This is my problem: since you all have been using your calculators since the 8^th grade—and sometimes even earlier, you’ve started thinking of your calculators as your outboard brains. As in, “if I can’t figure this out, maybe my calculator can.”

Moreover, I know you have all sorts of formulas and programs stuffed into those TI-89s that let you punch in a bunch of variables and then they spit out the answer for you, no thinking involved. I have students who read math problems with their calculators already in-hand, like weapons they’re about to draw or, worse, security blankets they can’t outgrow.

It’s a classic situation for me: I’m with a new student, he reaches for his calculator to solve some linear equation (or whatever), and I barge in.

Me: You don’t need your calculator.

Student: But I have the formula!

Me: I promise, it will actually be faster if you just do the problem on the page.

Student: But I can’t! I don’t know how! It’s in my calculator!

Usually, since I’m the boss in these situations, I win. (And that often means re-teaching students concepts long since forgotten, which is fine, since that’s my job.) But every now and then, even after the student has successfully solved the problem without a calculator, he retains some residual fear or frustration and thinks I am either insane, mean, or some sort of masochist.

The fact is that you can use your calculator on the SAT, and if you’re looking for a just-above-average SAT score, that’s fine. But if you’re looking to score with the top ten percent of kids, you have to get over it. Why?

Because your calculator isn’t any smarter than you are.

When I ask you to not use your calculator to solve a problem (and I don’t mean that I don’t want you to check your arithmetic on the calc’ if you’d like to), it’s not because I am mental and like things to be hard. Actually, training yourself to understand the simple concepts on the math section of the SAT (and ACT, frankly) will allow you to solve the most difficult questions on the section because you will understand how the math works instead of just how to punch it into your calculator.

The SAT people don’t care how well you use your calculator; they care how well you are able to apply math skills you learned in high school. Meaning you should have actually learned them. The most difficult math questions on the SAT test your ability to do math elegantly and quickly, which is–seriously—usually not done on your calculator. This is the same reason that I filled OUTSMARTING the SAT with math lessons rather than calculator tricks and shortcuts.

If you are so reliant on your calculator that you can’t do an entire SAT test without it, you need to challenge yourself to put it down while you practice and use it only for checking your arithmetic. Be brave. You can do it.

Your calculator will not help you. Seriously. Train your brain.

Our first conversation deals with the importance of mental preparation and what you can do to start preparing now for your test experience, whether you’re taking it in a few weeks or months down the line.

You can find the first part of our conversation here. 

Until now my general rule of thumb for practicing the reading passages on the SAT or ACT is “don’t read them aloud because you have to read silently during the test.” I’m all about practicality and doing things as they should be done, so I’ve always assumed this tactic made the most sense.

But sometimes I have to stop and rethink my strategies and this recent New York Times article has made me do a double take. One of the main tenets of my test prep tactics is based on a single concept: “I’m really good at standardized test; how can I share what I know with others?” Moreover, what are the experiences enhanced my natural test-taking ability and are they applicable to my students?

Reading this article, it hit me: reading aloud at my house wasn’t just something that my mother did with me when I was very young. We weren’t merely a bedtime story household. In fact, some of my favorite memories from my high school years involve hanging out with my mom, reading essays and articles to each other and laughing ourselves to tears.  We read Russell Baker, E.B. White, and George Will to each and talked about what we read. (Yes, seriously.)

The fact is that learning to read with nuance fosters not only an understanding of others’ work but also the ability to edit one’s own work efficiently and masterfully. Practicing communicating—conveying meaning—is integral to developing the very comprehension that the SAT in particular* tests.

What does this mean for us? Well for me and my students it means that we’re going to be doing a lot more reading aloud, and I’m going to be nitpicking their inflection and cadence to more carefully notice when they’ve lost their purpose. For students reading this it means it’s time to start reading out loud, whether to your friend or your family. If you find a funny article online on a magazine, share it with your friends by reading a paragraph or two to them rather than just handing them the magazine. When you’re hanging out on the beach this summer vacation share that funny bit you just read in your beach book.

Join the debate club. Get involved in theater. Consider being part of the literary magazine or yearbook at your school—most clubs that involve writing will involve reading aloud. Most importantly, get in the habit of reading material on a variety of subjects aloud into your daily life. Prioritize it, and you should see your scores increase.

*I say SAT in particular because the ACT’s reading passages are more geared toward testing attention to detail rather than nuance, intention, and implication of the passage itself. 

This seemed great: techniques you could use to guess when you didn’t know the material and the possibility of earning some points anyway.

Thirty years later we have a huge problem. That one simple idea, that there are ways to get around the SAT, completely disempowered students. Why? Because the trend has gone from “here’s how to tackle that last really tough question or two” to “you can’t learn this–here’s how to guess your way to a tolerable score.” 

The minute you tell a student that a question–any question–is so challenging that you can’t teach her the skills to answer it and, instead, you’ll show her how to guess the right answer, she doesn’t gain confidence. Instead, she hears the following:

You can’t conquer this. This test is too hard. The SAT is smarter than you are. 

Well I say enough already. 

The SAT is not smarter than any of us; it’s just a test of math, grammar, and critical thinking skills. 

I’ll rephrase: everything on the SAT is completely learnable. It is not the Holy Grail of knowledge, all elusive and mysterious. It’s just a really long test. 

It’s high time we quit being afraid of the SAT, stop being convinced that it can outsmart us, and instead prepare ourselves with the tools necessary to achieve great scores on the SAT–skills that are transferable to improved college and professional success. It’s time to enjoy the achievement of learning new, relevant concepts and applying them in creative ways. It’s time to be smart again.

Thirty years is too long to be afraid of anything. 

I’m not scared. Are you?

Yesterday morning one of my students couldn’t answer a sentence completion question during our SAT prep. The reason? It wasn’t that he didn’t know the meaning of the correct answer. He also had a pretty good self-created definition of the word he was looking for, so that wasn’t the problem. So why couldn’t he arrive at the right answer? He couldn’t read his options correctly; he didn’t recognize the word epitome. “What’s an eh pih tome?” he asked.

So what? So the dude can’t spell and he’s losing SAT points because of it!

Let’s talk about some moments when spelling matters on the SAT.

For starters, like epitome, some words in our language simply aren’t read easily with straightforward phonics. Sometimes you may fall prey to the sheer difficulty of a given word (e.g. colonel, hor d’oeuvres, eyrie) and sometimes you may find yourself in an SAT-induced panic that trips up your normally stellar reading that leads to mistakes on words like connoisseurs, leisure, or suede. Either way, if you know the material and don’t earn a point because you can’t spell you’re going to freak out when you get your score back.

Some homophones matter, too. Now, granted there aren’t a lot of really heavy duty English words that sound the same, but they’re out there.  For example: raise and raze. One means to build up or take to a higher level, the other means to flatten or demolish. Which is which? Look it up here.

Spelling also matters deeply when you don’t know the meaning of words you’ve come across. Granted, many words in our language aren’t built from roots, but many are. If you understand roots, understand connections between spellings of different words, then you can start to pick apart the meanings of words you’ve never seen before simply because of their spelling. You can get the general idea of the meanings of words like anthropomorphism, convivial, and antediluvian just from their components. However, if you don’t understand how those words are composed, how they’re built from little bits of meaningful pieces, well, you’re probably outta luck.

Finally, you may have noticed that when you’re putting an actual #2 pencil to paper there is no spell check, which can be a real handicap when you’re wanting to jazz up your essay with vocabulary you have so studiously applied to memory. (If you’re going to do those 5,000 flash cards, you may as well put the material to use.) If you take a stab at connoisseurs on the test and don’t realize you’ve spelled it conossores (or whatever), it may not matter much to you, but the grammar‘gician who’s reading your essay REALLY CARES. Don’t distract your reader with flagrant mistakes.

Ok, so what do we do? We learn to spell. How? Well, I, for one, have become very good friends with merriam-webster.com. I love their site! You get all the sub definitions of a word right there, which is great since I think you should read the secondary, tertiary, and quaternary definitions of a word and understand them. They also have a super pronunciation button that will read words to you in instances of confusion. I promise you that, even now, when I find words I don’t know in a book I take the time to look them up. You should too.

Take the English language seriously! Look at it, observe it; don’t just read it. Your writing for the rest of your life will thank you.

Extra Bonus Bit (some words that are tricky that you should commit to memory):

Epitome  haranguing  connoisseurs   hors d’oeuvres   eulogy  eulogize  chandelier   colonel   leisure   suede  concierge   cologne  eyrie   misled   raise   raze