Archive for the ‘ACT’ Category

What is the difference between the SAT and ACT?

Friday, February 1st, 2013

FSATAT is dedicated to helping students prepare for the next calling in their lives; specifically the ACT and SAT.

When I was growing up, the ACT was a second rate exam which only Midwest and southern colleges accepted.  Not so anymore.  Most if not colleges accept it.

The ACT test assesses high school students’ general educational development and their ability to complete college-level work.  It does this by assessing students’ performance in high school and, therefore, it is more a measure of college readiness than it is a prediction of college performance.

The converse is true for the SAT.  The SAT is a critical thinking, skill based test.  It is very much like the IQ test.

The ACT is an achievement verses IQ aptitude test. An achievement test is based upon a corpus of information. The multiple-choice tests cover four skill areas: English, mathematics, reading, and science. If students are competent in these areas, if they know enough information related to these disciplines, and can apply this information to cognitive challenges,

In that sense, the ACT is of the same genre as an Iowa Basic or Stanford Achievement test.

The SAT,  as I said, is an IQ type test. It is not based upon epistemology; it is based upon critical thinking. In other words, the SAT measures students’  ability to problem solve. The ACT measures students’ knowledge acquisition. Therefore, the SAT preparation ideally needs a commitment of one to three years.

Students cannot raise their IQ scores nor improve critical thinking skills overnight, or even in two months. But students can raise ACT scores in 50 days.

The single best preparation event for the SAT & the ACT is active reading of challenging literary works. Students should read about one book per week.  I have included a free college prep reading list.

What Is It?

Like the SAT, the ACT is a standardized test. With the exception of the optional writing section, all of the questions are multiple choice. There are 215 questions in all, and the exam takes about three hours to complete. The questions focus on four core academic subject areas: math, English, reading, and science, and scores range between 1 and 36.

What does the ACT measure?

ACT questions focus upon academic knowledge that high school and therefore an unfair assessment tool.

How Are ACT Scores used by Colleges?

Exactly how students’ ACT scores will be used by a college varies from school to school. In some schools, a student’s ACT score, along with their GPA, is the chief criteria upon which acceptance decisions are made. At other schools, ACT scores play only a minor role in determining acceptance, and applicants’ GPA, class rank, and cultural backgrounds may be viewed as more important.

Here is some special information about preparing for the ACT and SAT:

Mathematics — Students are tested on mathematical concepts and practices endemic to 11th grade goals. The test is designed to check for mathematical reasoning and basic computational skills, so no complex formulas or elaborate computations will be included in the exam. Calculators are allowed, although there are restrictions.

For a long time, the SAT was by far the most popular college entrance exam in the United States. Even though a high percentage of high school students who hope to go on to a university still rely on the SAT to show their academic prowess, the ACT has gained a lot of ground over the years. The ACT is divided into four individual subject examinations, each one covering a separate subject area. The material includes:

Reading — Students are tested on direct reading comprehension and inference based on the material presented. Similar to the English exam, the test consists of several different literary genre passages from multiple disciplines, which are followed by several questions on the passage. Since reading skills such as determining the main idea and understanding causal relationships are being tested, rote fact checking is not included in the exam.

Writing — The writing test, which is an optional test on the ACT (but not on the SAT), measures skill in planning and writing a short essay.  Colleges compare the ACT essay with student college admission essays. If there are marked differences, the ACT essay can hurt student admission chances. On the other hand, if the ACT essay is better than the college admission essay, then students have a much better chance to be admitted and receive a scholarship at aforementioned colleges.

English — Students are tested on grammar rules and rhetorical skills. Rhetoric requires students to discern the writing strategy of a passage. The exam consists of several literary passages, which are followed by several questions on the passage or selected parts.

Science — Students are tested on critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Students should have had courses in biology, earth sciences, and the physical sciences by the 11th grade. The test consists of several data sets presented as data representation (graphs, charts, etc.) and research expressions of conflicting hypotheses, which are followed by several questions after each set. Calculators are not allowed during the science exam.

More than ever before America is hungry for new, talented leaders. The ACT and the SAT are gates that must be opened for students to enter that path.  Can you imagine what America will look like with 1 to 2 million new, sprit-filled, evangelical leaders? FSATAT is committed to making that happen!

 

FIVE MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT THE SAT

 

1. The SAT is unimportant; Colleges only look at GPA and transcripts.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.  In this age of unequal public and private high schools, the SAT is the great equalizing factor. It is the penultimate and most preferred college admission credential.

2. The PSAT is a good indicator of SAT performance.

According to CollegeBoard, There is absolutely no data to support this statement.  On the contrary, students usually do much better on the SAT than they do in the PSAT.

3. The PSAT is necessary for college scholarships.

This is absolutely untrue!  Colleges could care less about PSAT.  They are only interested in SAT scores.  The PSAT is only important if it leads to a National Merit Scholarship.

4. I don’t need to prepare.  All I need to do is take a few tests and my score will go up.

There is no correlation between frequency of taking this aptitude/IQ test and increased scores.  Students score + or – 8 points every time that they take it.

5. The writing portion of the SAT is unimportant.  College do not use it.

Most colleges do examine the SAT Writing score; 100% prefer it.  Colleges compare the Writing Exam essay to the college application essay that most students submit.  My SAT Preparation book provides a free College Admission Section.

Moral Man, Immoral Society: Part 2

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

 Individuals can be moral in purpose and in actions.  But, combine a bunch of individuals into a coercive group can cause the group to become immoral.  For example, Adolf Hitler’s rise to power was initially a good thing for Germany.  He brought jobs and prosperity to his people.  However, as he gained power, the moral imperative became the despotic immoral coercion.
 The answer to this apparent contradiction is, of course the Gospel.  Neibhur stresses the role of the Holy Spirit (what he calls the “religious imagination”).   In a sense groups, political parties, remain moral because the individuals in that societyanswer to a “higher power,” not to the coercion of the group or to the agenda of the group.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German World War II martyr, for example, was perhaps the most patriotic of Germans because he loved his God and his country enough to obey God and His Word above all persons.  This was the only way, Bonhoeffer understood, that his nation could be moral and right before the God he served.  Unfortunately he was a lone voice in the wilderness!
 Today, young people, as you look ahead of you, do the right thing.  All the time.  Every time.  Do not seek to overcome evil with evil, even if your society tells you it is all right.  Make the Word of God central to your life and, as you do, and as thousands do, society will change too.

Moral Man and Immoral Society, Part 1

Monday, July 25th, 2011

Moral Man and Immoral Society

Moral Man and Immoral Society, by Reinhold Neibhur, was written during the period of the Great Depression (1929-1940). In Moral Man, Reinhold insists on the necessity of politics in the struggle for social justice because of the sinfulness of human nature, that is, the egotism of individuals and groups. He fervent hopes–and that is all it can be–that a person can experience redemption, and redeem his socidety, by a Hegelian, reductionist struggle with sinfulness. Niebuhr advanced the thesis that what the individual is able to achieve singly, cannot be simply regarded as a possibility for social groups. He marked a clear distinction between the individual and the group; lowering significantly the moral capacity of the group in relation to that of the individual.
He sees the limitations of reason to solve social injustice by moral and rational means, “since reason is always the servant of interest in a social situation” (xiv-xv). This is his critique of liberal Christian theology, which strongly believes in the rational capacity of humans to make themselves be moral, and he accepts this vulnerability as our reality. In other words, Neibhur correctly saw the immorality of systems in society (e.g., social welfare) and its futile attempts to ameliorate individuals and their needs through systemic interventions.
Neibhur cautions us about embracing “herd mentalities.” According to him, individuals are morally capable of considering the interests of others and acting. That is, individuals can be unselfish. Societies, however,  cannot. “In every human group there is less reason to guide and to check impulse, less capacity for self-transcendence, less ability to comprehend the needs of others, therefore more unrestrained egoism than the individuals, who compose the group, reveal in their personal relationships” (xi-xii).
My point is, some politicians may be sincere in their understanding about several issues.  In fact, they may be right about some issues.  But when that group gains political hegemony, it can lose focus and direction.

ACT Test Taking Strategies: English

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

English Test Strategies

 First, thakfully, spelling, vocabulary, and verbatim recall of rules of grammar aren’t tested.  In fact, the test consists of five prose passages, each one accompanied by multiple-choice test questions. Different passage types–history, science, literature, music– are included to provide variety.
 Some questions refer to underlined portions of the passage and offer several alternatives to the underlined portion. You must decide which choice is most appropriate in the context of the passage. Do not read the questions before you read the passage.  Memorize the “type” questions that you will encounter before you take the exam.  Then, during your active reading experience (mark it up!) you should naturally identify possible questions.
 Some questions ask about an underlined portion, a section of the passage, or the passage as a whole. You must decide which choice best answers the question posed.
 Many questions include “NO CHANGE” to the underlined portion or the passage as one of the choices.

Bokononism: Choices in Homeschooling 2

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

  Pastor  Gardner quotes Edward O. Wilson’s Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge.   Wilson’s grand conclusion is that “all tangible phenomena, from the birth of stars to the workings of social institutions, are based on material processes that are ultimately reducible, however long and tortuous the sequences, to the laws of physics.” He envisions the unification of the natural sciences with the social sciences and humanities. As he puts it, “The human condition is the most important frontier of the natural sciences,” and “the material world exposed by the natural sciences is the most important frontier of the social sciences and humanities. The consilience argument can be distilled as follows: the two frontiers are the same.”
 The bird is being lowered into the mines .  . .
 Can you imagine how much fun it must be to sit through a sermon with Brother Clinton?  Wow—Consilience—nice word.  What biblical text would he use?  Existentialism and nascent naturalism can be pretty cold bedfellows.  Ain’t gonna mend many broken hearts though!
 Seriously, though, these peckerwoods are arguing quite eloquently that 1. My fundamentalism is not only irrelevant, it is uncool and rude (what a low blow!).  2. My belief that that the Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God is, well, old fashioned.  3. Finally, my belief in a 24 hour creation is likewise dumb.
 What can I say?  I believe all these things and more.  The God I serve is amazing, far more amazing than the God of Brothers Clinton and Edward. 
 Pow  tee weet

ACT Test Taking Advice 1

Monday, July 18th, 2011

Choosing a Test Date

 Before you choose a test date, consider the application deadlines of the colleges and scholarship agencies that are of interest to you. It will take four to seven weeks after a test date for ACT to mail your score report to you and to your college choices.
 I  recommend that you take the ACT during the spring of your junior year. By this time, you typically have completed most of the coursework covered  by the knowledge driven ACT.
  There are a number of advantages in taking the ACT junior year:

 • You will receive test scores and other information that will help you plan your senior year in high school.
 • Many colleges begin contacting prospective students during the summer before the senior year.
 • If you do not score as well as you believe you can, there will be opportunities to retake the ACT in the fall of your senior year and still have the new information available in time to meet admission and scholarship deadlines (usually by deadlines lie close to January 1).

Pretending: homeschooling in love 2

Friday, July 15th, 2011

 After establishing our password, Zion and I grabbed our browning automatics (broken broom handles), grenades (plastic donuts from Zion’s sister’s pretend kitchen set), and bowie knives (Karen’s carrots) and quietly, with great alacrity, approached the dangerous mail box.
Along the way, of course, we were attacked by banzai warriors (our four barn cats), a German Stuka (our Black Lab), and an enemy patrol (Our neighbors on a walk).  Against all odds we made it.
 But not without casualties.  I sustained a serious leg injury and Zion was nicked in the left arm.  In fact, we lost several good pretend companions. 
 Sly Zion, halfway, as we hid behind the chicken coup insisted on a field promotion to lieutenant or he would desert.  I reluctantly agreed.  In the midst of such carnage, what was I to do?
 After such an arduous and dangerous mission newly promoted Lieutenant Zion and I celebrated at Granna’s kitchen table.  She unceremoniously served us A-rations (Christmas cookies) and mess coffee (hot chocolate with marshmallows).
 It doesn’t get much better than this, 10-4?

SAT/ACT Vocabulary:The Brothers Karamazov

Monday, July 11th, 2011

The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoyevsky

 Dostoyevsky’s last and greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov, is both a crime drama and a pedantic debate over truth. In fact, no novel—since Plato’s Republic—so fervently addresses the issue. The worthless landowner Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is murdered. His sons—the atheist intellectual Ivan, the hot-blooded Dmitry, and the saintly novice Alyosha—are all at some level involved. As one critic explains, “Bound up with this intense family drama is Dostoyevsky’s exploration of many deeply felt ideas about the existence of God, the question of human freedom, the collective nature of guilt, the disastrous consequences of rationalism.  The novel is also richly comic: the Russian Orthodox Church, the legal system, and even the author’s most cherished causes and beliefs are presented with a note of irreverence, so that orthodoxy and radicalism, sanity and madness, love and hatred, right and wrong—all are no longer mutually exclusive. Rebecca West considered it “the allegory for the world’s maturity, but with children to the fore. The new translations do full justice to Dostoyevsky’s genius, especially in the use of the spoken word, ranging over every mode of human expression.

Masters of Disguise: The Christian Life 2

Tuesday, July 5th, 2011

 I am an inveterate Johnstown cuisine lover.  My love affair, my wife Karen would say, has put 80 pounds on me in the last 21 years, but she is being ungenerous since I mostly eat her wonderful cooking.  And what fine cooking it is!  I remember the first meal Karen cooked for me in 1977.  It was broiled chicken seasoned with salad dressing and boiled broccoli seasoned with lemon pepper.  Until then, I had never eaten broiled chicken—my chicken was always fried—unless Big Momma served her famous chicken and dumplings.  Broccoli, southern style, was cooked longer than it took General Grant to capture Vicksburg, MS, and I had heard of pepper (and used it liberally after I coated everything with salt) and lemons (which I put in my sweetened ice tea)—but never both together.  Actually, my first meal was pretty good and the next 33,000 or so she has cooked me—my expanding waistline is a testament to my thorough conversion to Nouveau Yankee cuisine.  Yummy good!
 Well anyway the New York Time’s article argues that finally—finally—there is a vegetarian burger that rivals the most delicious Whopper or Quarter Pounder.  Apparently, while the rest of us languished in the throes of the new Angus Quarter Pounder, inventive New York chefs have been working tirelessly to create the penultimate veggie burger.  Food reviewer Jeff Gordinier is veritably overcome with joy when he writes “Veggie burgers . . . have explored into countless variations of good, and in doing so they’ve begun to look like a bellwether for the American appetite.” 
 Bellwether for the American appetite.  Excuse me, but I doubt it.
 Can you imagine cruising through the MacDonald’s drive through and asking for a veggie burger with fries and milk shake?  Hum . . .
 But excuse me.  I respect vegetarians.  More power to you.  But, why do you want to copy my food?  Do I try to copy yours?  Respectfully, I doubt, even in NYC, that one can find broccoli and asparagus that will match the effervescence of a Quarter Pounder with Cheese.
 Nonetheless, “There is something very satisfying about holding one’s dinner in one’s hand.”  Indeed.  But it can’t be done.  Not really.  A meatless burger is an oxymoron and it can never b e a dinner.
 And here is another oxymoron—and this is where I am taking this—our society is desperate to emulate the Christian life.  The Christian life, like the hamburger, is genuine, real, juicy, and full of protein.  Lived in the right way, it can bring great life to a person and to his world.  And it cannot be replaced by good feelings, good intentions, or other existential offerings.  As Tolstoi writes in War and Peace, “Let us be persuaded that the less we let our feeble human minds roam, the better we shall please God, who rejects all knowledge that does not come from Him; and the less we seek to fathom what He has been pleased to conceal from us, the sooner will he vouchsafe its revelation to us through His divine Spirit.”

Guts and Butts

Thursday, June 30th, 2011
I want to fight the good fight, finish the race, keep the faith.
I belong to a weight reduction, health accountability group at my YMCA called Guts and Butts (G&B) (I am not making this up). I am the youngest member (58).  Our group is the main competitor of the YMCA perennial favorites, Silver Sneakers (SSs)who are fortunate enough to have Medicare and Blue Cross and Blue Shield Insurance with no deductable.  We G & B have hybrid high deductable insurance plans of dubious quality.
We have periodic contests with the Silver Sneakers.  So far they have beat us every time.  Last Christmas we had a contest to see how many pounds each group could lose between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  The SS champs lost 150 pounds.  We gained a net 9 pounds.  They received gift certificates at Subway©.  We gave ourselves a party.
Last Easter we competed in the swim-the-most miles contest.  Each person was on an honor code and wrote his daily mileage on a poster board behind the life guard, who very carefully scrutinized both pool performance and log in totals.  Once I logged a mile.  The life guard scowled at me.
“Well if you consider the back strokes, it was a mile,” I sheepishly offered.  Of course it took me about half the life span of the teen age life guard sitting on his exalted lifeguard throne, to accomplish it, but I did it. Really.
The G&Bs logged 150 miles.  The SSs soared at 350. They got free coupons to the local Subway.  We had a party.
Well, another contest is in the works this year.  We are led by a fairly aggressive 75 year old, Amazon, Margaret.
“This is our year,” she prophesies.
The SSs all have little red roses embroidered on their swimming suits.  Wheezing B&G High Pockets —we call him that because that is how he breaths after even the most moderate exercise and he wears his pants up too high above his ample stomach–has a USMC symbol on his left forearm.  That is the best swimming motif we can sport.

I want to fight the good fight, finish the race, keep the faith. I belong to a weight reduction, health accountability group at my YMCA called Guts and Butts (G&B) (I am not making this up). I am the youngest member (58).  Our group is the main competitor of the YMCA perennial favorites, Silver Sneakers (SSs)who are fortunate enough to have Medicare and Blue Cross and Blue Shield Insurance with no deductable.  We G & B have hybrid high deductable insurance plans of dubious quality. We have periodic contests with the Silver Sneakers.  So far they have beat us every time.  Last Christmas we had a contest to see how many pounds each group could lose between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  The SS champs lost 150 pounds.  We gained a net 9 pounds.  They received gift certificates at Subway©.  We gave ourselves a party. Last Easter we competed in the swim-the-most miles contest.  Each person was on an honor code and wrote his daily mileage on a poster board behind the life guard, who very carefully scrutinized both pool performance and log in totals.  Once I logged a mile.  The life guard scowled at me.   “Well if you consider the back strokes, it was a mile,” I sheepishly offered.  Of course it took me about half the life span of the teen age life guard sitting on his exalted lifeguard throne, to accomplish it, but I did it. Really. The G&Bs logged 150 miles.  The SSs soared at 350. They got free coupons to the local Subway.  We had a party.  Well, another contest is in the works this year.  We are led by a fairly aggressive 75 year old, Amazon, Margaret.   “This is our year,” she prophesies. The SSs all have little red roses embroidered on their swimming suits.  Wheezing B&G High Pockets —we call him that because that is how he breaths after even the most moderate exercise and he wears his pants up too high above his ample stomach–has a USMC symbol on his left forearm.  That is the best swimming motif we can sport.

The SSs have the newest rental lockers sporting top-of-the-line master combination locks.  The G&Bs can’t be sure we can remember or combinations, so we try another approach. We put our stuff in the broken lockers hoping that potential brigands will ignore our depositories.

I am an inveterate G & B.  I like to swim my laps and pray and take my time.  I have no destination, no pressure to perform.  I love my swimming and I love my God.  And in that pool, with other G&Bs, I find my way again, to the sublime perpendicular line that tells me again, for one more Christmas, good and faithful servant, you have reached the end and need to turn around. I don’t know how to flip over like the SSs, but I know how to turn around and go back in the other direction when I meet the wall.  And that is enough.

Not that I will win any coupons to Wendys this Christmas.  But this I know—I will enjoy my time with brothers and sisters, old and infirm, faithful and unpretentious, who, if we can’t win a contest, still have fun along the way. And sometimes, when I am in that surreal pool lap life, I just enjoy my God so much.  I can feel His presence.  I can feel his pleasure.  And that, is enough winning for me.

And I know, no matter what happens, at the end of the great swim, I am going to party with my brothers and sisters—and no doubt a few SSs too– at the end of the long swim. The God of history is faithful and true.