Khan Academy SAT Prep

[tokenadult]

I'm glad to see that the official URL for the Khan Academy partnership with the College Board is now live.

https://www.khanacademy.org/sat

I have been looking forward to being able to tell all my friends that they don't have to worry about test prep for the SAT anymore, as that is now free and online through Khan Academy. For people who are still inclined to worry about standardized tests, I will mention that this preparation course will undoubtedly provide useful cross-training for the ACT college admission test and for many other standardized tests. If you are still worried after all that, I have one more tip about standardized tests, a tip that has worked to make all such tests easy for me and for my children.

READ, READ

To learn how to score well on a standardized test reading section, the number one piece of advice is READ, READ, READ, and READ. Read about what you like to know more about. Read things that are fun for you. Find books and magazines about interesting topics and read them. Turn off the TV and read. Put away the video game controller and read. Read hard things, and read easy things. Read a lot.

For years, I wondered why it came so readily to mind to write "READ, READ, READ" in all capital letters like that when I give advice on this subject, as I have frequent occasion to do. Recently, I reread the section "Suggestions for Study" in the front matter of John DeFrancis's book Beginning Chinese Reader, Part I, which I first used to learn Chinese back in 1975. In that section of that book, I found this passage, "Fluency in reading can only be achieved by extensive practice on all the interrelated aspects of the reading process. To accomplish this we must READ, READ, READ" (capitalization as in original). Yes, that works for Chinese, and it works for English too. By practicing reading, you gain reading comprehension and reading speed, and speedy reading with good comprehension gives you time to complete standardized test sections with time to spare. That reduces the pressure and lets you relax and think while you take the test. Try it. You may like it, and anyway reading is fun.

[IndianAstronaut]

When I used to teach SAT classes, my number one recommendation was to start reading Smithsonian magazine. That magazine has a lot of the types of articles you find in the SAT.

[film42]

This is great! I'm not sure if it was discussed on HN or not, but Khan Academy recently released an MCAT course with "more than 900 videos and 2000 practice questions." This is incredible, because last summer my wife's online MCAT course cost us around $2,500. It was a good course, but Khan Academy's course seems extensive and thorough. I hope it gets more publicity among med-school applicants!

Link: https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat

[silencio]

I'm getting ready to take the MCAT and that's pretty widely known already on premed forums. It helps that it's a partnership between AAMC and KA and was one of the first resources out there for the new edition of the MCAT. I see a lot of folks still taking courses and using other resources too, but yes - definitely somewhat of a moneysaver :)

[tsumnia]

Awesome to see KA add SAT prep to their training material. When my buddy and I were prepping for our GRE tests, we used KA in conjunction with http://meli-lewis.github.io/GRE_Khan.html to prepare.

Any friends that a worried about their math sections as they start to prep, I give them that same link and so far I'm battling a thousand on people who've gotten accepted

[bruceb]

For those needing prep for AP Exams there are lots of MOOCs: https://www.coursebuffet.com/tag/AP+Exam

[CodeSheikh]

SAT and all these similar "standardized" tests are a big joke. This outdated testing methodology needs to be evolved. College admissions should be somewhat similar to job interviews. Students walk in, meet admission committee panel (composed of a member of registrar office and professors/lecturers), talk about expectations, solve a few problems, talk about their essays, present design work, piece of literature etc. Such experience is more personal. Better education system needs a better paradigm shift.

[tokenadult]

You are advocating an unstructured interview process for college admission. That would be hugely expensive, as the first reply to your comment mentioned, and it would also be less likely to find strong students for colleges. There is a lot of research on this. The current mixed admission system that includes standardized tests actually works better for colleges, at less expense, than a system of in-person interviews for all applicants.

AFTER EDIT: Important background information for this thread is that hundreds of colleges in the United States already have explicit policies of open admission, meaning that they admit all applicants, and the majority of colleges in the United States admit the majority of their applicants. Only a few hundred colleges (out of about three thousand in total) are selective by any meaningful definition of "selective."

[TheBiv]

Isn't it like the process of finding a job though? You don't call everyone in for a meeting, you just pull in a small percentage.

I cannot imagine how expensive it would be for an admission committee panel to meet with 10,000+ applicants (like a big state school gets every year)

[pkaye]

What you propose is not scalable. How would you execute this for overseas admissions?

[foobarqux]

The irony is that universal access to the best prep materials makes the SAT harder.

[ikeboy]

No, it just increases average scores (assuming people actually use them and they're minimally effective)).

https://sat.collegeboard.org/scores/how-sat-is-scored

>Equating ensures that the different forms of the test or the level of ability of the students with whom you are tested do not affect your score.

[the_cat_kittles]

id rephrase that to say it's scores become more accurate

[otoburb]

The parent refers to the fact raw SAT scores are normalized, thus largely dependent on the relative strength of your cohort's performance[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT#Raw_scores.2C_scaled_scores...

[supster]

wish I had this in high school haha, great work guys!

[khirasaki]

This link should point to:

khanacademy.org/sat

That's the new system.

[dang]

That's its home page, but I suppose the submitter chose the other URL because it gets you into the details straightaway, which an HN audience tends to appreciate. Both links are good.