Getting ready for a standardized test can be an intimidating prospect. The goal in both your studies and testing should be to take all distractions away, including those grumbling in your tummy.

These days on the internet a quick search of ‘Brain Foods’ will pull up all kinds of wacky supplements and diets that profess to have the ability of supercharging your most important organ. But the real truth to eating for a serious test or test prep class is to keep it simple.

No Distraction, Remember?

The overall goal here is to ace that test. And as any good prep class will teach you, your goal should be to eliminate distractions. While it may be advisable to modify your diet, you certainly don’t want to make any radical changes that could give you an upset stomach or give you the need to go running to the nearest bathroom.

Your best bet is simply to eat some light foods which are already a part of your diet, but try to avoid anything heavy that will slow you down and make you tired.

Establish a Pattern

If you are going to make any changes, or incorporate foods that may encourage your brain to function at its max capacity, make the changes long before the test while you are studying. If you build a pattern of eating that corresponds to a pattern of study then there will essentially be no change once the real test comes around. This is a great way to program your body to respond mentally when certain foods are only associated with studying, like mints, which have been shown to increase brain function.
Beware of the Caffeine Crash

If coffee is part of your regular study regiment then by all means feel free to incorporate it into your testing regiment as well. Just be aware of two key factors that may affect you when it comes to coffee: 1) The Caffeine Crash. 2) The necessity of a bathroom.

Crashing down from a caffeine high could be the worst thing that could happen to you in the middle of a test, so remember to take it easy when juicing up. And that liquid is going to have to come out some time, so remember the second reason not to gulp the stuff down right before the big finale.

Snacks?

Last minute munchables are a good idea, but you don’t want to be Napoleon Dynamite and snack on a secret stash of tater-tots mid-test. For one thing what if the guy/gal next to you catches you and demands his/her fair share?

But seriously, snacking during the test is overall inadvisable. During most standardized tests you will be under time constraints, and you shouldn’t waste valuable calculating time by stuffing your face. However, snacking immediately before the test may be a good idea, particularly if it is going to be a long session like most standardized tests.

Nuts, fruit, and a little water are a perfect combo for this pre-test appetite quencher. And since studies show that mint is proven to increase brain function, you may want to include one to suck on during the test just in case.

This post was contributed by Katie Wilson, who writes about the top universities online. She welcomes your feedback at KatieWilson06 at gmail.com

Good luck to all those who are taking the PSAT on Saturday. If you haven’t prepped at all, please know that there’s still time. You may want to quickly sign up for ePrep’s free SAT trial. At a minumum, it will give you a sense for what to expect on Saturday.

PSAT scores should be ready sometime during the first half of December. Again, good luck.

When questioned, my uncle explained that years ago he used to let employees simply take what they wanted at the end of the day. The policy changed, however, after my uncle discovered that employees had fallen into the habit of putting aside or slightly damaging—during store hours!—the baked goods they wanted for themselves. Today, all unsold goods are collected by charitable organizations that work to assist the underprivileged citizens of nearby communities.

By the way, my uncle never described his employees as unscrupulous people. He chose, rather, to characterized them as good people who had merely slipped into a self-serving habit—one that was certainly understandable, but, unfortunately, at odds with the bakery’s profitability and my uncle’s livelihood.

My own experience with “Free” is somewhat different. Every year, I get to know a few students who want, but cannot afford, private SAT tutoring. Given my own background, I identify with such students and wind up offering to tutor them at no cost. By now you can probably guess that they are the students, year in and year out, with the highest rates of “oops I forgot about our appointment” and “I’m sorry I have to cancel on such short notice, but something came up.”

They are good kids. Trust me. That’s why I continue to volunteer my time each year. The problem is that they don’t have enough “skin in the game.” In other words, missing a session with me does not affect them where it often hurts most—the pocketbook.

So why, you might ask, am I telling you all this. Here’s the deal:

Since alpha testing ePrep for the SAT over the summer and launching ePrep for the PSAT in late September, well over six thousand (6,000!) students have registered to use at least one of the two courses. The problem, however, is that there is one stark difference between those who “purchased” a product from ePrep and those who “signed up” for a free trial.

The students who “purchased” are actually using the product, and their scores are increasing with virtually every practice session they complete. In contrast, many of those who “signed up” for a free trial have yet to complete a single practice test. This leads me to believe that, unless they are actively preparing some other way, the chances that their scores will increase have remained largely unchanged.

In fact, the first person to finish all of ePrep’s eight tests was an international student. By the end of the fourth test, she had improved her overall score by 320 points, exceeding ePrep’s 200-point guarantee by 120 points. By the end of the eighth test, she had improved her overall score by 430 points, exceeding ePrep’s 250-point guarantee by 180 points. (FYI, her best combined score was a 2180.)

The bottom line is this: “ePrepping” for the SAT works. There’s no doubt about it. It only works, HOWEVER, if you actually do it. To help get motivated, think about this: with each day that slips by, there are thousands of students using ePrep from home who are guaranteed to increase their scores. Don’t you owe it to yourself to be one of them?

Parent Response Options: (1) my child is simply not a good standardized test-taker, and there is nothing we can do about it; (2) the SAT is a flawed test, and my child is perfect; once colleges discover these truths, they will disregard his/her scores completely; (3) my child should definitely take the ACT; I heard that it’s easier and that it doesn’t require preparation; (4) preparing for the SAT the “right” way will be challenging, but ulitmately rewarding.

My thoughts on the parent response options above are briefly as follows: (1) not true; don’t go there; if your child does well in school, your child has already proven that he/she is a capable learner; the academic challenges presented by the SAT are no more difficult than those presented in high school, college, or life beyond; (2) while I would never argue against the claim that your child is perfect, I would gladly argue with those who contend that the SAT is a flawed test and those who believe that colleges will completely disregard SAT scores for the “perfect” student; the SAT sets an appropriately high academic standard and colleges will consider SAT scores (albeit, to varying degrees) in the admission process; (3) deciding whether the ACT is the better test for your child is not so simple, and the ACT is by no means easy; (4) for the last 16 years, I have been using the SAT to help prepare students for colleges that include, among many others, all of the Ivies, Stanford, and MIT; students who (a) resist the promises of “secret codes” and “quick fixes” and (b) prepare in earnest, will increase their SAT scores and prepare for the academic rigors of college.

In the days and weeks ahead, I will offer additional thoughts around SAT preparation issues. In the meantime, I encourage students and their parents to test drive ePrep by using ePrep Express. The course is free and there are no “strings” attached. I also encourage students to begin building “large and varied working vocabularies” by using WordSmith, ePrep’s interactive vocabulary builder. A trial version of WordSmith is included with ePrep Express.

More soon!

Link:
College Board

Last week was PSAT week for high school juniors and seniors across the nation. Students – did you stress over this test or did you take this event in stride? Did you feel prepared or did you feel blindsided? Take our poll and let us know!

Next Step – Preparing for the SAT

Taking the PSAT test is just one of many steps in the college entrance process. The next step you’ll take after receiving your PSAT scores is deciding how to prepare for the SAT based on the scores you received. Your great or not-so-great scores will let you know how much you work you’ll need to dedicate to preparing for the main (SAT) event!

About Your PSAT Scores

You’ll receive your PSAT results in about 6 weeks. Essentially, PSAT scores indicate how ready you are for college-level work. Each of the three PSAT sections are scored on a scale from 20 to 80. According to the College Board, average scores hover around the 50 mark for the individual PSAT sections. The scores from each section of the PSAT are then added up to reveal your total score.

TIP: You can estimate what your SAT score would be by adding a zero to the end of your PSAT section score. For example, if you scored 55 on the reading section, you could approximate this be a score of 550 on the SAT. Same goes for the total score – add a zero to your total PSAT score to arrive at a comparable SAT score.

Your PSAT scores also show how you rank against other students on a national percentile basis. This allows you to compare your PSAT scores with other students in your grade nationwide.

Also included in your score report is the Selection Index, and this determines your eligibility for entrance into the National Merit Scholarship Corporation programs (NMSC). The Selection Index is the sum of the three scores in each of the 3 test sections. The Selection Index scores range from 60 to 240, with the average score hovering around the 150 mark.

Of note – only high school juniors are entered inth the NMSC scholarship running, therefore high school sophomores will not see a Selection Index score in their PSAT score results.

Links:

www.collegeboard.com
National Merit Scholarship Corporation

The way it works is that after taking the PSAT, your scores are sent to the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, and if your scores meet certain requirements, your name is ushered into a group of candidates. The top 50,000 scores (out of around 1.4 million) are reviewed, and then 16,000 of those will be notified the following September that they have been named semifinalists and are given a detailed scholarship application to complete.

Eventually, 8,200 of the finalists become Merit Scholars based on:

• Academic records
• PSAT scores
• SAT scores
• Written recommendations
• Extra curricular activities

(Talk to your guidance counselor or visit the National Merit website about requirement specifics.)

In the March of your senior year, the NMSC will begin notifying winners of the three types of Merit Scholarship awards:

• National Merit $2500.00 Scholarships
• Corporate-sponsored scholarships
• College-sponsored scholarships

Of note – sophomores taking the PSAT are not eligible for the scholarship. The running is only open to eleventh graders taking the PSAT.

More about NMSC
Established in 1955, National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) is an independent, not-for-profit organization that operates without government assistance. NMSC’s goals have remained constant since its inception:

• To identify and honor academically talented U.S. high school students
• To stimulate increased support for their education
• To provide efficient and effective scholarship program management for organizations that wish to sponsor college undergraduate scholarships

Since its founding, NMSC has recognized 3 million students and provided some 324,000 scholarships worth over $1.2 billion.

Links:
National Merit Scholarship Organization
The College Board

Help us spread the word! Please be sure to tell your high school – including teachers, guidance counselors, and PTAs – about ePrep’s free access PSAT course.