College-readiness test yet another challenge for Florida students

[Igel]

6. I don't know how they validated them.

But I know that a lot of what my kids don't know isn't on the SAT or ACT.

They don't know how to study. They can't figure out how to learn. If they hit a roadblock, there's no resilience.

They can't outline a paragraph or chapter section. They can't figure out the main points of narrative prose.

If you give them a problem in which they have all the information for picking the right equation but they have to pick from a set that includes more than 1 equation, they're stumped. If they have to manipulate an equation, they're stumped.

And don't ask them to do any "two step problem" unless you have clearly taught them each step, separately, of that particular kind of problem and taught them to put them together. They don't generalize. They don't extrapolate.

Of course this is hyperbole. Many do. But some can't or won't. The SAT IDs problems in parsing a reading passage, to be sure. But problem solving strategies? Not so much. And how to learn, how to study? The SAT tutorial sessions teach them much of what they need; they're trained for a specific task, like a chicken counting to 8 or 9 by pecking on a xylophone. Don't ask the chicken to peck out 11 unless you've spent weeks teaching her to peck to 11 (and not 10 or 12).