OC HIGH: STUDENT NEWS & VIEWS : The Big Study : The SAT college-entrance exam has undergone some major changes. Will cramming help? Instructors of preparation courses say most students can benefit from test-taking and time-management strategies.

College entrance exams are enough to make any high school student worry.

And recent changes to the Scholastic Aptitude Test--the first since 1974--have spurred new anxieties, with more students signing up for preparation courses and others trying to absorb new test-taking strategies.

The 2 1/2-hour exam, to be given next on March 19, was renamed last year to Scholastic Assessment Test I (SAT I). Students preregister for the test, which is used along with grades and other information by colleges to determine whether an applicant will be admitted. It is taken by juniors and seniors.

The SAT I still includes two 30-minute verbal sections and two 30-minute math sections. However, the Test of Standard Written English, a section universities had once used to determine placement in English courses, has been eliminated. In its place will be one 15-minute verbal section and one 15-minute math section.

Alterations in the verbal sections include the elimination of antonym questions, the addition of dual-passage exercises and an increased emphasis on critical reading questions. Changes to the math sections allow the use of a calculator and “student-produced response questions,” in which answer choices are not provided.

“On the verbal, there’s an attempt, a desire to test more directly some of the critical reading skills and some of the reasoning skills that are needed in higher education,” said David Hubin, chairman of the SAT Committee.

Hubin, who is executive assistant to the president at the University of Oregon, said changes were made with the intention of bringing the SAT “more in line with the type of reasoning skills that students are going to need in higher education.

“The reading comprehension portion of the exam is expanded. In one part, for example, there are questions that ask you to relate two passages that both deal with a theme and to look for points of comparison, to look for ways in which the authors might agree or disagree. So, in a sense, it tests some higher-level skills of reasoning.”

Much of the test-taking advice offered by Hubin and instructors of preparation courses, which vary from one-day workshops to six-day courses and can cost from under $100 to more than $600, concerns familiarity with the test and time management.

Even “The Official Guide to the New SAT I,” which is published by the College Board and is distributed free at high schools, states: “Become thoroughly familiar with the test directions.”

And, according to Teri Sorey, an instructor at the SAT I verbal skills workshops that are part of the university extension program at UC Irvine, familiarity with the test is reason enough to take an SAT I preparation course.

“It’s a smart move, if nothing more than to become familiar with what you’ll be expected to do,” Sorey said, adding that it is important to “take some practice pretests and determine what are your strengths and weaknesses.

“Taking a preparation class can help confidence levels,” Sorey added. “When you walk into the test, you’ve done it so many times and you’re so familiar with the strategy that I think it eases the stress level. And that alone can help students do better.”

Becoming familiar with the test will also help students know how to budget time, Sorey said. That way, students will know which tasks are easier or harder and “to do the easier things first, so that you don’t run out of time.”

One time-management strategy, according to Adam Sand, director of Princeton Review in Orange County, a test-preparation firm, is to approach each verbal section knowing that some questions take less time to complete.

“On the verbal side, one of the things that we’re saying is, you should do (each section) not in the order they give it to you, but in the order that makes more sense,” he said.

“The analogies are actually some of the easiest questions on the test. You should do the analogies first. Then you do the sentence completion and then do the critical reading last. . . . All the questions are worth the exact same amount of points, so why take your time on critical reading--questions that will take you so long because you have to read the whole passage to do those questions--when you can get the exact amount of points for an analogy that might take you 30 seconds?”

Other techniques for the verbal sections include ways to approach the dual-passage reading comprehension exercise. Students at the UCI Extension workshops are encouraged “to skim the questions first, then read the first passage (and) answer the questions that are about the first passage, (which) will always be the first batch of questions,” Sorey said.

“Then skim the next batch of questions, read the second passage, answer the next batch of questions--the last two, or three at most, will be asking them to compare. Don’t read both passages and then answer the first questions. Just treat them as two separate things until you can get to the last couple of questions.”

Bob McIlhenny instructs SAT prep courses through the community services departments at Orange Coast and Irvine Valley community colleges. One method he encourages is to divide a reading passage into parts for easier comprehension.

“I have (the students) read the questions before they read the section itself. Then take the section and divide it up into 10- to 12-line increments,” McIlhenny said. “And then, sort of digest each section at a time and maybe take little notes or underline words.

“Because of this . . . they usually can answer three to four of the five questions there right off the bat.”

But the key to any reading comprehension exercise, single-passage or dual, is “active reading” and comprehension, Hubin said. “One of the things I believe affects a student’s verbal section, particularly in the reading comprehension section, is the ability to concentrate while doing the reading comprehension passages.”

“There’s a tendency for that to be the section where a student’s mind wanders and they start to wonder (why) they’re reading something about a particular topic when it’s not one that interests them.

“What I’ve recommended to students,” Hubin said, “is that they set up a mental framework to concentrate on the article by first skimming it and then skimming . . . the questions, not with the idea that they would try to answer those questions without reading it, but to set up a framework so that they can anticipate what it is that the article or two articles deal with. And then to rehearse reading actively, to read with questions in mind.”

That is far more productive than trying to “concentrate better by concentrating better on concentrating,” Hubin said. “For example, if you’re reading something about flotation in the gray whale, even if that’s not a topic intrinsically interesting to you, you should pose questions like, why does a whale float? Under what conditions? Does cold water affect it? . . . and so forth. And almost contrive active engagement with the subject.”

To handle analogy questions, the preparation courses give students the mental tools to help define the relationship of words.

“You put the two words that are in the analogy in a definitive sentence showing their relationships. And you drop the words out, then try all your choices. You don’t change your sentence at all, though,” McIlhenny said.

“Despite everything,” Sorey observed, “the one common denominator in terms of high scores in the verbal section of the SAT is the amount of reading a student does. (High scoring students) are the kids who have been reading since they were young. That’s their habit. That’s how they learn vocabulary. That’s how they learn sentence structure. . . . That’s how they develop their thinking skills in order to have the logic to do the analogy sections of the test.

“For these kids, going through the SAT is an exercise rather than challenge.”

New test-taking instructions on the math section cover the use of a calculator and the completion of “student-produced response questions,” also known as “grid-ins.”

“It’s going to be critical for students to get a sense of when the calculator is a useful tool and when it’s a distraction and time-consuming. And to do that, they need to practice,” acknowledged SAT committee chairman Hubin.

“Students should make sure that they’re using a calculator they’re completely comfortable with. Essentially, a basic, four-function calculator is all that’s needed. Students should know that calculator well and should have done a practice test and already rehearsed what types of problems they’d want to use a calculator on and what types of ones they’d come to realize they could solve better by estimation or some method other than calculation.”

Orange County Princeton Review director Sand advises students similarly: “The calculator is recommended, but it’s not required. . . . One of the techniques that we actually stress is that the calculator is your friend but don’t overuse it. I have a feeling that most students, when they have a calculator in their hand, it’s their crutch.”

As far as grid-ins, Hubin recommends familiarity. “Most students have taken multiple-choice exams, and most students have taken problem-solving exams in their math course work. But this is a format that they should become familiar with, where you actually grid in bubbles indicating the mathematical value that you’re choosing, and students would benefit from practice on that.”

“When you’re dealing with the concept of ‘hey, there’s no guessing here,’ . . . you need to start from scratch and deal with these, but (it’s good to) come up with some sort of an answer because there’s no penalty for guessing,” McIlhenny said. “So, don’t spend a lot of time on it, but realize that it’s well worth your while to at least try them.”

Students greet the changes with mixed feelings.

“I don’t really like the math changes, the grid-ins, because . . . when they had the multiple choice for all of them, you kind of had the benefit of the doubt and you could plug in answers,” said Jaime Saul, a 16-year-old junior at Villa Park High School who is enrolled in the Princeton Review courses there. “But this way, it’s all you. You have to come up with the right answer, and I don’t like that.”

Says Dan Henig, 16, also a junior at Villa Park: ‘(The dual passage) is really hard because it’s toward the end of the test usually, and you’re already tired from reading everything else. It’s pretty hard because you have to compare . . . while you’re running out of time.”

But, Villa Park High School junior Bryan Choate, 16, who also attends the Princeton Review, likes the changes. “In a way, I kind of actually like the grid-ins because you get a more definite answer with what you do and it’s not like you really have to guess at anything. Once you get your answer, you can put it in.”

According to Sand, the changes are minimal. “They’ve really only changed 25% of the test.”

Test Yourself

The more familiar you are with the SAT I, the more comfortable you’ll be taking it, say those who coach students for the test.

Free booklets containing a complete practice test are available at school counseling centers. Those taking the practice test need to set aside several hours, using the same timing allowed during the actual test.

Hints from the booklet: Don’t waste time during the actual test by reading directions--learn them ahead of time. Be familiar with answer sheets. Practice using your calculator. Read the booklet thoroughly and don’t throw it away--there are test-taking tips you may want to review right before the test.

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Here are some examples of multiple choice questions from the verbal and math portions of the practice test:

1. Carolyn Bennett, a maker of kaleidoscopes, attributes the current -------------- of intact 19th-Century kaleidoscopes to the normal human desire to -------------- a mysterious object in order to discover how it works.

A. complexity . . . study

B. uniqueness . . . acquire

C. exorbitance . . . distribute

D. paucity . . . disassemble

E. fragility . . . discontinue

2. UNBUCKLE : BELT::

A. unravel : yarn

B. unlock : key

C. unfold : napkin

D. undress : coat

E. untie : shoelace

3. The sales tax on a $6 meal is 36 cents. At this rate, what would be the tax on a $14 meal?

A. 48 cents

B. 72 cents

C. 84 cents

D. 90 cents

E. 96 cents

4. Apples are distributed, one at a time, into six baskets. The 1st apple goes into basket one, the 2nd into basket two, the 3rd into basket three, and so on until each basket has one apple. If this pattern is repeated, beginning each time with basket one, into which basket will the 74th apple be placed?

A. Basket two

B. Basket three

C. Basket four

D. Basket five

E. Basket six

5. If the product of three consecutive integers written in increasing order equals the middle integer, what is the least of the three integers?

A. 2

B. 1

C. O

D. -1

E. -2

ANSWERS: 1. D 2. E 3. C 4. A 5. D