you have com­plet­ed your CXC ex­ams. Your maths and Eng­lish will be fresh in your mind, you can build on those skills and tack­le the new top­ics, and if you get a good enough score to get a schol­ar­ship, you'll have op­tions.

Here's a sug­gest­ed read­ing list for SATs:

1. The Tip­ping Point by Mal­colm Glad­well.

2. Wash­ing­ton Square by Hen­ry James.

3. Miguel Street by VS Naipaul.

4. Pride and Prej­u­dice by Jane Austen.

5. Wide Sar­gas­so Sea by Jean Rhys (there is a Macmil­lan CXC study com­pan­ion for this book that will help you with all the skills you need to de­vel­op for the ex­am).

In the near fu­ture, we'll tack­le writ­ing skills.

Good luck.

THOUGHTS

• I'm not a great fan of ex­ams. I al­ways pre­fer more cre­ative en­deav­ours-like projects-to mea­sure learn­ing, but I do like this ex­am, as far as ex­ams go.

• That's be­cause the SAT is a fair way to mea­sure your think­ing skills more than your knowl­edge.

• Dur­ing the 18 years I have taught SAT Eng­lish, I have found that about 20 per cent of the ex­am comes down to knowl­edge and the rest comes down to how well you can fol­low a process to think your way through ques­tions.