SAT: Reasoning Test

If you must have known everything there is about SAT, think again. What does SAT stands for?

Well SAT does not stand for anything. It used to be Scholastic Aptitude Test before becoming Scholastic Asessment Test before representing nothing. Just like KFC. Anywayyyyyyysss, the SAT is an admission test that people must take in order to enter US universities as freshmen (Transfer students uses credit transfer systems which is another story). It is offered 7 times a year and is administered by Collegeboard. Today we will be talking about the SAT 1, or the SAT reasoning test. There were 3 parts to it - the maths section, the writing section and the critical reading section. There was a penalty of .25 for every answer that was wrong and they were scored upon 2400 (800 per section) . I used all these "were" and "was" because there is a new SAT coming right up.

Most of the universities accept either SAT or ACT, its rival. In March 2016, SAT Reasoning Test changed into a different format, which will be explained below:

Old SAT Structure

Writing (800)

25 minutes essay question

35 minutes multiple choice section

Questions:

25 Improving Sentences questions

18 Identifying Sentence Error questions

6 Improving Paragraphs questions

Math (800)

3 sections of 80 minutes in total

Questions:

44 multiple choice questions and 

10 student-produced response questions (no penalty)

Critical Reading (800)

3 sections of 80 minutes in total

Questions:

25 Improving Sentences questions

18 Identifying Sentence Error questions

6 Improving Paragraphs questions

New SAT Structure

Evidence-Based Reading and Writing (800)

65-minute Reading section

35-minute Writing and Language section

Questions: 

52 Questions (Reading)

44 Questions (Writing and Language)

Math (800)

25-minute No Calculator section

55-minute Calculator section

Questions:

20 Questions (No Calculator)

38 Questions (Calculator)

The SAT has always been a pain in the ass due to its nature. Personally I think that there is a certain limit to the scores you are able to obtain there even if you study very hard. This is because SAT has been designed to test your English skills - something that you can't study or comprehend overnight. The ability to discern between good and bad English as well as the wide range of vocab one needs to ace the SAT needs months to be honed. To be honest, when I study for the SAT I took 3 whole months to do the 10 practice tests in the blue book. After all, the SAT used to be called the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Aptitude - a natural ability to do something.

In my time, I only studied from the Blue Book, which teaches you the theory of what the SAT is going to cover. As well as 10 free practice tests! 10 tests of 3 hours and 45 minutes each! Which will be roughly consuming 35 hours of your life. There are many SAT book publishers out there such as Kaplan, Princeton Review and Barron's which I find unnecessary. They are either too hard or too easy as compared to the actual test, and the Blue Book is already more than enough. If you still can't satisfy your lust for practices, you can actually try CrackSAT for 5 more free practices.

As I took the SAT in 2015, most of the tips that I learned from practicing the SAT most probably couldn't be applied now as the format is different, however, I still think some rule of thumb applies: you still have to be careful in Maths.

1. Study consistently. SAT is not something you can ace in a cramfest. You will need to be practicing one test under exam conditions every week at the bare minimum. One test is almost three hours mind you. By studying consistently, not only you can avoid the pressure of the incoming test, but also you will see improvements after your practices which you can measure. You can't really do that if you never practice that way.

2. Learn a new word everyday. In order to study for the SAT, you must equip yourself with the most sequestered and obscure words since antiquity. Whether it is by using flash cards or smartphone apps, learning a new word everyday is the only surefire way to master the SAT vocabulary. I downloaded an app on my phone with a quiz that tested every word that I have learnt for that day + all the words I have learnt before. That was my method in expanding my SAT vocab as well as my SAT scores.

3. Analyse. Each time you do a practice, don't just stop after finishing it. Go back to the questions that you answered wrongly and figure out the reasoning to the right answer. Often enough, you are making the same mistake over and over again. I did not analyze my answers in the writing session at that time and I paid dearly enough for my writing score were the lowest. Do not give up if you often hit a brick wall in your SAT scores. Chances are some mistakes you did in the practices lays undiscovered yet.

Well, that is my own take on acing the SAT test. Learn a new word daily, study consistently and analyse your answers. With all these steps, I still think that there is a physical limit to what a person can achieve on the SAT due to its heavy emphasis on the English Language. People from non-English speaking background are severely disadvantaged, don't you think? But remember in the end of the day, SAT is just a component of your "holistic" application credential, albeit an important part.

P/s: I did not comment on the essay section because there is a huge change in the format.

Commonapp

Today we will be introduced to the US counterpart to UCAS. Meet Commonapp! (CA)

For those who wants to study in the US, you will have undoubtedly heard of this name. Yes, you will have to spend the few months before the January deadline dating this website. You will upload your documents, enter your details, describe your extracurricular activities, divulge your SAT scores -  basically telling Commonapp everything they are interested in which they will then relay on to the schools. Yes, Commonapp is the eyes and ears of Big Brother and also an extremely useful portal. Basically they streamlined most of the application into a website which is extremely useful. You can apply to as many universities as you want in Commonapp unlike UCAS which only allows 4-5 unis.

Disclaimer: Not every university uses Commonapp. Only more than 600 of the 4000 plus of the US unis are affliated with Commonapp but that is most of the well known ones. The university of California (UC) system employs an application system of their own, so does the University of Illinois and University of Texas - basically most state universities do not use Commonapp. However, sharp-eyed applicants might also notice that MIT also does not use Commonapp. And the reason is, according to some MIT employee: "There is nothing common about MIT."

Ok, not to digress, let me first identify a few common problems Malaysian applicants might face in Commonapp. First, you must have at least 3 teachers who are willing to stand by as your referee and your counselor. The counselor's job is to provide a background or context to your application. Where does the applicant come from? How is he like in person? What are his ideals? These are the gaps that the counselor is supposed to plug in to further the admission officers' imagination. Besides the main counselor recommendation, most schools require extra recommendation from the teachers, which will add value to the application. Like UCAS, your referee will be given links to upload your recommendations but unlike UCAS, they get to answer a few questions about you (Rate your attitude in class as compared to the other students). This questions were previously unknown to me until my teacher told me about it. And probably unknown to you too until you read this out. More about value and context soon.

More mystery than meets the eye

For most Malaysians who applied after their pre-university studies, you have to explain the gap that you took after SPM. Never ever say that you did nothing but "量地" (Measuring the land area) at home. So for SPM leavers, find a job, invest in your hobby, backpack around Malaysia, whatever it is make sure that you did something to keep yourself busy as you will need to talk something about the gap that you had. For me, I was conscripted into the Malaysian National Service and I wrote about the experience in my essay. Also, for those pre-university students, senior secondary leaving examinations means the A-Levels or equivalent exams that you took. If you are applying after SPM, you need not fill in this part (but still remember to find something useful to do during the holidays).

Next, the "honors" system is also something that we need to leave blank as it is only implemented in the US. It is not the "anugerah-anugerah"(awards) that we receive at school. We also need to publish our SAT scores and IELTS here. Note: Colleges will still want you to submit the SAT score electronically. There is no escaping that (I know some of you will want to know this). However, if you think that you are too poor to pay for the college application fees, you can e-mail your college to check your SAT scores for you. Also, you can ask your counselor to apply for a fee waiver, especially when you're applying to a lot of schools. One college application fee costs about $80 and sending one score via collegeboard is about $10 so this fee waiver will actualy help to cut a lot of your costs.

The activities section, begs the question, what are the actions, that gains admissions? 

Well, the truth is, everyone will be talking about the latest solution that they invented, the villages they adopted in Africa as well as the various academic Olympiads they won. We are talking about global competition here. Hence don't bother mentioning an activity unless it adds value to your essay. By this time, you should be able to grasp the abstract notion of a holistic application. All of the parts add together to build a true and concrete picture of yourself. BS too much in one part, and your application won't glue together. Hence, just write the activities that you think will build a good image of whom you want to portray as. Basically, we need to emphasize quality over quantity - even I didn't use all the 10 slots. Be descriptive as you talk about the activities and refrain from weird acronyms

For the essay in Commonapp, I will be talking about it in later posts but you must know that there exists an extra comment essay where you can continue to write about additional information that you feel might not be covered in your application (surprise!). I strongly discourage applicants to use this part as the admission officers reading your application is already bogged down with so much work that they will barely give it a skim-through. Although most of you have already Googled the prompt for the schools, there are actually additional questions in the college section (more surprises!). These questions are usually under 50 words, hence they don't show up as the college's supplementary essay but still they are important. For my Stanford application, I had to spend more time answering 8 of these short questions. That is something new that you need to know.

Still feeling confused about Commonapp? Any questions. If not, as always I will leave you with a few tips.

TIPS:

1. Start early.

2. Apply for fee waiver.
3. Sign into Commonapp to see for yourself

Have a nice day :)