SAT tutor Matt Bardin stopped by to talk about the New SAT exam, what makes it "new" and how to deal with the stress of taking the test. He has a book on the subject coming out the summer (with co-author Susan Fine) from Houghton Mifflin. Here's a selection from the introduction to the book, "Zen in the Art of the SAT: How to Think, Focus and Achieve Your Highest Score:"

How do you feel when you’re taking a test and get a question about something you don’t know? Your heart rate goes up. You might feel heat in your chest or your temples. If only you had read that chapter more carefully or memorized that formula – but now there’s nothing you can do. You make up some feeble nonsense in hopes of getting partial credit. Whether this happens to you all the time or almost never, it’s one of the worst feelings you can experience as a student.

It’s also something you can count on experiencing while taking the SAT. However, on the SAT, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It may even be a good thing.
In Japanese, the word for crisis (kiki) also means critical opportunity. That’s because every crisis can be a turning point. How you handle a crisis can make the difference between disaster and triumph.
At some point on the SAT, you may face a crisis – the anxiety caused by a question you initially think you can’t answer. How you handle this crisis will determine how well you do. (And how you manage anxiety more generally will determine how well you do in lots of different things throughout life.)

Do you see a connection between how you responded to tests in school and how you handle "kiki"s now? Email us.

Posted by leboheme at 05:05 PM