In the beginning of the reading they start by introducing Stanley Kaplan and how he was introduced to the SAT and how it has impacted his life. He starts by showing us how he first became introduced to the SAT when he was tutoring a student at her home. She presented the SAT to him and asked him for help and he was stumped because he did not think that the SAT was a test you could "prepare" for. Kaplan tried the best that he could to help her study for the SAT but as he said in the reading, "I could see that the questions were designed to test students' knowledge and application of basic concepts, not their ability to regurgitate memorized facts." (Kaplan 2) After several hours of looking over the test he finally comes up with a way to help her and in fact, it was similar to the way he teaches in his regular tutoring sessions. He challenged the students to "think harder and apply a broader range of math and verbal skills." Kaplan goes into further detail about how the SAT is structured and why they administer these test nationwide. He also talks about how the SAT is expecting students to put importance of the "how and why" when trying to place decently n the test to show their academic excellence. Kaplan explains how the SAT evens the academic playing field when discussing college admissions considering the fact that not every high school has the same grading process.
The author argued his points very well. He was clear in what he thought the problem was with prepping for the SAT and he researched different ways to help students prepare for the SAT. He encouraged Elizabeth to think things out and to think about the hows and the whys. Even with these general, broad test-taking strategies, I believe that if you don't know the concepts then you will struggle. It helps to have reading comprehension skills, problem solving, math concepts, and vocabulary skills, but if you do not know how to apply them on a test like the SAT then you will not do well.
I agree with the author when he says that the SAT is a test that you can't really study for. He supports this statement by saying that, "... the questions were designed to test students' knowledge and application of basic concepts, not their ability to regurgitate memorized facts." He then goes on to say that it was "an innovative test based on problem solving, not rote memorization."(Kaplan 2) I have taken the SAT twice and no matter how much I "study" the results are still the same. It's either you know the answer or you don't. It seems like it's a compilation of all the concepts you have learned or were supposed to have learned when you were growing up from grade school until high school. Since it was so long ago since you have learned this material you are being tested on, I agree with Stanley when he says that some students need to either learn this new information or just simply review it. (Kaplan 3) Kaplan also did a good job of illustrating the purpose of the SAT in retrospect to the college admissions process. There are a number of different grading scales and ways of assessing a student's performance throughout school. In order to be fair to every student applying to college or other post-secondary education institutions, they came up with a generic test to assess one's academic ability. Kaplan writes, "The College Board was promoting the SAT... to measure students' academic abilities regardless of where in the nation they attended high school." In my opinion, this makes sense but each school has different curricula so one student may be more "prepared" than the other and may be getting graded differently. It is certainly something that should be taken into consideration when admitting students for college.
The line(s) that stood out to me were, "Acquiring test-taking skills is the same as learning to play the piano or ride a bicycle. It requires practice, practice, practice. Repetition breeds familiarity. Familiarity breeds confidence. Confidence breeds success."(Kaplan 3) I picked this because it is short, concise and it flows. Most importantly, it is true. I believe that the only way to be familiar with something is deal with it repeatedly. Once you are comfortable with it, you are more confident. When you become confident, you know what you are doing and you have success at it. I also believe that repetition with application also helps on to be successful. It doesn't help you to just remember things but remember "how" to use them in context.
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