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SoCalMom
Member
| Joined: | Fri May 16th, 2008 |
| Location: | California USA |
| Posts: | 67 |
| Mana: |  |
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Posted: Tue Jun 17th, 2008 05:58 pm |
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I'm curious about what this group thinks about the efficacy of test prep services.
Kaplan and Princeton Review have been around for years. Recently entering the scene about five years ago, starting in California, is Revolution Prep (http://www.revolutionprep.com), started by two guys in Santa Monica.
Revolution tries to undercut their competition by convenience and price point. I plan to ask our PTSA/HS why they joined with them. The general format is a six week course with six classes (on a weeknight, 6-9 pm) and four sample tests (on Saturdays 9-1.) This is done at the HS in groups of about 15. Cost is $499. For the hybrid package of $799, the student gets the aforementioned classes, 4 hours of in house prviate tutoring and access to online information.
Does anyone have experience with Revolution or the others? Since these aren't cheap, I'm wondering if the advantage is to provide organization structure to complete the prep a few weeks before the exam or if there is value added to paying for this kind of test prep, versus just buying the books with prior exams and having the student map out the study schedule? The prep services all seem to offer a "guarantee" of 200-250 point rise in scores.
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WestrnMom
Super Moderator
| Joined: | Fri May 26th, 2006 |
| Location: | West Coast, USA |
| Posts: | 1267 |
| Mana: |   |
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Posted: Tue Jun 17th, 2008 08:08 pm |
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The purpose of test prep services is to do two things:
1. Teach students how to take the tests
2. Enforce practice of the tests
There is an upward correlation between the number of practice tests a student takes and scores. During my special ed training, I worked with someone who worked for a highly recommended test prep service in our area. He said often his organization hired employees who were good in English but were asked to teach students math as well. After talking to him extensively about it, I came to the conclusion that what is important is not more training in English, language or math but in how well the student understands the process of the tests, what they look for, how to maximize the number of correct answers, and how to work quickly enough to finish. The ACT doesn't penalize students for incorrect answers, so on that test, guessing is OK, however a student who works slowly will not do as well as one who works quickly.
One of my children took a pricey test prep program that cost closer to $1000. It was both helpful and useless. The helpful aspects were being forced to take practice tests. The strategizing was less than useful. My other child did test prep at home, and scored reasonably well on Verbal and Math, extremely well on the subject tests, but I attribute that to excellent teacher prep in the classroom.
If your child needs prodding to study, I would pay for test prep. If your child is a self starter who can learn from books, I suggest getting the College Board's own guide, doing the Question of the Day on their site, getting a copy of Kaplan, Princeton Review, and as many different older copies of the SATs or practice tests as you can. I like "Cracking the SAT" as one of the resources I recommend to my own LD students. The more practice tests your child takes, the better the end result will be. For the latter type of student, I would still get some type of test prep class, but if money is an issue, I'd go for something that fits your budget.
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lfm
Member
| Joined: | Sat Jul 28th, 2007 |
| Location: | California USA |
| Posts: | 116 |
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Posted: Wed Jun 18th, 2008 01:44 am |
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Both my kids went with the low build approach of using prep books, and with very good results.
My d is going to be taking it again in the fall, this time for real (her last time was as a 7th grader.) I might sign her up for an online prep, since there is a homeschooling group that is getting a great deal on the kaplan online prep.
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