I just read Elliot's Krieger's good news article reporting that
SAT scores have in actually increased in Rhode Island - for the first
time in three years and then only modestly ( 4-points ).
I remember this advice for improving your SAT score in the mid-
Sixties at Hope High School: You've got to read, read, READ !
I still " read, read, READ " but with more adult motivations
( curiosity about the world, a desire to manipulate my enemies and
con my friends , intellectual voyeurism , a certain unsaintly
pleasure in the misery of OTHERS, strategies for REVENGE, learning
how to live cheaper and CHEAPER ... a genuine interest in HORROR
stories ... )
One of my favorite Twilight Zone stories is " Time enough at
last ! " ( The hero FINALLY got the time he needed to read, for him
life's greatest pleasure . )
Now then since my high school days I have peeked into
those distinctly uninviting Scholastic Assessment Test ( SAT )
practice books. It struck me way back that one CERTAIN way to
improve SAT scores is to minimize their BOREDOM. I swear those
tests are designed by very aberrant minds with a pathological
need to bore themselves and everybody else to death.
If the dead could talk, they would protest 99 out of 100
tedious, pedantic paragraphs STILL found in this momentous
test.
It is a wonder that most high school students even stay
awake for the four hours!
Let them read paragraphs about SEX IN THE WHITEHOUSE
( up to the standards of TIME magazine ) or pop -analysis
of Princess Diana ( up to NEW YORK TIMES standards ).
We will discover that we have undreamed of academic
talent not only in Rhode Island but everywhere else in this
USA .
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Ron