To think differently about the SAT...

Here is my letter published by the New York Times in response to E.D. Hirsch's How To Stop the Drop in Verbal Scores
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/opinion/how-to-stop-the-drop-in-verbal-scores.html

To the Editor:

Early childhood education can certainly be improved, but there are additional measures that will increase verbal scores on the SAT:

¶Subscribe to and complete daily the free SAT Question of the Day.

¶Take the 10 timed exams in The College Board’s Official SAT Study Guide.

Even adults should consider studying for and taking the SAT as a cognitive challenge. When I studied to retake the SAT in 2009, 29 years after I first took it, I filled in gaps in my education.

My verbal score increased over 200 points from high school — partly from living a few more decades but mostly from cracking the books. Jack LaLanne got us to exercise our bodies; now it is time to exercise our minds.

ROBIN SCHWARTZ
Bronx, Sept. 20, 2011

The writer is a math educator and author of the Build Math Confidence newsletter.