Too frequently, people at school ask me why I’m so “good” or “talented” at math.
Before I tell them that I’m not, I usually catch myself, because the answer is not that simple. Not only have I done a lot of math over the years, but I also went through many tough times when I seemed to hit a roadblock and math became more of a chore than an activity to embrace.
Along our learning paths, we struggle a lot. I’ve learned the hard way that learning any particular skill is not linear. Sometimes we stagnate, and sometimes our performance declines. But the single, most important factor that contributes the most to our abilities, at the end of the day, is whether or not we stop.
It’s very easy to keep going when things are going well, but painstakingly difficult when things go rough.
Developing my English literacy skills is one of the hardest abilities that I’ve tried to cultivate. During the first three years of high school, I never dug out the time to read books, write interesting literary posts or improve my vocabulary. I was never motivated to do so, either. Language arts was never my best subject, and frequently, I felt bad when many of my peers had greater reading comprehension, syntax usage, or vocabulary knowledge than me.
But what I was forgetting was the fact that I never seriously invested my time into honing these skills. If someone approaches me asking for advice for SAT math preparation or even competition math, I would give them specific insights on preparation and specific strategies for particular question types. But at the end of the day, they have to invest time into it. And if you’re “not that good”, on a subjective level, it means a lot of time.
The same goes for my English.
Although standardized testing from College Board may test different skills than what a typical school English curriculum does, the English portions of them drove me nuts. I’ve had a couple of alarming subscores from my first PSAT in sophomore year and my first SAT in junior year. I was disappointed by my poor performances, but they were good primary wake-up calls to my negligence in developing my skills.
Some say that performance comes down to the testing strategy, which is true. I can also be certain that standardized tests aren’t indicative of your knowledge of the subject.
However, I believe that these tests are also pretty indicative of your reading comprehension and your ability to write according to standard conventions of English.
I know that I can do a lot better, and as an high-achiever in STEM, it’s strange to see the drastic difference between my scores in the Math and English sections. Also, being complacent would mean future struggles in my English classes as well as a harder chance for college admissions.
I always thought I read enough, wrote enough, and had a strong vocabulary, but even a mere unknown concept or word on the test signaled that I had room to improve. Not true; many of my “errors” were deeply rooted in a lack of “fundamentals” in English. Just as solving basic linear equations is a basic stepping stone to solving sophisticated word problems, I had holes in vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension that impeded performance progress.
To this day, studying for these standardized tests is not easy. Of course, I don’t need to worry about the math, but more often than not, the English sections are difficult. I’ve increased my reading volume, memorized a significant amount of vocabulary, and polished up my test strategy, but sometimes, nothing seems to be working. But even if it seems so, I’ll keep going and try my best.
It’s hard. I took a couple of digital SAT practice tests the week before the June SAT, and got stuck at around the 670-700 range for the Reading/Writing modules. I admit that I only studied hard the week before the test – I definitely didn’t spend enough time for significant improvement. I got a 690 on the real test. It seemed like I hit a wall at 700, a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. I don’t know how to get over this barrier, and only when I get over it will I discover how to ace the section.
I started studying for the July ACT instead, in hopes of averaging out over the four sections to a high score. I’ve done a lot more towards my literacy skills in general, and I’ve taken a good amount of practice Reading sections (my Writing is somewhat solid). However, it’s nowhere as good as I want it to be, and I’ve tried lots of techniques that don’t work. I struggle with time. Reading the questions first wasn’t a good idea, because I didn’t know where in the passage to search for the answer. I don’t know how to skim the passage and still grasp the main idea. The best bet so far for me seems to be to read the passage once thoroughly, and answer the questions, just like you would on the ACT. However, even equipped with Process of Elimination and Predicting the Answer Choices, I could still get mired in the answer choices for some of the wordier questions. I usually finish a passage with high accuracy in about ten to twelve minutes, way off the pacing for the test (a passage should take only 8 minutes and 45 seconds).
When I started taking practice tests, I started with a scaled score of 21 without guessing for the Reading section. With a little bit of preparation, I increased to a 25 (again, without guessing). I got stuck at twenty-five for a while, but today, I did one and got a 27 without guessing. At least that’s an improvement.
I am aiming for a 33 or a 34 on the section, so I’m going to make the most out of the time I have left.
For me, standardized tests seem daunting. Maybe I’m overcomplicating it, but in any case, even if it is extremely hard for me, I’ll keep doing it.
Please leave a comment if you have any suggestions for standardized test English preparation or general literacy advice! Thanks!