ABIBSAT exams y'all might hate them but I fucking love them
all right you know what time it is it's time for the pop out and today we're
talking standardized tests and I gotta tell you something I've been teaching
students on how to take standardized tests for two decades and you know I
really love them I love them with a passion especially the SATs especially
the one that I think a lot of students hate absolutely despise and I want to
say a little bit about why and also get you to better understand why these
standardized tests actually exist why some places require them and whether you
should actually take these standardized tests and when it makes sense to do so
and when not to okay so let me first break it up into two sections here so
first I want to talk about the SATs and everything I say about the SATs also
applies for ACT exams and then in a separate section I'll talk about AP
exams and IB exams the ones that are supposed to be college equivalents okay
okay so what exactly is the purpose of these standardized tests at least with
the SATs okay the reason that the SATs are taken seriously as a form of met as
a metric for college admission is that you know high school GPAs can be
misleading I think I've mentioned this before right like every high school is
different there could be great inflation you don't know what the students are
actually learning at least in detail and so these standardized tests are a way to
indicate whether or not you're learning the things that you probably should be
learning at the high school level so that you are prepared to tackle the work
at the college level and I think I've mentioned this before right there's been
data that's been put out there about the correlations between SAT scores and your
first year success at colleges and there are some correlations not as if like
standardized tests don't indicate something now these this that is muddy
so I don't want you to think like oh if you could do on your SATs you're
definitely do one college it's not what it is but you know I noticed in teaching
the SATs I've noticed that there's things that are taught in the SATs that
students should know for college for college courses that they should already
have knowledge of before they start college yet it's not necessarily taught
at every high school or if it's taught it's not taught well or it's not taught
completely okay so I'm gonna explain exactly what it is what it is that you
should be learning from preparing for the SATs and why most of you probably
should if not take them at least you know practice them right okay so you know
SATs are broken up into different sections there's like reading and
writing and then there's math every year you know the exact format of the exam
number of questions the number of sections etc the types of questions they
change you know I think I've seen it from my in my time teaching this right I
seen it change and go back and then we'll make some edits usually every like
four to five years there's a decent shift and it's for different reasons okay
but what exactly is the SATs there to do like I said it's to kind of give a
standardized way of assessing how to interpret grades all right I think that's
one of the things that it actually does right so when you're thinking about why
should I even consider taking the SATs right one of the reasons is that you
know if they had to just if a school had to solely rely on your grades to figure
out whether you're or not you're ready for college okay it's like an incomplete
picture right it's like they're gonna have to gamble but if your grades also
are reflective of you know the ability to do the work in college as represented
in your SAT score then you have now two metrics that gives the college of
mission some faith that you could handle college-level work I don't know if that
makes any sense right in a similar fashion right if you have a high GPA but
a low SAT score they might be worried that maybe the high school wasn't as or
the coursework wasn't as rigorous and so you're able to get high grades but it's
not reflective of the amount or the quality of the education you received
right that's evidenced by your SAT score okay well alternatively you might have
gone to an extremely competitive high school and so your GPA might not be the
highest but then your SAT scores are off the charts indicating that so there's
some right discrepancy indicates something right that you're capable of
doing the work all right you're knowledgeable about you know the basics
that you need to know for college like the reading and writing skills but it's
not reflected in your GPA for some reason or another what that is you could
try to explain it in your personal statement right so the standardized test
again is in one of many metrics right so I want to just kind of make sure that we
have the right picture of why standardized tests are used and why
they're asking for it right it's not necessarily that that's the be all end
all right it's just one more data point for them to use to complete the picture
of who you are as an applicant okay which means that the absence of a
standardized test also indicates some concern right why did you choose not to
take a test now there might be good reasons for it there's a lot of schools
now especially after the pandemic that continue to not require the SAT score
right but you know it's kind of like an unspoken thing right where yeah it's not
required but if you don't submit your SAT scores it might raise some questions
why did you not submit an SAT score why did you not even take the SATs right is
there something you're trying to hide all right the ideal application is going
to have your SAT scores and it's going to reflect what your GPA already reflects
it's going to reinforce what your GPA already reflects okay so ideally I
usually recommend students take the SATs take it seriously study for it and take
it and try to do well in it okay does that mean you have to submit the scores
to colleges no you could choose to submit them or not that's up to you you
could indicate which ones you want to submit whether or not you want those
scores submitted but you know you should at least take seriously the idea of
taking the SATs right if you already know that you do fairly well on the
SATs it might be worth putting a little more energy especially early on in your
high school career to see if you could do well on the PSAT because there's
scholarship implications with that so that's money on the table here but you
know generally speaking the recommendation I give students is if you
are able to take the SATs and it's not going to hurt you it's only going to
reinforce what they already know from your GPA it's better to at least take
the SATs okay all right that's that I'll say a little bit more about when it
might not make sense to take the SATs but it's fairly rare right but even if
you don't choose not to take the SATs right I think you should study for for a
lot of reasons right like I said there's a lot that's not covered in some high
schools right I'll give you one example of this I teach I taught reading and
writing mostly on the SATs though I have and I'm able to teach math the math
section of the SATs as well okay but the the SATs are testing for something
that's a little bit different that's not necessarily same I should say then what
high school curriculums actually cover right so in the writing section for
instance there the the SAT you know reading and writing is testing for
reading comprehension which you know your GPA might not necessarily reflect
just how good you are at reading comprehension okay and this is the kind
of reading comprehension that is not the same as you would do in like a advanced
English class this is just basic reading comprehension this is just basic if you
read a passage do you understand what the passage is saying and specifically
the SATs like to include a lot of passages with different styles of
writing that are going to be more reflective of what you should have been
learning in high school which is the range of types of writings that you
should be able to read and understand right whether it's in the social
sciences or whether it's in English whether there's a work of literature
whether it's a research paper right ideally all right this is why the
SATs have changed are constantly working to try to make it a better metric for
whether or not you're prepared by including the kind of things that you
should already know how to do right you should know how to read for instance a
graph and understand what the graph is trying to communicate you should be able
to read an academic paper because that's what you're gonna do in college right so
if you're doing poor in and you're on your SATs right and it's not like an
issue of test taking skills it's just simply you just are not able to
comprehend what you're reading when you're doing these practice tests
that's probably an indication that whatever education you're getting in
high school you're gonna have to supplement it in some ways in order for
you to be better prepared to do well at the college level right and the writing
for instance right I've learned that from my teaching that most high schools
just I think they said students have told me like they learn a little bit of
it here and there but there's no comprehensive set of lessons that they
receive on the basic rules of grammar in English okay and that's kind of odd for
me to hear in part because I definitely got rules of grammar when I was taking a
foreign language right if you take a Spanish class a French class you know
any class at all right in a foreign language you're probably gonna learn you
know strict rules of grammar or at least like the ones that you are most of the
time correct there's sometimes irregular verbs and things like that but you know
a lot of times right you're gonna learn formally the rules of grammar and so I
was surprised to see that a lot of high school students never end up learning I
mean I didn't learn it necessarily in high school either I was just surprised
that it's being asked for on the SATs and that's not being necessarily being
taught in class but the results of that is that a lot of students end up not
understanding the basic rules of grammar and making fairly basic
grammatical errors right so the SATs one thing that it does is it kind of forces
you to learn this right like it forces you to learn the things that you should
be learning to prepare yourself for college right I understand that nowadays
there's technologies that allow you to you know edit your grammar right like
grammar check spelling check these are all things right but you know if you're
taking an in-person exam and you have to write something out in class right like
it's gonna be glaringly obvious if you have terrible spelling and terrible
grammar right so these are the kinds of things where you should be aware of it
and the rules are fairly ironclad right the way the SATs are designed is that if
there's not a specific rule that can be you know referenced as a reason for the
correct answer being the correct answer then it's just not a question they're
gonna use on the SATs in other words right these are pretty ironclad rules
these are not like obscure grammar rules these are basic rules about subject verb
agreement about whether or not to use which or you know that right how to use
demonstrative you know pronouns like pretty basic rules of grammar right so
if you're doing poorly on the SAT practice tests that you're taking then it
is probably an indicator that you should probably brush up on some of this content
here like I said it doesn't require you to go through some expensive SAT course
right if you have the discipline all you need to do is borrow one of these books
from the library that talk about what's on the SATs and they actually have a
list of grammar rules and then if you want more you know practice questions so
that you could really practice your grammar skills there's like plenty of
things nowadays on the web on websites where they'll just have a list of grammar
questions that you could you know use I don't know if that makes any sense at
all but you know again the the opportunities out there for you to get
better at this right okay similarly with reading skills reading skills a little
bit harder but you know the the only way to really improve your reading skills is
just to read a lot I mean and you just need to read a lot of actual text right
and yeah I was surprised to find that a lot of students haven't read primary
text and that is genuinely concerning in part because you're gonna be expected to
read primary text when you get to college right so if you've never read
for instance the Federalist Papers or the US Constitution in its entirety
right that's a serious problem it's a different style of writing right it's
the kind of language that is used in legal documents it's the kind of
language that becomes a foundation for all of Western you know civilization so
you know if you're not able to read for instance the US Constitution and
understand it that's gonna be a serious problem not only if you're choosing to
go to law school but also for basic philosophy and sociology classes we're
gonna be asked to read primary text right from figures that write in a
similar fashion right for instance I teach you know ethics philosophy they
you know we're gonna cover primary text from figures like David Hume and Thomas
Hobbes and these figures write in a very similar fashion is the way that Locke
wrote oh Locke is covered in philosophy right so so these are all gonna be ways
of you know reading comprehension skills that you're gonna need at some point
anyways for your college career which is why it's important for you to
practice it and unfortunately there are a lot of schools where teachers will
not require this reading and so you don't have exposure and you don't know
how to read this type of work that's a serious problem that's a serious problem
right so I'm not saying that the SATs are great in that you know they are an
accurate reflection of your capabilities most schools will give bigger weight to
your GPA because your GPA reflects how you've performed in a law for a longer
period of time but the SAT exam does serve as a kind of measuring stick to
compare how your GPA is versus what you're actually capable of doing with
basic reading writing and analytic skills which reminds me like you know
I've talked a little bit about reading and writing you know for math right a
lot of students you know think that look oh you know like it's just you know I'm
doing like regular math questions like I would in class that's actually not what
the SATs are designed to evaluate they're evaluating analytic skills
that's really what they're doing right if you think about it most of the
concepts mathematical concepts you that they test you on on the SATs are ones
that are going to be covered in your ninth tenth grade eleventh grade maybe
right but you know it's honestly the concepts themselves are not particularly
difficult it's how you apply them and whether you can manipulate these
formulas and approaches in order to get the answers quickly within the time
frame they give you they're actually testing for your analytic skills not
necessarily math skills and that analytic skill is going to be important
for more than just math right they're not just checking to see if you do well
in math they're checking to see if you can analyze problems in an efficient way
to see patterns and to be able to manipulate formulas in order to get the
answer in the most efficient way possible that's really what they're
testing you on right and that skill set is going to be important for all kinds
of fields and that includes the humanities that includes for instance
philosophy in philosophy we teach logic as a central part of philosophy
analytic skills and if you don't have that if you if you haven't trained your
brain in that way you're gonna really struggle with those classes so I want to
be clear about this right whether or not you like the SATs whether or not you
think it's fair that students have to take the SATs right just know that the
SATs are there for a reason it's not just some accident right there's not
it's not just as if like colleges are saying yeah we're requiring you know you
to take the SATs or we're gonna take SATs seriously just because right just
to make it harder for you that's not what this is right the SATs are meant
to serve as a metric for measuring something and this is exactly what it's
measuring right and I think if you are somebody who is familiar with the test
familiar with what they're actually testing and the kind of motive and the
ideas behind it then you have a better idea of why to some degree a test like
this is necessary to if anything to get students to supplement their education
at school with information that they definitely will need in preparation for
college right so that's why I say like look whether or not you take the SATs
or not right you should at least practice for it you should take some
practice tests oh another thing that will help you with is test taking skills
right learning how to test under time pressure knowing about pacing of exams
how to answer multiple-choice questions strategies for answering multiple-choice
questions right like things like this right these are all skills that are
extremely useful extremely helpful when you get to the college level and that's
part of the reason that I think there is some correlation between SATs and your
first year success you could learn it while you're in college but why would you
want to do that why wouldn't you want to be prepared for it before you get into
college so that you don't have to learn it on the fly right if that makes any
sense so I you know I want to encourage you to practice for the SATs I want you
to learn the things that you might not be learning in your high school that is
being tested on the SATs and like I said you should not be thinking of it as the
be-all end-all don't put too much pressure on yourself and don't feel like
you have to take an SAT course honestly most of the time I find the SAT course
to be exhausting long expensive time-consuming we'll talk about this
next time but look time is a huge factor right there's better things you could do
than spend an entire summer you know spending 30 40 hours a week preparing
for the SATs right that's a lot of time you could be spent doing other things
that are much more meaningful and maybe even help you with your college
application much more than just you know studying for the SATs right so you know
I want you to try to learn to appreciate what the SATs are doing and this again
goes for a CTS as well and start early right I would say like start in ninth
grade take some standardized tests okay and I've told you this before right
taking him multiple times already is going to help you taking them under the
appropriate time pressures okay in the appropriate settings like to mimic the
settings of test taking day right that's gonna already help you do better on the
exam right just having some practice under your belt is gonna help you but
more importantly I want you to actually look through what's covered in these
exams and I want you to make sure I want to absolutely make sure that you are
learning the actual concepts you should be learning the basic grammar rules the
reading skills and I say you need to start early like in ninth grade for a
reason right it gives you at least a sense of what you should make sure you
learn in the next several years before you actually take the SATs right and
before you get to college right so it gives you a sense of at least some
basic things you should cover so that you have an eye out for when it's not
being covered in your classes but it's also so that you can it's also so that
you can actually develop some of these skills because some of these skills it
takes time right those grammar rules it takes a lot of practice right what the
one thing that's nice about the grammar rules is that because they're rules you
could learn them a little faster but here's the thing reading skills you
don't learn them overnight the only way to improve your reading skills and I've
had this you know discussion with students many times when they're like
you know I've been reading and reading and trying so hard in the past three
months to improve my reading skills and I just don't seem to be getting any
better and I'm like yeah you know why because reading skills take years to
develop right reading skills are a little different than like studying math
and understanding a math concept once you learn a rule grammar rule you know
how to apply it after you do a few practice problems you start to get it
then it's like only the tricky few questions might get you but for the most
part you're gonna understand the rule right but when it comes to reading you
need to start early and you need to read often and you need to read a range of
different works and you need to do it consistently for years before you get
better right reading is one of those skill sets where you know you will not
see progress and you will not see the impact on your score for like a good
year and then all of a sudden there'll be a huge jump because something clicks
that's the way reading skill development works it doesn't happen overnight which
means that you can't expect to cram your way into developing reading skills you
need to start early you need to start like as early as possible in fact you
know I think the data shows right how much you read at a very early age makes
a huge up so this is for you for your parents right get student your kids away
from the TV and then get them into books and nowadays I mean I found this with my
own child right when we go to the library there's a whole section for little
kids with they call it graphic novels right I'm essentially comics but
whatever it takes to get them to fall in love with reading once they learn to
enjoy that they'll move on to ones with less pictures and then they'll learn to
go ahead and use their imagination as they learn about life and learn about
more stuff they're able to use their imagination to kind of paint their own
vivid pictures without the pictures being provided and they'll learn to love
reading because they've kind of gotten into it by just exposing themselves to
reading right and they'll even have like preferences for the kind of reading that
they enjoy okay but you need to start early because reading skills cannot be
developed overnight I can't I try to tell students I can't teach you how to
read overnight it's gonna take it's gonna take time it's gonna take time
like reading a passage or something like a particular style of writing for a few
months is not gonna do it right you're gonna have to do it for years and years
and years and so there are works that I would highly recommend a range of kind
of works that are kind of reflections of the kind of works that you should learn
to read at the college level but I'm telling you that studying for the SATs
will help you with that studying for the SATs they're going to help you get
familiar with the kinds of passages that you're gonna expect it to at least be
able to understand all right and that's what these questions are gonna be asking
they're not gonna ask you for deep metaphors and stuff right that's not
most of these questions are not like anything close to that right most of them
is just basic comprehension right what is happening who's doing what right
that's what it has to be the way that these tests are designed has to be
grounded in something that's explicitly written in the text that's the way that
the answers are justified and that's the only way that the question ends up on
the exam okay so take the standardized tests at least the SATs and the
ACTs take them seriously right if you find that you do better on one than the
other that's fine that's fine take the one that will reflect better on you
right you could take practice tests in both and see how you do and whichever
one you seem to do better at because the tests are slightly different whichever
one gives you the higher score right the higher percentile go for it okay there's
one last thing I do want to point right about the amount of time you invest into
it if you don't know the SATs there's like a curve that happens right so the
way that you see your actual numerical score I think that's not the thing to
pay attention to I think the thing you should pay attention to is a percentile
okay you want to try to hit the highest percentile right like 90th percentile
would be very very good but I do want to point out something this has to do with
statistics and the way that the exam is designed right but the key is this right
it is actually fairly well I wouldn't say easy right but it's easier to get
from 50th percentile to the 60th percentile than it is to get from the
90th percentile to the 92nd percentile right in other words it's easier to
raise your score from let's say if it was I don't know what it is out of now
because I think they recently changed it but let's say it's out of 1800 right if
you have a thousand score of a thousand getting it from a thousand to a thousand
two hundred is going to be a lot easier from getting it from like what is it
fourteen hundred to a sixteen hundred right that 200 point jump depending on
where it is it's gonna require a lot more work like if you are already in like
you know getting like the you know 80th sorry 85th to 90th percentile
especially if you're already hit the 90th percentile it's gonna take an
immense amount of work for you to get from the 90th percentile to the 95th
percentile and you need to think carefully is this worth the time because
I'm gonna tell you right now the amount of reading skills you're gonna have to
develop the amount of writing skill you have to develop the amount of analytics
skill you have to develop it's gonna take a year of dedicated work okay I
would suggest right that you be mindful of how much time that's going to consume
and ask yourself whether it's worth it or if your time is better spent you know
doing extracurricular activities or some you know personal time right like
developing yourself I think last time we talked about learning about yourself and
doing some reflection going to therapy right going on walks and enjoying nature
I don't know right there are other things that are more valuable in life
that I think you need to kind of find a right balance and I'm gonna tell you
this right now like if you are in the you know 50th percentile then yes it's
might it's probably worth it to dedicate some energy to bump yourself up because
you're gonna notice a bigger jump much more quickly but once you get up to that
90th percentile it's like man it might also depend on how you feel that day
right or what kind of questions you come across it's gonna be really hard it's
gonna be really hard so there's no need to stress yourself out over getting a
perfect score it's not necessary okay once you get to that 90th percentile
you're probably fairly good right the key here is this because this goes back
to the question of whether or not you should take the SATs okay if it's going
to raise red flags stay away from it okay but if it's going to reinforce what
the what the admission committee already knows then you should definitely take it
because it'll help them to alleviate any doubts or anxiety about whether or not
you're prepared right in other words if your SAT scores is pretty on par with
where your GPA is okay it doesn't show like a warning sign like your your SAT
score significantly lower than what you probably should be getting based off of
your GPA then you probably you know if it's not lower and if it's actually like
at the right level then you should definitely take the SATs even if it's
not a perfect score even if it's not you know a near perfect score okay if it's
good enough it's good enough and you should probably take it okay that would
be my recommendation personally all right all right this is a little
different from AP exams okay AP I'm gonna talk about AP exams but I know
some places have IB exams okay should I take AP exams should I take IB exams okay
if you are taking an AP designated class at school you should definitely take the
AP test okay it looks shady for you to take the AP class but not take the AP
exam again this has to do with the way that these metrics line up right if you
got an A in your AP class they want to know what the quality of that A is and
at least taking it and at least passing it will give them some assurance that
you at least did enough and that this is not just some fake AP class where you
didn't learn anything and then you completely bombed the exam okay does it
make sense so you should be if you're taking an AP class you should be looking
to take the AP test all right because I know that there's an option if you take
the AP class you decide not to take the AP exam you know that it's your choice
but I'm telling you right now like it's not gonna look good if you don't take it
okay there's a second reason you should be taking it right you should be taking
it because you know colleges like to see students who challenge themselves who
are not afraid to go the extra mile and to really see how far they can go
they're not looking for people who are going to you know be too worried about
catering their application and to making it look nice by avoiding risk that's not
what they're looking for they're looking for you to take risks and it's okay if
you fail in some of them right as long as you're demonstrating that you're
taking it seriously and if the AP classes are really truly teaching you
what you need to teach or they need to teach you you should be in the minimum
passing the AP exam okay it is suspicious if you don't take it but more
importantly right they want you to take it because they want to see that you are
willing to really push yourself okay for that same reason even if an AP exam
sorry AP class is not offered at your school if you really like a subject and
you want to take the exam I would look into trying to find a way to take that
AP exam some schools will offer the AP exam to anybody well they have to offer
to anybody who wants to take it right but you know sometimes it's not available
for you to take it at your school so you might have to look to taking it
someplace else but there are a lot of subjects you can study for on your own I
told you this before right that for the SATs you could just look up one of these
prep books and then learn everything you need to know okay it's not quite the
same with the AP exams but you know you can learn most of the things you need to
know to even to at least pass on the AP exams from those prep books plus some
additional resources right for instance like I know that Khan Academy online
they have a lot of resources to help you prepare for your AP exams okay you can
actually do that on your own like for instance in the summer you can go ahead
and prepare for it right and then refresh your memory as the school year
goes along and then in when May rolls around take the test just take it and
here again there's an indication that you're challenging yourself because the
class might not be offered at school or maybe it's offered but you just can't
take it because your schedule is full with other things that you want to do
but you are showing that you're willing to be proactive and study this
material on your own and take it seriously enough that you actually pass
the exam okay now I say this with a caveat which is you should not do it if
it's going to hurt you right what I mean by that is you know I think I made this
mistake right I made the mistake of taking one too many or two too many AP
exams that I did not take the class for when I was in high school right and I did
terribly on them right but the reason I did terribly is that I couldn't dedicate
the time I wanted to them and on top of that I was pretty exhausted during that
AP exam time right in May I remember having to take you know tests back to
back right these are three plus hour long tests one after another in a day
and then the next day coming back and taking two more right that actually
wears on you and it actually hinders you from performing your best on test day
it's just really hard switching your gears like that that many times and
cramming that many exams into a short period right so I don't know exactly how
the schedule is gonna look depending on what tests you want to take but you also
want to be mindful not to overdo it alright so I'm not telling you to go
ahead and just sign up for every single one okay what I'm saying is if you want
to take one or two that's not offered at school and or that you can't take
because of scheduling conflict but you really love the topic and you're willing
to dedicate the time to it it is an option for something for you to do okay
it is an option for us or something for you to do okay but as always all of
these exams need to be balanced out with other things that are going to show up
in your application okay the academic portion is big in the sense that they
need to know that you're ready for college they need to know that you can
hold your own with other students in that particular college with the
standard that that particular college has okay that's what they need to know
this is why when you're applying it's important to look at median SAT scores
and like the median what is it GPAs right like looking at what you know the
students that are accepted right where they tend to fall like what range they
tend to fall into right the majority of them it's because it indicates like some
the kind of standard of expectation for what you should be prepared to do when
you get to college right but once you've met that requirement right you need to
be mindful of how you balance that time with other things that are going to
really highlight the kind of person that you are that could be a dedication to
sports or particular extracurricular activity or to you know volunteer work
or to personal hobbies or to I don't know what right it there's not anything
particular it's just that you know you want to show that you're more than just
a robot that studies all day if you ever want to know why some of the students
who are like valedictorians have the best GPA have a perfect SAT score you
know taking all these AP exams maybe even taking some class at community
college and have some community like college classes under their belt in that
way right why they don't get accepted to some of the more competitive
universities it's because they don't have anything else on their resume or
if they do it's pretty bare-bone why because time is limited we're mortal
okay there's only 24 hours in a day like you there's only so much you can do
before you start ending up making yourself miserable and crashing out
right like you need to have a kind of proper balance and what I'm trying to
indicate is when you're thinking about these standardized tests you need to
know when enough is enough all right when enough is enough if you are
sufficient in your scores and your preparation and how high you know like
how ready you are for college right if you're showing that in all your metrics
okay at some point you need to tell yourself that's enough it's not worth it
right if you got a near perfect score on the SAT I don't think it's worth it to
take it again to try to get the perfect score that's more vanity mission than
anything else it doesn't actually help you with your application right just as
if you're competing for valedictorian right whether you're first or second in
class it's probably not going to make a big difference okay with the AP exams
right just because of that one extra AP test that you took that one test is
probably not going to make a difference if you've done well in all the other
ones that you've taken right so you need to find the right balance and what I
mean by that is when it comes to academics know when enough is enough and
once you've achieved enough it's time to make sure that you have everything else
in order okay which is what I'll talk about next time your extracurriculars
your personal life right developing relationships learning social skills
right these are all going to be very important factors for your long-term
success right work on those okay know when to say that's enough when it comes
to any of these tests I hope that's helpful advice and if you have questions
about your specific situation and your dilemmas please YouTube is a place to go
leave your comment there and once you leave your comment there I will do my
best to try to respond to it hopefully within 24 hours but you know life
happens so as soon as I could get to them okay so I would hope to hear from
you and hear about your experiences and the struggles that you're going through
and by the way everything I've said up till now right this also goes for you
parents right please don't push your kids beyond the enough okay like don't play
this game of I want everything to be perfect right it's just there's only so
much time and energy you could expend on tests all right at some point you got to
realize that getting a higher score on a test is not going to be particularly
helpful okay focus elsewhere all right good luck to all of you and I know that
tests could be anxiety-provoking so I wish you peace as you take those very
stressful exams