Progress Report

Do I Still Believe I Can Get the Perfect SAT Score?

Sticking with this bird by bird theme, I’m going to take on the big one today:

Do I Still Believe?

Here's the short answer:

yes

(with little "y")

I absolutely know I can do this (boldly). The ever so slight hesitation you hear in my voice has to do with the timeframe I set for myself (i.e. in the year of 2011).

When doubt encroaches, I usually turn to my teenage daughter and ask her if she still believes. She never wavers, and always responds with utter conviction: "Of course!"

And then I believe again.

This is what it’s come to after 8 months of studying, increasingly hard I might add -- and barely a whisper of a score improvement. I can honestly say that I had no idea it would be this hard.

Here's what I see as my biggest hurdle:

Will I learn to "MacGyver It" before the end of the year.

I'm not talking about IQ (i.e. potential) or knowledge (i.e. hard work). I'll devote every hour left in 2011 to the "deliberate practice" that's necessary. My hesitency is about my innate ability to think fast on my feet, under pressure with time constraints.

I've come to believe that some people have brains that are more prone to this type of thinking than others -- and, it's possible that gender plays a little bit of a role too -- but I'll get to that in another post.

The bottom line is this: Yes! I still believe, but with a few caveats worth noting:

The solid base of core knowledge -- as in the automatic, you know "the ladybug has spots" kind of knowledge -- takes way longer to attain than I'd ever imagined. Take my "elbow grease" theory, and multiply it by 500.

The final point I want to mention briefly here, but will address more fully in the near future, is that you have to be a great reader to do well on the SAT. Not just a voracious reader (i.e. me) -- but a precise reader (i.e. not me). You need that skill in spades to do well on all 3 sections (yes, even the math).

Illustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis

17 Comments | posted August 25th, 2011

http://www.wegrowmedia.com Dan Blank

A great reminder of the importance of accepting reality, yet never giving up!
- http://www.perfectscoreproject.com Debbie Stier
  
  That's me Dan....reality...keep going....reality...go....
  
  Thanks for your never ending support. It helps!
http://costofcollege.wordpress.com/ Grace

Yes, I think it's partly about the time, and this is something our children run into when they start to take the SAT in sophomore or junior year. Preparation really should have started in kindergarten.
- http://www.perfectscoreproject.com Debbie Stier
  
  Exactly. It's so interesting for me to watch my son going down the exact same road I'm already down. He does these SAT sections, and learns the moves -- but he continues to score about the same as he ever did, which frustrates him to no end. And he's working a fraction as hard as I am at this point. I haven't had the heart to tell him what it takes yet. I've floated the "Kumon" idea by him a few times, but he's not there yet.
- Anonymous
  
  Grace,
  
  I think yours is a common reaction, the assumption that since so many high school students have trouble with the SAT, it should be necessary start preparing for it years earlier. I think, however, that it is equally necessary to be very careful when defining exactly what is meant by "prep" -- in my experience, the SAT is excellent as a general diagnostic tool for measuring general mastery of very fundamental skills in English and Math; however, I think that any developing any curriculum tailored specifically to the exam itself rather than to the skills it tests is a very dangerous road to start down.
  
  It's a subtle distinction but one that is absolutely crucial. I say that because most test-prep is geared toward developing strategies for dealing with the test itself (how to manage time, how to eliminate answers, when to guess, how to decide which questions to answer, etc.) rather than toward developing a really solid foundation in the skills being tested (how do you actually figure out an author's tone from his or her word choice? when should the simple past be used rather than the past perfect?) Any curriculum that focused on the former at the expense of the latter would be the very antithesis of educational. When someone's skills are solid -- and I mean totally rock solid, not just kind of there -- the time issue takes care of itself. Time problems are a result of insufficient skills, not usually something to be focused on in and of themselves. Any curriculum that misses that fundamental point -- and from I've heard, a lot do -- is completely worthless in the long term. It might get the kids to jump through the next hoop, but at the end of the day they won't have really learned anything.
  
  Erica
Kalloy Bonifacio

great post, Deb. is 2011 a hard deadline or could the effort spill over beyond this year?

also, whatever happened with grockit? did you eventually work with them? i heard a good interview with the founder (http://mixergy.com/farbood-nivi-grockit-interview/) and liked their approach. curious about what you think of them.
- http://www.perfectscoreproject.com Debbie Stier
  
  Thanks Kalloy. I am actually willing to take lifetime, if that's what it takes, because I love the process so much. But I committed to a year, and then I owe my publisher a book about that year ;)
  
  I tried Grockit, though very briefly, and the short answer is that it wasn't a fit for me. I believe it works for other people, but for me, personally, and how I focus and learn, it wasn't a fit.
  
  I've seen that interview though and think he's great and the idea has a lot of potential.
http://twitter.com/akilbello Akil Bello

I like your comment about being a great reader. I'm not so sure you have to be a great reader as much as a reader with a great grasp of language and a sort of intellectual "rigid flexibility"

The SAT isnt about blind consumption of fact its trying to get at a type of unique application of fact. The real challenge is that most of use are not only not trained to do this we are actively trained not to do this. We are taught that you can "know what someone means" which is patently false.. you can know what is said or written but you can only guess at what someone means. I think this impacts reading in so many ways.. when you think reading comp, in HS kids are asked for their opinion on the meaning of text, suddenly you get to the SAT and your opinion is completely irrelevant and actively wrong. In math kids get used to how teachers ask questions and they develop habits that answer questions how teachers ask them (I had a student get 7.5 as the correct answer but grid in 8 becasue she thought she should round the decimal).

I'm not sure you saw this but i think it speaks a lot to what you are speaking of here. http://blog.bellcurves.com/blog/2010/05/23/starting-test-prep-early/
- http://www.perfectscoreproject.com Debbie Stier
  
  a) Love your post
  b) I have a whole post cooking in the hopper (i.e. my BRAIN) about what kind of reading is "great" reading (for the SAT, and otherwise).
  
  I'm running now -- but will respond more fully after yoga (my days should be divided into pre and post yoga chunks, because that's about it for me.)
http://twitter.com/akilbello Akil Bello

Oh and above all else you have to be careful. I can answer every question. I can do and understand every question. I dont think I'll ever get a perfect score. I'm not built that way. On my last SAT i got 2 medium math questions wrong, I'm sure it was sheer stupidity of adding wrong or something. As you guys have seen in my post I'm not a stickler for typos or dotting i's and crossing Ts (Firefox is screaming at me to put the apostrophe in dont and i refuse nor am i going to capitalize my i). To get a perfect score you have to learn to focus intently for 4 hours and be error free, thats immensely difficult.

Even the college board says all scores are ranges and a 780 is fundamentally the exact same score as an 800. If you dont get your 2400 where would you stop? Would you be happy with a 780 in each section?
- http://www.perfectscoreproject.com Debbie Stier
  
  FOCUSING FOR 4 HOURS is so immensely hard, I can hardly stand it. I don't know about you, but I get "interference" (not to mention worn weary by the end).
  
  I'm doing a program now called CogMed that's supposed to improve your focus and working memory. I've been doing it for 2 weeks now. At first I hated it. No I am starting to like/love/crave it. The doctor says I'm doing great! (I don't think he's humoring me either, though he could be.)
  
  The average person goes up 25 index points in 5 weeks. I've gone up 15 in 2 weeks. Not sure what that means -- but you're also supposed to feel the effects AFTER you finish the 5 weeks.
  
  We shall see. I am optimistic about the potential though, and I totally trust this doctor.
http://blog.pwnthesat.com PWN the SAT

I think, at some point in this process, there's a lightbulb moment where the different parts begin to come together. One of the things that makes this test so tough, as you've been finding out, is that there are very few PURE questions.

You learn everything there is to learn about parabolas, and then scour the Blue Book for parabola questions and find...not very many. And how many of those are pure parabola questions, that don't bring in other notions like function notation, or properties of lines, etc.
So once you've mastered one concept, you still have to wait around for mastery of other concepts to catch up before you see that huge score jump. It's frustrating, for sure. But the reward, in the end, will be that much sweeter.
- http://www.perfectscoreproject.com Debbie Stier
  
  Oh, that's good to know. I totally get that. I remember moved to Paris in college, I didn't understand a word of French in the beginning -- and all of my classes were in French (what was I thinking?). For 3 months I couldn't take a single note in class because I didn't understand a word anyone was saying.
  
  And then one day at right about the 3 month mark, I understood the art history professor describing a painting. My memory is that it just happened in a flash. In fact I can still remember what he was saying, all these years later.
  
  And after that moment, French just clicked for me and I've never forgotten it.
  
  Strangely, I think there's a connection here that I didn't realize before this moment. I remember the turning point was when I had that moment of clarity in that class, and then after that I relaxed and stopped trying so hard to figure out every word -- and then I got it, completely.
  
  By the way, I should have added to the end of this post, "BUT I'M HAVING FUN!!!!!"
June

Oh Debbie- I adore your courage! I believe, I believe!!!!!
- http://www.perfectscoreproject.com Debbie Stier
  
  Thank you June.....and I believe YOU!
Rogerssim

Hi Debbie,

I think you'd have better luck if you put out of your mind the idea of attaining a perfect score (contradictory I know as your site is called 'Perfect Score Project) and instead focused on the big ideas and questions that the SAT is supposed to show i.e. understanding. Have you checked out Carol Dweck's work on mindsets and how they can negatively or positively impact upon your life? Although, your acknowledgement that your score can be improved shows a growth mindset, your fixation upon the perfect score shows a fixed mindset that is concerned with the external rather than the internal. Growth can only come when we are willing to fail and reject perfection.

I know that when I've focused upon getting the best score on an assignment, or even doing anything to perfection it has always resulted in anxiety, lack of enjoyment and frustration. Take the Zen aspect to heart and focus on the thing itself, rather than the result as nothing but good can come from such an approach. The focus on your score, rather than consolidation and improvement of skills also takes you out of flow (Csickszentmihalyi's work on Flow would also be a suitable stopping off point). Don't forget too that you are at the performance plateau right now - before skills can improve they have a levelling off until they begin a steep, but gradual climb. Focus on the journey, not the destination. All the best - Simon.
- http://www.perfectscoreproject.com Debbie Stier
  
  Hi Simon,
  
  Thanks. Yes, I've read Carol's work.
  
  Actually, this is ALL about the process for me -- the process of finding out exactly what it takes and what kids go through -- and whether or not I did so horribly in high school on the SAT because I didn't study hard enough (what I've always assumed) -- or whether it's because of something else. I had my IQ tested -- it's not that ;)
  
  That post was a response to a question someone asked me -- but if you read the rest of the posts, I think you'll see that it's really about the journey for me. (If you read inferentially!)
  
  From the About Page:
  http://perfectscoreproject.com/about/
  My goal is to get a perfect SAT score, but more than that, it’s really to see if it’s possible to transform this universally loathed experience into a little bit of fun. If I’m lucky, I’ll learn a lot by walking a mile in my teenage son’s shoes. I promise to share all the details – from prices to the time invested, etc. And yes, I will share my scores.
  
  I should really answer the question that's asked to me most often, which is: What if I DON'T get the perfect score? To which I respond, "it's about the journey." But there's really a longer answer than that.
  
  Thanks.