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This web page contains links to one or more web pages that are
outside the FCPS network. FCPS does not control the content or relevancy
of these pages.
Each week during the Test Prep Project (January 2009- April 2009) there will be a new tip added to this site to help students prepare for taking the PSAT or SAT.
- Tip for the week of January 12, 2009
- Review the questions you missed on your October PSAT. Read the section
called “Improve Your Skills” on your PSAT score report to gain insight
into the kinds of questions that are giving you difficulty. Then access
College Board's Quick
Start to review an explanation of each question you either missed
or omitted. Remember to work on your skidrills
daily for 10 minutes. Always begin with the SAT Question of the Day.
- Tip for the week of February 8, 2009
- An important part of taking the SAT or any standardized test is to know how to pace yourself. On the SAT all questions have the same value, one point. Since easy questions have the same value as difficult questions, it is better to take time and make certain you answer the easier questions correctly and do not make careless mistakes because you are hurrying. If you have time left over after answering easy and medium difficulty questions, then use that time to decide which of the more difficult questions you should attempt.
- Tip for the week of February 15, 2009
- To help you with your test practice, we have provided you with some test taking hints.
- Be familiar with the directions and do not use valuable test time reading the directions. Use all your time for responding to questions.
- Except for the critical reading passages, all sections of the test have questions arranged from easy to difficult. It is to your advantage to answer the easy questions first and then try to work through harder questions as you have time. All questions count the same.
- You will lose 1/4 point for each incorrect answer (an exception: you will lose no points for the student produced responses). Unless you can narrow your choices of an answer to two, it is not to your advantage to guess at a question. It is better to leave it blank.
- Tip for the week of February 22, 2009
- Learn and use at least two new words each day to begin building your vocabulary. Use the idea suggested in class and tape your new words each day to the bathroom mirror!!
- Tip for the week of March 1, 2009
- If you are having difficulty with the math section of the SAT or PSAT, spend some time becoming more familiar with the concepts being tested. There is a good explanation of this at College Board math review which can help you know what concepts are needed. Check your previous practice tests to see if there are particular types of questions you are missing consistently and work with your math teacher to build your skills.
- Tip for the week of March 8, 2009
- Now that you have been taking practice tests, use the tests as a way to improve your performance on future tests. Go over all the questions you missed to see where you made careless mistakes and where you had real problems with the questions. Take notes of the types of questions that are giving you trouble. Those are the types of topics you should be practicing with your skill drills. Check to see if you are missing easy, medium or hard questions. Be careful not to guess at difficult question; be selective.
- Tip for the week of March 15, 2009
- When you are working on math problems remember to underline what the question is asking. Often the SAT math questions do not ask the obvious and you can make a careless mistake by not reading the question carefully. Also, often you can use the math answers to work backwards by plugging in the answers to solve the question.
- Tip for the week of March 22, 2009
- When you see an unknown word in a sentence completion question do the following: look for a prefix to see if it is a negative, positive, or neutral word; look for a word root that you recognize to help you determine a meaning; write down a possible meaning in the margin; determine the part of speech that is being tested and treat the answer choices as the same part of speech; try to recall in what context you have ever heard the word and how it was used.
- Tip for the week of March 29, 2009
- As you work on sentence completions, try underlining important words to help you better understand the sentence. Especially important are the words that help you know whether the sentence is a comparison of two thoughts or a contrast. Words and phrases such as although, however, because of, in spite of, and, but, therefore, etc. can give you clues to the sentence. Try to determine whether the word that fits in the blank(s) is negative or positive. This can help eliminate answer choices.
- Tip for the week of April 12, 2009
- Being involved in this test prep project has advantages beyond improving your PSAT and SAT scores. Colleges are the leaders in making changes in the test format because they wanted to get a better idea of the ability of high school students to work and think critically at a high level. These are the skills which make students successful at the next level of education. Working hard in this project will improve skills beyond the scope of the test and make you a higher level thinker!.
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