In a study conducted at St. Lawrence University, 159 students were given six demanding cognitive tasks, such as repeating random numbers backward and solving logic puzzles. Roughly half of the subjects chewed gum (both sugar-added and sugar-free); roughly half did not.

Surprisingly, the gum chewers (both sugar-added and sugar-free) scored significantly higher than their non-gum chewing counterparts on five out of six tests (the one exception was verbal fluency, where subjects were asked to name as many words as possible from a given category, such as “animals”).

Why?

Scientists weren’t sure. A report I read included the phrase “mastication-induced arousal” which sounds like a topic for a different blog. Regardless, the act of chewing wakes you up and increases focus. The effects are short-lived, however: in the study above, gum chewers and non-gum chewers’ performances evened out after about 20 minutes.

So if you feel your attention slipping on your next test, chew some gum. If gum’s not allowed, chew it during your break. Just don’t stick it under the desk when you’re done.

Most students know that standardized tests are very important. But they also think the tests are stupid. Both beliefs are true. These tests are stupid and important, and sometimes you have to do stupid things to get what you want.

I’m a football fan and I hate the Green Bay Packers. They’re the rivals of my Chicago Bears, and to make it worse, most of my close friends are huge Packer fans. That said, I would wear a Packers’ jersey and hat for a month straight in return for a glowing review of Prestige Prep in the New York Times. Wearing enemy gear would be a worthwhile price to pay for something I want.

Your child wants to get into a good college or high school. Studying for a stupid test may not be pleasant, but it’s a worthwhile price to pay.

I’ve found that admitting the stupidity of the test gets students to study more, and it stops a lot of the complaining. And I only have to say it once. I rarely have to bring it up again.

When you talk to your child about standardized tests, be honest: the tests are stupid, but they are important. Call us now at (800) 381-3266 to learn more about motivating your child to study and how best to approach standardized tests.

The talking ban set in place in my last blog is temporarily lifted only so you can help your child the night before the exam.

The night before should be as relaxing as possible for your child. If there’s something he likes to do, let him do it (within reason, obviously). Watching a movie, chatting with friends, or playing video games are all  good ways for kids to relax.

Conventional wisdom says students shouldn’t study, and I agree with conventional wisdom. The only exceptions are those students who need to study to feel relaxed. If your child just has to study, let him study a little, just not too much and not too late.

As for preparation, make sure you have everything your child needs packed in a bag the night before:

• Admission ticket
• Acceptable ID*
• 4 sharpened no. 2 pencils
• A calculator and back up batteries
• A watch
• An extra sweatshirt
• A bottle of water
• Two snacks, both with a little sugar in them

Cognitive thinking depletes glucose, so a snack with a little sugar will help recharge your child’s brain. Just make sure he’s not eating straight sugar (such as candy bars), or he’ll have trouble concentrating. Fruit and trail mix with M&Ms are my suggestions.

If your child isn’t taking the test at his school, make sure you know how to get to the test center, and leave extra time for traffic.

Other than that, stay positive, and good luck!

*Acceptable forms of ID:

• a driver’s license
• a school ID with photo
• a passport
• a physical description of you written by your school guidance counselor on school stationary and signed by both you and your guidance counselor (I’d pick one of the other three).

The test is in four days. It’s time to stop talking about it. Your child doesn’t want to hear it, and despite your intentions, it doesn’t help.

No positive reinforcement; no pep talks; no lectures. You’re on radio silence from here on out.

Eating well is important. Too much sugar and not enough vitamins damage students’ cognitive abilities and focus. Sugar overload also makes it harder to retain information, so students should eat right all week, not just on test day.

Lack of sleep is even more damaging and harms almost every type of cognitive ability, especially those needed for taking four-hour tests. The following quote is from John Medina’s Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School.

“The bottom line is that sleep loss means mind loss. Sleep loss cripples thinking, in just about every way you can measure thinking. Sleep loss hurts attention, executive function, immediate memory, working memory, mood, quantitative skills, logical reasoning ability, general math knowledge.”

This week may be stressful for your child, so a good diet and enough sleep are extra important. Late night study sessions fueled by coffee and sugar are NOT worth it. Help your child do her best on test day; make sure she’s eating and sleeping well.

The SAT is coming. Here’s what your child should do:

• He should review any and all subjects about which he feels uncertain. If that means writing a bunch of 25-minute essays and reviewing functions, then he should write a bunch of essays and review functions.
• If he used The Official SAT Study Guide, he should go over all the questions he missed. The SAT reuses question-types, so there’s a good chance he’ll see similar questions on the actual exam.
• He should go over test strategy with his tutor.
• He should do something to de-stress, if he’s stressed. If there’s something he does to blow off steam, let him do it.

What if my child explodes or says he doesn’t want to take the test?

Kids need to release pressure, and they don’t always do so in the best way. In this respect, they’re a lot like adults. Don’t let yourself get drawn into an irrational argument. You don’t have to stand there and listen: you can tell him he’s acting crazy.

When the storm passes, ask if he feels better. You don’t need to bring up what he said or prove him wrong. Chances are he knows he’s wrong.

These last two weeks are crucial: make sure you and your child are doing what you can to best prepare him for the SAT. For more test tips, email us at info@prestigeprep.com or call us at (800) 381-3266. We look forward to helping your child succeed!

The Wrong Priorities

The SAT is fast approaching. So are finals, AP exams and SATIIs. It’s a busy time, and students must prioritize their studies.

Too often, SAT work gets cut. We understand why: homework and school tests are immediate, so they seem more important. But the SAT is just as important, and cutting back on studying now is a bad move.

Imagine training for a marathon for five months, but stopping a month before the race. How much of your hard work and effort would be wasted? How much better would you have done had you trained hard that last month?

Now is the time to study more. Now is the time to take mock exams and review problem areas. Don’t waste the momentum you’ve worked so hard to build!

We have tutors who specialize in organization and study skills. They have helped countless students organize their time to get all their work done. Call us now at (800) 381-3266 to speak with an educational consultant and learn how to help your child manage her time and boost her score!

1.    Good Grades Mean High Test Scores

This belief is the most common and the most destructive. Exams like the ISEE, SSAT and SHSAT test different material in different ways than school tests. They’re also longer and have much more anxiety attached. Many good students fail on standardized tests because they believe that good grades are all they need.

2.    Tutoring Should Start at the Beginning of 8^th Grade

These exams will determine where your child goes to high school. To say they’re incredibly important is putting it mildly. Do you want to wait until there are only three months left to start preparation? Some problems, such as poor reading skills or negative attitudes, take longer to fix. Your child may not need much tutoring, but you won’t know until you actually start preparing.

3.    A Good School Gives my Child an Advantage

Your child is graded against his peers, and tests like the ISEE and SSAT attract the top level of students. Everyone is coming from a good school.

4.    Test Questions are like School Questions

If you believe the above statement, you are headed for disaster. The main goal of these exams is to separate students along a spectrum. To accomplish this task, test makers give students unfamiliar questions that force them to apply their knowledge. They know the mistakes students make and exploit them.

5.    Test Anxiety isn’t Beatable

Test anxiety can be cured. Most of the information online, however, is completely wrong.  We’ve studied it deeply and have found methods that work. Test anxiety is beatable, but you must address it early, or it will infect the entire test prep process.

So what can you do? First, find out how much tutoring your child needs by signing up for a mock exam. You can do so here. After the exam, we’ll call you to discuss the results and map out the best path to getting your child a great score that will get him or her into a top school. These tests are beatable, but you must prepare the right way. Call us (800) 381-3266 to learn how. We look forward to helping your child succeed!

A Real Life Example

Catelyn sat across from me, crying. She had vomited in school that day and had felt sick all week. The reason was test anxiety. The SAT was two weeks away, and Catelyn should have felt confident. She had creamed her practice tests, was strong in all three sections of the exam, and rarely made careless errors. But she still felt she was going to fail.

Test Anxiety is a Phobia

I could have told Catelyn how bright she was. I could have shown her her practice exam or pointed out all the difficult homework questions she had gotten right. None of it would have mattered. Test anxiety is not rational; it’s a phobia. It would have been like quoting airline safety statistics to someone with a fear of flying: totally worthless.

It also would have been worthless to teach my planned lesson for that day. People can’t learn in states of high anxiety; that part of our brain shuts down when we’re in panic mode. I had to calm her down, and I had to give her tools she could use if she felt panicked on test day.

What to Do

I walked her through some emotional control exercises and taught her how to do them to herself. Immediately there was a change in Catelyn’s manner. She was breathing deeper, and some of her worry lines had disappeared. Then we did some NLP exercises to change the way she viewed the SAT. By the end of the session, Catelyn was laughing. Her face was relaxed, and she was sitting up straight.

Did Catelyn enter the test two weeks later fully at peace with herself and at one with the universe? No. She still felt anxiety, but she now knew how to deal with it. She used it to her advantage and crushed the SAT, breaking her goal of 2100.

Test anxiety is beatable. But you can’t beat it by just telling people they’re going to do well. There are specific exercises and techniques that can push students past their blocks. Call us at (800) 381-3266 to learn how we can get your child past self-defeating anxiety and help him achieve the score he deserves.

A Quick Guide

There’s a lot of advice about whether a student should take the SAT or ACT, and most of it is misleading.

To begin, most colleges and universities now accept both the SAT and the ACT, but do check to make sure. There are many similarities between the two exams, but each test has aspects that make it better suited for one type of student and worse for another. Here are the basics:

Students who should take the SAT

Students who should take the SAT can apply their knowledge to new question-types. SAT problems are often different from regular school work and force students to be flexible with their knowledge, especially in math and grammar. The SAT favors students who can handle uncertainty and work through questions that seem complicated at first read.

Students who should take the ACT

Students who should take the ACT work quickly, read well and are not science-phobic.  ACT questions are closer to regular school work and are, in my opinion, fairer than SAT questions. However, the ACT is about speed, so if you are not a fast worker, especially a fast reader, the ACT is NOT the test for you.

Take a Full Test of Each, Compare Your Scores

There are other differences between the two – the SAT tests vocabulary while the ACT does not, the essay topics vary slightly – but it’s difficult to tell how these will affect a particular student. Avoid mini-exams that give you ten to twenty questions of each, as they do not account for speed or stamina: it’s like walking a mile to see how you’ll do on a marathon.

The best way to tell which test is better for you is to take a FULL mock exam in both. An ACT exam can be found here and an SAT exam here. These two books are by the test makers themselves, so use them instead of tests from a test prep company. There is an SAT/ACT score conversion chart here.  If you study, it’s easier to improve on the SAT, so if your original SAT score is better than, equal to, or just a little lower than your ACT score, take the SAT.

Call us at (800) 381-3266 to learn more about which exam is best for your child, for more information on tutoring, or to set up a consultation.