Korean Job Discussion Forums

[cayce23]

I'm supposed to create a class for SAT prep for high-level, gifted middle school students. It's been 6 years since I took the test, and it's changed since then. The "text book" I'm using is a bound book of copied SAT Critical Reading sections. First of all, these students will most likely never take the test, so I need to make it interesting. Taking sample tests 2 times a week just isn't going to cut it. What ideas would anyone have to help me make this not torture for these students?

[robot]

If they're never taking the test, then you don't have to worry about teaching any of the advanced strategies for hacking the CR.

Instead teach the kids more generally useful things like skimming and scanning skills. Students often tend to read word-by-word, translating from English to Korean. Show them how to "zoom out" and let things like transition words determine where they focus their attention. If they get bored of multiple-choice, you can try beginning with open-ended questions. Maybe have them put their heads together and do a set in teams. Or have a main idea outlining competition on the board to see who can best capture the essence of the passage in the quickest time. Active stuff like that might go over well with young'uns.

Even if these are high-level middle schoolers who went to school overseas, the sentence completion is going to be quite a challenge. Studying word parts (prefix, suffix, roots) is always useful and interesting. Show them how to make flash cards or set up a notebook of words + synonyms. Teach them how to use mnemonics for word recall. Just really basic skills that lay the foundation for future study. And of course there are a zillion vocab games you could play.

Even for students that young SAT doesn't have to be torture. Just be sure to show passion and expertise (even if you have to fake it ^^), and the class should go over swimmingly. If the kids think what they're learning is useful, they'll be too busy taking notes to be bored or mischievous.