College Writing Course #3 - Nouns that SPEAK

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College Writing #2 – Sentences That MOVE

College Writing Course #1 - The Power is in the Verb

 

Getting Ready for Organic Chemistry

SMART Guessing - Standardized Test Taking Tips

Test Time - How to get Through It

So Now You Have to TAKE that EXAM…

…You’ve done all you are going to do about studying.  Worked all semester.  Crammed all last weekend.

NOW let’s talk about actually TAKING the exam!

Time Management

For a lot of students just getting DONE on time is a struggle.

Keep these things in mind:

·         Bring a watch.  The wall clock may not be working, and you need to keep track!

·         Look over the test BEFORE YOU START and settle on a schedule for yourself.  If there are essay questions and multiple choice questions give yourself more time for the essays.  Leave 5 or 10 minutes at the end for ‘go-backs’ and looking over your answers Before writing the essays, take the time to write a quick but organized outline of each essay. Use the  margin of the test itself, or the cover of the blue book.  Seriously now – WRITE IT DOWN!

·         If you have a multiple choice test, don't spend too much time on any one questions. If there's anything you don't know, skip it and go back to it later. Your "backburner" memory may kick in and cause you to remember.

Relieving Test Taking Anxiety

Nervousness can actually help.  It can keep you focused and alert  --  up to a point.  But you need to keep it from getting out of hand.

·         Stretching. Stop every few minutes and stretch your neck, hand, legs – wherever you feel tension.  It is worth the 30 seconds to FEEL better!

·         Don't watch the other students.  Writing continuously doesn’t mean a good score.  DEFINITELY finishing early means nothing about the grade.  Just do your test at your pace.

·         Focus on the questions before you, not that running script of worry in your head.  No, this test is NOT the end of the world, probably not even the end of your grade in the class.  CERTAININLY it only measures what you know about the subject today, NOT if you are a good and valuable PERSON or anything else important.  Worry some other time,  ANSWER now.

·         Deep Breathing.  Every  time you turn a page – take three DEEP calming breaths.  Amazing how much this helps!

Sad but true – that was it!  Turn in the best paper you can – and move on to the NEXT thing.

Good Luck!

by: Jo Karabasz
Overlook Tutorial Academy

Download this article as a file HERE

Turbo Study for that TEST

TURBO Study

Take out all your stuff -  your notes and your book
include tests and such – they each need a look
Homework and quizzes were important to do
and now will have help to offer to you

Use sense for your work spot right off the bat
get light on the table and send out the cat
Find now both some food and a drink
but don’t forget sugar makes it tougher to think

Remember time is short – choose topics with care
focusing on projects as a guess is quite fair
Check the questions that were on past tests
that they’ll turn up again is a good guess

Be positive – this can all work out
study with a friend – and neither of you pout
55 minutes an hour – remember what I said
stop with a few hours to go and get to BED

One last thing – make a single sheet covered with the best
go for ideas, not facts – those help the most on the test
And this advice is not new  -- no matter how you do
it’s much less of a ZOO  -- if you study not ONE night, but TWO!

I know you hear ALL THE TIME not to cram for tests.  I actually DISagree.  Last minute TURBO STUDY can be a solid PART of you overall success plan.  Notice ‘part’?  Take the advice of my little poem, and get the MOST out of it.

Good LUCK!

Jo Karabasz
Overlook Tutorial Academy

Download this article as a document HERE

Aesop and Organizing Advice for Middle Schoolers

Aesop and Advice for Middle Schoolers

Stress is hard on kids just like it is on adults.  There are a lot of reasons for stress you can’t do much about, but one thing you CAN do is take control of ORGANIZING your life and your work. 

Aesop may not have known a lot about modern life but here are a few of his fables to remind you about getting organized.  Click the title to read the original fable.

The Boy and the Filberts

  A BOY put his hand into a pitcher full of filberts.  He grasped as many as he could possibly hold, but when he tried to pull out his hand, he was prevented from doing so by the neck of the pitcher.  Unwilling to lose his filberts, and yet unable to withdraw his hand, he burst into tears and bitterly lamented his disappointment.  A bystander said to him, "Be satisfied with half the quantity, and you will readily draw out your hand."

Don’t get your hand stuck in the pitcher by grabbing too much – work step-by-step!

Decide what is REALLY important to you – what things you want to accomplish.  Write these goals down so you never forget.  Then do at least ONE TINY thing every day that is JUST meant to move toward a goal.  For instance, if you have a goal of running a 5K race, you might do something as small as replacing your shoelaces in your running shoes if you have only that much time to spend.  You will get there faster than you imagine that way. 

Make a to-do list for EVERY day.  Include what MUST get done, what might get done AND your ‘tiny steps’.  Don’t try to do ALL of a big job at once – do it one…’handful of nuts’ at a time.

The Farmer and His Sons

  A FATHER, being on the point of death, wished to be sure that his sons would give the same attention to his farm as he himself had given it.  He called them to his bedside and said, "My sons, there is a great treasure hid in one of my vineyards."  The sons, after his death, took their spades and mattocks and carefully dug over every portion of their land.  They found no treasure, but the vines repaid their labor by an extraordinary and superabundant crop.  

Take care of your work first.  If you put it off you KNOW you will never get to it!  Talking with friends, a favorite CD, a video game, a TV show or just daydreaming will always be more fun.  But, in the long run you will be happier with your day if you took care of everything on your to-do list.

It’s true! Getting tasks DONE eases stress and putting them off increases stress  --  and  --  this kind of stress can RUIN your day and get you in trouble at home and at school,

Just as it was for the Farmer’s sons - hard work will definitely pay off for you.  So grab your shovel and DIG IN!

The Hare and the Tortoise

  A HARE one day ridiculed the short feet and slow pace of the Tortoise, who replied, laughing:  "Though you be swift as the wind, I will beat you in a race."  The Hare, believing her assertion to be simply impossible, assented to the proposal; and they agreed that the Fox should choose the course and fix the goal.  On the day appointed for the race the two started together.  The Tortoise never for a moment stopped, but went on with a slow but steady pace straight to the end of the course.  The Hare, lying down by the wayside, fell fast asleep.  At last waking up, and moving as fast as he could, he saw the Tortoise had reached the goal, and was comfortably dozing after her fatigue. 

Be ON TIME!  Be as quick as the Hare, if you can, but leave yourself enough TIME to be a Tortoise!

I had a friend in school that was always late.  It made her crazy with worrying about it.  Being early is SO MUCH EASIER.  Get up 5 minutes earlier in the morning, use the alarm on your phone, and even get a friend to call you to remind you about something IMPORTANT you need to get to, if necessary.  Before you go to bed at night, get out your clothes and pack your backpack…that way you might not have to be COMPLETELY awake before you leave the house!

The Ant and the Grasshopper

  In a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content.  An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest.

  "Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper, "instead of toiling and moiling in that way?"

  "I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said the Ant,"and recommend you to do the same."

  "Why bother about winter?" said the Grasshopper; we have got plenty of food at present."  But the Ant went on its way and continued its toil.  When the winter came the Grasshopper had no food and found itself dying of hunger, while it saw the ants distributing every day corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer.  Then the Grasshopper knew: It is best to prepare for the days of necessity.

There are a hundred things you need to be able to find when you need them.  Calculator, clean socks, phone charger, colored pens, house key, graph paper…….

It can really waste time and create stress when something is missing – not to mention how parents get mad about running for something at the last minute because it’s lost.  AVOID this situation by putting everything away, every time.  Clear your desk.  Keep your closet neat.  By ALL means get file folders and file all your school papers – by subject.  ‘Old’ papers can be very handy later!

IF you don’t have a desk, put all your study tools in a box, or a bag and pull them out at the table when you are ready to begin each day.  Then PUT THEM AWAY again so they are ready for tomorrow.

The Ant in the story did well all winter – just because he put away food when the weather was good.  BE AN ANT…..not a grasshopper!

The Dog’s House

  IN THE WINTERTIME, a Dog curled up in as small a space as possible on account of the cold, determined to make himself a house.  However when the summer returned again, he lay asleep stretched at his full length and appeared to himself to be of a great size.  Now he considered that it would be neither an easy nor a necessary work to make himself such a house as would accommodate him.  He was cold again the very next winter.

Take care of your health.  Eat right, sleep enough, exercise regularly.

Having to be active when feeling bad has at one time or another made everyone tense and miserable.  It often seems like too much trouble to get out and exercise.  Of course junk food seems to taste better than healthier options.  And we ALL know the best shows are on late!

YOU are too important to short change your well-being.

Aesop’s dog was cold TWICE because he didn’t take the time and trouble to take care of himself.  Learn from his misfortune and take care of YOU.

Jo Karabasz
Overlook Tutorial Academy

Download this article as a file HERE

What SAT MATH Score do you want?

What score would you like to get on the SAT Math Test? 

You’d be surprised to learn that one important way to IMPROVE your math score is to answer FEWER questions!

Every SAT Math test consists of fifty-four questions.  Typically, about fifteen of these are easy, about twenty-eight are medium, and about nine are hard, and they are arranged in a way similar to what is shown below.

Here is a typical pattern for the three math sections:
Sec. 2			Sec. 4						Sec. 8
			Multiple Choice			Grid-In
E	M	H	E	M	H	E	M	H	E	M	H
1 – 6	7 – 17	18–20	1 – 4	5 – 7	8	9 – 10	11–15	16–18	1 – 5	6 - 14	15-16
Question numbers

It is important to remember that the multiple choice questions on the test are scored in such a way that an incorrect answer is worse than no answer at all.  Believe it or not, for a math score of 500 you need to get only about thirty (56%) of the questions correct; to get a 600 you need only about thirty-seven correct answers (69%). The trick is to keep down the number of questions you get wrong!  How can you do this?

Do the “math”:  the total number of easy and medium questions is about forty-three.  If you want to get a 500, you never even have to look at the hard questions, or even the last few medium questions in each set. (Remember, you need only about thirty correct answers!).  For a 600 you still need only about thirty-seven correct answers, so you should answer all of the easy questions, try all of the medium ones, leave blank the medium ones you are really unsure of, and never even read the hard ones!  This strategy has two advantages:

1. You avoid answering the questions you are most likely to get wrong anyway.

2.  You spend more time on each of the questions you have a good chance of getting correct.

Look at these results for Dave, Allison, and Manuel.  (The names have been changed to protect the guilty!)

	Dave	Allison	Manuel
Total Correct	34	34	34
Total Incorrect	20	10	2
Total Left Blank	0	10	18
Raw Score	29	32	34
Scaled Score	540	560	580

Each of the students got thirty-four questions correct, but look at the differences among their scores!  What’s the deal?

Dave tried all of the problems and answered every one. Allison skipped all of the hard questions (How did she know which ones they were? ---  Look at the first chart!) and answered all but one of the questions she worked on, even when she was rather uncertain about the answers.  Manuel skipped all the hard ones, too, but he also left nine medium questions blank because he was unsure how to do them.  Way to go, Manuel!

Bonus tip:  Unlike the multiple choice questions, there is no penalty for wrong answers on the “grid-ins”, so always put an answer for every one of these, even if you haven’t read the question. You’ve got nothing to lose!

Larry Brown
Overlook Tutorial Academy

Download this article as a file HERE

Be MORE than your SCORE

You need to be MORE than your score…

What is it that makes the SAT so important?  Certainly it has history behind it.  The first administration of the test was in 1926 when it was given in 72 different locations, mostly to young men and women applying to Yale and Smith colleges.  Since then it has become an essential part of the applications process at most of America’s finest colleges and universities.   In recent years literally several millions of high school Juniors and Seniors sit for the exam around the world.  All with the same goal in mind – being admitted to the University they CHOOSE.

 At the same time colleges and universities have a similar goal.  They want to successfully recruit and admit the students they CHOOSE.  Despite all the controversies and debates about standardized testing in general and the SAT in specific – it continues to be a powerful force in the process.   Those three numbers compare students around the country and around the world to one another in the eyes of admission committees.  

The SAT Reasoning Test scores matter …

There is no point in thinking otherwise.  Each student should give full effort to preparation for success on the SAT.  No other single measurement of the application is as ‘quick’ a qualifier as those three ‘little’ numbers.

BUT…….

Consider this – there are only 181 different SAT I scores possible.  No, seriously.  Three tests – each scored from 200-800 in 10 point increments.  181 ‘baskets’ into which the approximately 4,000,000 members of the class of 2011 will be sorted. 

Where a specific applicant gets ‘sorted’ is an indelible ‘line in the sand’.  The SAT I is, unquestionably, a high-stakes test.  It may or may not predict college success but it predicts college CHOICES better than any other single part of the graduate’s application packet.

The Competitive Advantage –

With only 181 groups created by sorting based on the SAT – it takes more.  In 2001 Richard C. Atkinson, then president of the University of California, suggested ignoring the SAT’s and adopting what he called a ‘holistic’ evaluation of each student.   The SAT’s are still a part of the UC qualification index but a wide array of other aspects of the student’s background, achievement, and accomplishments are considered as well.  This is just as true at colleges and universities across the country.

DON’T WAIT until it’s time to fill out the college applications to build the qualifications needed.  Simple as that - start now to discuss and plan the three aspects of your application schools will be evaluating – academic achievement [grades],  test scores, and accomplishments [experiences outside the classroom].

Larry Brown
Overlook Tutorial Academy


Download this article as a document file HERE