catalyst-chicago.org

The elite test takers

Jonathan Bullington's article did demonstrate how important high levels of test preparation and practice are for those few students with extremely high or perfect ACT composite scores. But it doesn't stop there, not at all. My own daughter who had strong ACT composite scores coming out of Payton and went as an undergraduate to U of I Champaign again had to endure the testing regime for graduate school admission by taking the Graduate Record Exam.

The GRE is composed of a Verbal Section involves reading comprehension and multiple-choice sections based on analogies and completions. The Quantitative Section is also multiple-choice, and involves problem solving and comparison questions to test high-school level math skills. The analytical sections involves the writing of two different essays. The "issue task" essay is a 45-minute essay which allows you to choose between two topics, while the "argument task" essay gives the student 30 minutes to read an argument and critique the strengths and weaknesses in that argument. My daughter did well enough to be accepted at several Universities as a doctoral student in Agricultural Economics, she chose to stay at U of I with a full tuition wavier and research stipend .

My daughter approached taking the GRE like an athlete would train for the Olympics. Some of her fellow seniors last year tackled the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) a half-day standardized test administered four times each year at designated testing centers. The LSAT consists of five 35-minute multiple choice sections (one of which is an unscored experimental section) followed by an unscored writing sample section. The LSAT contains two logical reasoning ("LR") sections, commonly known as "arguments", designed to test the taker's ability to dissect and analyze arguments. The LSAT contains one reading comprehension ("RC") section consisting of four passages of 400–500 words, and 5–8 questions relating to each passage. The current LSAT contains one analytical reasoning section, which is referred to colloquially as the "logic games (LG)" section. One section contains four "games" falling into a number of categories including grouping, matching, and ordering of elements. Another groups of my daughter's friends took the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) which according to her was considered to be the most difficult and required absurd levels of preparation. The test takes 4.5–5 hours and is composed of four sections, listed in the order in which they are administered on the day of the exam: Physical Sciences, Verbal Reasoning, Writing Sample, and Biological Sciences. Because of the time constraints of the test performance on it requires not just knowledge but incredible efficiency.

What is interesting about the cohort of high achieving students my daughter entered U of I with is that all of the students she was closely associated with through her undergraduate years I found out when I talked with them had composite ACT scores in the 30s. These young adults were highly prepared and most graduated college with 3.8 GPAs or better. Failure was not within their conceptual framework and they were upset with Bs on any type of exam. Bullington's article only discusses the first step for our elite students, it actually gets harder because at the graduate level they must compete with elite foreign students.

Rod Estvan

paper

we gotta grovel for paper at my school. my principals hands it out as if she is doing us favor! you think Rahm and BBB have to grovel for copy paper?