tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post2460795750753323578..comments2024-03-28T17:53:43.541-04:00Comments on DarwinCatholic: Test PrepDarwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-79548705755167080222018-10-04T13:23:09.630-04:002018-10-04T13:23:09.630-04:00Sally, thank you! We pulled this up today and she&...Sally, thank you! We pulled this up today and she's already gotten a lot of review in on some basic linear equation stuff (and doing well, so that's nice). We were able to skip ahead to what we needed to look at, and she seems to like it well.<br /><br />I myself took the ACT and got a 32 -- my perfect reading score was dragged down by my math, and my math was dragged down not only by my inaptitude but by the fact that I was hauled out of the math section by the police because someone had reported that I'd nicked a car in the parking lot. (I had scratched the car, tbh, and had been planning to leave a note after the test was over because I was running late, but the police weren't really buying that. I was under 18 and had to go to court, where the judge threw the whole thing out.)mrsdarwinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03446744635277205867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-12971400137003989792018-10-04T11:33:12.759-04:002018-10-04T11:33:12.759-04:00I had one child who did better on the SAT (a less-...I had one child who did better on the SAT (a less-mathy child, though that may just be coincidental), and one who did so well on the ACT that he never bothered with the SAT. I do think some people just naturally do better on one than the other, though I couldn't tell you why! <br /><br />For math learning and review: I like SchoolYourself.org WAY better than I like Khan. My 14yo and I are working through their algebra 1 now. The thing I like is that the video lessons themselves are interactive -- there's no way you can sit there and glaze over while somebody talks and demonstrates. You have to work problems (after some initial instruction, and with hints) to get through a lesson. Their review sections get progressively harder as you work through them. They don't do word problems, so you still have to have a resource for that kind of thing. But for learning the basic concepts and practicing them, it's very good. We have been cracking the whole graphing thing lately -- slope-intercept form, point-slope form, finding slopes, etc. I'm fairly sure I never really learned any of that, despite my physical presence in an actual institutional high-school algebra class. But I can explain it now, by golly! Sally Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05014351173194941624noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-43363168144558923242018-10-04T01:15:26.942-04:002018-10-04T01:15:26.942-04:00Humbling is certainly the right word! And you defi...Humbling is certainly the right word! And you definitely feel the age difference - I can feel how much more slowly my brain takes in more information than when I was a high school and college student. It was also depressing how quickly your brain can forget things - I had to take a year of college calculus and still found it hard to help my kids with SAT math! Since I was a biochem major, I was relieved to find that I was at least still competent in high school biology, though I always had to review the reading first. It did make me amazed all over again at my dad, who seemed to have nearly perfect recall of anything he’d ever learned. He could help me with any math problem through calculus without even looking at my textbook.<br /><br />You might explore the ACT - all the colleges pretty much take either SAT or ACT and they are slightly different. After she takes her PSAT, you can have her take a practice ACT, and compare which she performs better on. My daughter was humanities-focused, and found the math portion of the ACT a little easier than the SAT math. Son Momhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06522471505702217765noreply@blogger.com