
Khan Academy SAT Prep - eriktrautman
https://www.khanacademy.org/sat
======
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](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.

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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](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](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](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."

~~~
mirithekiwi
I would say you are probably correct, although the college admissions process
isn't exactly cheap as it is.

It normally costs ~$50 to take the SAT once, plus ~$12 per college you want to
apply to. Then there are the SAT subject tests, which cost less ($30?) but
it's not uncommon for a student looking to get into a selective school to take
>3 subject tests. Then, maybe the student needs to retake the SAT, which is
pretty standard, so add another ~$50 dollars and now we're looking at several
hundred dollars in exams. This isn't counting the $50-100 application fee per
school. Having a professor interview applicants would still be impossibly
expensive of course. Do you happen to know how well the alumni interviews
work? I never had one, but if I understand correctly, they are a part of Ivy
League tier applications where a graduate of the school deems if the applicant
would be a good fit. I've heard there's not much weight placed on them,
however.

I personally think the SATs are better indicators of socio-economic standing
than scholastic aptitude, but agree that there's probably nothing better. I
kind of wish that the application process was similar to that for graduate
school, where there's more weight placed on the relevant subject test and
letters of recommendation.

------
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](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.

~~~
foobarqux
I understand that to mean that they do normalization between different
versions of the test in a given year, not that they do not do normalization
across the SAT population in that year. It would surprise me if they didn't do
population-wide normalization, otherwise too many scores would be at or near
the upper limit, making the score uninformative, and also you could not
compare the rank of students between years.

Regardless, because the point of the SAT is ranking, your score is irrelevant.
What matters is how you do with respect to your peers. If everyone does better
the test has become "harder" because you need to do better to get a higher
rank.

~~~
ikeboy
> It would surprise me if they didn't do population-wide normalization,
> otherwise too many scores would be at or near the upper limit, making the
> score uninformative, and also you could not compare the rank of students
> between years.

Be surprised. [http://research.collegeboard.org/content/sat-data-
tables](http://research.collegeboard.org/content/sat-data-tables)
[http://research.collegeboard.org/programs/sat/data/archived/...](http://research.collegeboard.org/programs/sat/data/archived/cb-
seniors-2013)

You can't compare percentile, which is why they're released anew each year.
You can compare scores.

>Regardless, because the point of the SAT is ranking, your score is
irrelevant.

That's a better point, perhaps. Your race also matters (minorities can get
into Ivies with much lower scores than other people). Besides, if people get
better, colleges might have more room.

(For people with perfect scores, it doesn't really matter.)

~~~
foobarqux
> You can't compare percentile, which is why they're released anew each year.
> You can compare scores.

What does "compare" mean? Does it mean that two people with the same score but
in 1996 and 2015 respectively would be expected to achieve that score in a
2005 test?

~~~
ikeboy
It means that someone in the Xth percentile on one test/year may have done
either better or worse than the same percentile a different year.

Your second question is yes.

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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.

~~~
jeresig
Not exactly. It's linking to the old SAT practice material that's for the old
(current) SAT exam. The new material, for the upcoming 2016 exam, which was
just launched today, is available at:

[https://www.khanacademy.org/sat](https://www.khanacademy.org/sat)

If you want to "get into the details" you'll need to be logged in and complete
the onboarding, through this URL:

[https://www.khanacademy.org/mission/sat](https://www.khanacademy.org/mission/sat)

I mean, linking to the current URL is fine, but it's not what was actually
released nor is it representative of the new content.

(Disclaimer: I work at Khan Academy)

~~~
dang
Ok thanks, that's dispositive. Url changed from
[https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/sat](https://www.khanacademy.org/test-
prep/sat).

(Sorry khirasaki; I get what you meant now.)

