Advice on SHSAT by Yasmeen H., 804 Class of 2017

Hi McAulifflowers! I know this is a little long and I wouldn’t want to read it either if I were you but it might be really helpful. 

How is it going so far? For sixth graders… how are you guys liking McAuliffe so far? How’s the workload? You guys are probably gonna keep hearing these questions a lot. For the eighth graders, you’ll hear the same thing next year, when you first start high school. I am an alumnus so I’ve been through everything you guys are experiencing—or going to experience– all the new teachers, the good grades, the not so good grades, the nights where I got little to no sleep because of the amount of procrastination we did, and the nights where I would go to sleep at 10/11 pm because I finished everything on time. I’m going to try to talk a lot about the experiences and everything but today I’m going to focus on the eighth graders because the infamous SHSAT is right around the corner

A few tips about the SHSAT, don’t overthink the questions! The questions are usually way simpler than you think, but because of the rigorous environment you guys are in, you’re not used to having questions that easy. A really important tip is to PACE YOURSELF. You guys don’t know how important this is because so many people didn’t finish the test. It was either they were going too slow or they spent too much time on a few questions so they wasted a lot of time there. I know the format is different this year so you guys don’t have to do logical reasoning and scrambled paragraphs but there’s still a comprehension part (reading/writing) and a mathematics part. As you were taking pretests and practicing, you should’ve figured out which area is easier to you. Do that part first and get it over with so you can focus you’re remaining time on the part that takes you a little longer. Personally, I was good at the math part and logical reasoning, so I would alternate; I would do a part of the math then a section of the comp. (ex. 10 math, scrambled paragraph, 10 math, logic, 10 math, 2 stories, 10 math, 2 stories etc.— yes, I know it isn’t the same for you guys but just an example) Pace yourself however you see fit for YOU. Don’t use the same strategy your friend is using just because your friend is using it. Use whatever works BEST for you. So I’d like to end this off because I have to go back to doing my homework with DO NOT OVERTHINK THE TEST.

 But if it wasn’t here is one more: DO NOT OVERTHINK THE TEST. Seriously though. Don’t! You guys are smart kids and you’re gonna do great despite what you think you’ll do.