Conquering The SAT

1. Conquering The SAT Duke Tipp Program

2. What is the SAT? • The Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT, is a test of reading, writing, and mathematical skills that is required for admission to many colleges and universities. • More than 2 million students take the SAT every year.

3. How is the test formatted? • The test takes 3 hours and 45 minutes, is divided into ten sections: • Two Math sections of 25 min. each • One Math section that is20 min. • Two Critical Reading sections of 25 min. each • One Critical Reading section that is20 min. • One Multiple choice writing section of 25 min. • One Essay section of 25 min. • One extra section which may be Critical Reading, Multiple choice writing, or Math that has experimental questions that will not count towards your score. It can be anywhere in the test.

4. How many questions will each area have? • Critical Reading: 67 total question (19 Sentence completion and 48 passage-based reading) • Writing: 49 multiple choice + Essay (18 identifying Sentence Errors, 25 improving sentences, and 6 improving paragraphs + the essay) • Math: 54 total questions (44 Multiple choice plus 10 Grid-Ins)

5. Why is the SAT important? • All colleges and universities will evaluate candidates based on your grades, letters of recommendation, admission essays, extracurricular activities, and the SAT.

6. What is the SAT score requirement? • It varies according to the school you are applying to. Here are the minimum score requirements for some schools: • UGA-1150 combined Math and Reading score • Georgia Tech: 1240 with at least a 590 on the Reading and a 650 on the Math • Georgia Southern: 1000 combined score

7. What about Ivy League Schools? (Harvard, Yale, Princeton etc.) • Ivy league schools don’t release minimum SAT score requirements, but we do know the average scores of students who enroll in Ivy League Schools: • Average on Math and Reading: 1490 • Reading 720 • Math 770 • Writing 700

8. You Mean I have to write a whole essay in 25 min.? • Yes! Here’s an example question: • “Time has a doomsday book, on whose pages he is continually recording illustrious names. But as often as a new name is written there, an old one disappears. Only a few stand in illuminated characters never to be effaced.”Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • ASSIGNMENT:Are there some heroes who will be remembered forever? Or are all heroes doomed to be forgotten one day? Plan your response, and then write an essay to explain your views on this issue. Be sure to support your position with specific points and examples. (You may use personal examples or examples from your reading, observations, or, knowledge of subjects such as history, literature, science.)

9. One of the memorable images from Eisenstein’s classic silent film on the Russian Revolution is the toppling of a statue. The destruction of the statue symbolizes the throwing out of the old order along with its heroes and replacing it with a new. Considering this human tendency to ‘ring out the old and ring in the new’ it is surprising that any heroic figures from the past survive in the history books, but they do. There are some heroes who do not get erased from the pages. One of my personal all-time heroes is Marie Curie, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. At a time when women were not allowed to enter the University of Warsaw, her home city, Marie worked as a governess before getting the opportunity to enroll in the Sorbonne in Paris. She graduated at the top of her class and became the first woman to take a degree in physics from the Sorbonne. But it is not simply for her breaking out of traditional molds that she is remembered. Her scientific work on radiation led to her two Nobel Prizes: the first joint with her husband, the second alone, after Pierre Curie’s death. She nearly did not get the second prize because of rumors of ‘misconduct’ in her private life. But she bravely went to Stockholm, despite opposition, and said that she believed that there was no connection between her private life and her scientific work. She died of cancer caused by exposure to radium, one of the elements that she discovered.

10. Many great people from the past have had their reputations destroyed by exposure of their human frailties. But some, like Marie Curie, achieve such greatness that they will be remembered for their achievements. She symbolizes the human quest for knowledge and the capacity to sacrifice self for a higher goal. Women everywhere will gain strength from seeing one woman who could not he suppressed by outdated conventions. We need our heroes for the inspiration they offer to us and to future generations. Names such as Curie should not, and in fact cannot, be erased form the History books: they tell us so much about the human capacity to strive for excellence.

11. Helpful Writing Tips • The essay must be over 400 words in length. Research has found that 90% of essays over 400 words in length receive the highest score of 12. • The sample SAT Essay must use scholarly examples. There should be two or three examples with at least one from literature. Examples from history are also good. If an essay uses primarily personal experiences it won't score these as highly as essays that use content learned in school. • The essay must be organized into paragraphs. At the minimum there is an introductory paragraph with at least a sentence or two. Then one paragraph to cover each example. And often a short conclusion. • The essay must make its points explicitlywithout having to reread or read between the lines to understand it.

12. What about the Duke Tipp program? • To qualify for the 7th grade state recognition ceremony and summer programs: • Math ≥ 520Critical Reading ≥ 510Writing ≥ 500*Or with two of the three following scores: Math = 510, Critical Reading = 500, Writing = 490

13. What about the Duke Tipp program? • Grand Qualifying Ceremony • Math ≥ 680Critical Reading ≥660Writing ≥ 650Math + Critical Reading + Writing ≥ 1850

14. How do most gifted 7th graders do on the SAT? • Critical Reading: • Average Score: 430 • High Score 800 • Mathematics: • Average Score: 440 • High Score: 800 • Writing: • Average Score: 410 • High Score:780

15. How does that compare with high school students? • The average high school scores were: • Critical Reading: 496 • Writing: 488 • Math: 514 • 360 high school students made a perfect score • Last year, males scored better on critical reading and math, and females scored better on writing.

16. How do most How do most gifted 7th graders do on the SAT? • 68,000 gifted students in the U.S. took the SAT last year. • 50 made a perfect score. • They received full scholarships to attend Duke’s summer study program. • They will never have to take the SAT again! • How will you do?