From the College Board:

Prompt 1

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

Many powerful leaders throughout history have considered themselves above the law and acted in ways that violated the laws or guidelines of their own country or group. People are quick to condemn these leaders, but shouldn’t leaders be held to different standards? If what a leader is doing benefits the majority of the people in a country or group, it does not matter if a law or guideline is violated.

Assignment: Should leaders of a country or group be judged by different standards? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

Prompt 2

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

People are often advised to practice moderation in everything they do. The way to succeed in achieving their goals, they are told, is to remain balanced, controlled, and restrained. But this advice is misguided. Instead of being moderate, people should be passionate and intense. Throughout history, moderation has produced nothing extraordinary or exceptional. Excellence in any pursuit requires excess — great enthusiasm, high energy, and extreme effort.

Assignment: Is moderation an obstacle to achievement and success? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

Prompt 3

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

Possibly because we live in a work-oriented society, most of us feel that we must be continually busy in order to be successful. We are led to believe that fabulous wealth and fame await the person who works the hardest and is always busy. The irony is that taking it easy now and then would help us achieve our goals a lot sooner. In fact, overwork can stifle our creative ability.

Adapted from Ernie J. Zelinski, The Joy of Not Working

Assignment: Does society put too much emphasis on working hard? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

Prompt 1

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

Thanks to the Internet, the word “friendship” now has a much broader meaning. No longer are the bonds of friendship limited to telephone conversations, shared activities, or speaking face-to-face. In this day and age, very close friendships can be formed without the people ever meeting and by simply typing words on a screen.

Adapted from Sharon Hendricks, “A Broader Definition of Friendship”

Assignment:

Is it easier now to form friendships than ever before? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 2

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

An Internet phone service is offering unlimited free telephone calls for anyone who signs up. There is only one catch: the company will use software to listen to customers’ phone conversations and then send customers advertisements based on what they have been talking about. For example, if they talk about movies with their friends, advertisements for movies will appear on their computer screens. Commentators have voiced concern about customers’ giving up their privacy in exchange for phone service.

Assignment:

Should people give up their privacy in exchange for convenience or free services? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Prompt 3

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

People are often criticized for working out their own ideas before learning all that others have discovered about a problem or subject. But those people are right; it is possible to know too much, especially at first. The time for thorough inquiry and extensive research is later, after you have made your own discoveries and come to your own conclusions.

Adapted from Charles Horton Cooley, Life and the Student

Assignment:

Is it better for people to work out their own ideas on a problem or issue before learning how others have approached it? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

I haven’t read the whole essay, but given that Chicago has unusual prompts, it seems entirely reasonable to take a risk and write an unusual essay for that application. And in this case, the student was granted early acceptance. Ideally, an essay will let admissions committees know who the applicant is. In this case, the student struck me as someone willing to take risks, to poke fun at the whole college process. Clearly, that held some appeal at the University of Chicago.

The deadline for applying is November 15.

*Go to a  library or an office or someplace quiet.

*Time each section.

*Stop. Then begin the next timed section.

*Leave your phone at home. Use a watch.

*Take 5 minute breaks between sections. Make the experience truly test-like.

2. Grade the practice test.

3. Within two days of taking the practice test, examine each question you got wrong. See if you can determine what you did wrong — did you make a simple math error? Did you misread the question? Did you get the problem set up but then get stuck? The more specific you can be here, the better. Make a list of each question missed and the reason you think you missed it.

4. Read through the explanations in the back of the book of all your wrong answers. See if you can add to the reasons you might have missed a question.

5. Read through all the right answers (sometimes you get a question right for the wrong reason).

6. Review your list of errors that you made. Look for patterns (ie ‘I missed three questions because I didn’t pay attention to the word EXCEPT in the question’).

7. Choose two or three of your patterns and find solutions (’I will put a box around the word EXCEPT’).

8. Put your test materials away for a day or two.

9. Take another full practice test. Before you take it, review all of your notes. As you take it, make sure that you pay careful attention to the two or three patterns you identified in your errors.

10. Grade your test. Then repeat steps 3- 9. Eventually, you should know your patterns and habits well enough to be able to prevent most of your errors and raise your scores.

If you have trouble identifying your errors or don’t understand what you did wrong, meet with a tutor who can help you.

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“High School Survey

• Nearly three-fourths of high schools reported an increase in the number of students foregoing their “dream schools” in favor of more affordable options
• Overall, around one-third of all high schools reported budget cuts in the 2008-09 school year
• Nearly 60 percent of respondents indicated an increase in the number of students planning to enroll in public versus private colleges in Fall 2009

College Survey

• A majority of institutions reported increases for each of the following: inquiries (62 percent); total applications (62 percent); Early Decision applications (51 percent); Early Action applications (68 percent).
• Forty-five percent of respondents reported a decrease in their 2009 May 1 yield rates as compared to 2008
• About 35 percent of postsecondary institutions experienced budget cuts and 15 percent experienced staff cuts to the admission department during the 2008-09 academic year”

What will be interesting to me is what happens this year. Last year, lots of people has college plans in place by the time the market tumbled. This year, people are applying to colleges in a recession (though Bernanke has said we’re at the end of the recession, the recovery hasn’t yet picked up). I expect more Dallas students will be applying to state schools and will think longer and harder about full scholarships at schools they might not have thought about in flusher times. In either of these scenarios, test scores are going to matter. Higher test scores can help students get better scholarships, and if state schools do have an increase in applicants, well, the higher your test score, the better.

What I don’t know is if, conversely, it will be a smidge easier to get into upper tier private, expensive schools. Will they see a dropoff in applications overall?  Will they see an increase in applications from students who really really want to go there — in other words, will students who once might have considered sending out twenty applications now reign themselves in to more affordable schools and the one expensive school they desperately want to attend?

I’ve talked with a lot of people and no one is sure what is going to happen. I’ll be very interested to see how this application cycle turns out…

“Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford, estimates that the students of a very bad teacher will learn, on average, half a year’s worth of material in one school year. The students in the class of a very good teacher will learn a year and a half’s worth of material. That difference amounts to a year’s worth of learning in a single year. Teacher effects dwarf school effects: your child is actually better off in a “bad” school with an excellent teacher than in an excellent school with a bad teacher. Teacher effects are also much stronger than class-size effects. You’d have to cut the average class almost in half to get the same boost that you’d get if you switched from an average teacher to a teacher in the eighty-fifth percentile.”

There are other factors that affect student learning, of course. But a good teacher can make a big difference. An enormous difference, as most folks know. Which is why I tell parents who ask about me as a tutor about my nominations for teaching awards from students and parents. Having an exceptional tutor doesn’t guarantee you a score on the SAT or ACT or ISEE. But it does make it much more likely that you’ll get the score that you want, given that a great tutor helps you learn more and learn it faster.

Prompt 1

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

The discovery that someone we admire has done something wrong is always disappointing and disillusioning. Yet even when people we consider heroes have been tarnished by their faults, they are no less valuable than people who appear perfect. When we learn that an admired person, even one who is seemingly perfect, has behaved in less than admirable ways, we discover a complex truth: great ideas and great deeds come from imperfect people like ourselves.

Prompt 2

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

Some people say you should be content with what you have and accept who you are. But it is possible that too much self-acceptance can turn into self-satisfied lack of ambition. People should always strive to improve themselves and to have more in their lives—friends, things, opportunities. After all, where would we be if great people, both in history and in our own time, did not try to have more and to improve themselves?

Prompt 3

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

So-called common sense determines what people should wear, whom they should respect, which rules they should follow, and what kind of life they should lead. Common sense is considered obvious and natural, too sensible to question. But people’s common sense decisions may turn out to be wrong, even if they are thought to be correct according to the judgment of vast majorities of people.

Adapted from Alain de Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy

Prompt 4

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.

Winning does not require people to be against someone else; people can reach their goals through cooperation just as well as they can through competition. Winning is not always the result of selfish individualism. People achieve happiness by cooperating with others to increase the happiness of all, rather than by winning at others’ expense. Ours is not a world in which the price of one person’s happiness is someone else’s unhappiness.

Adapted from Gilbert Brim, Ambition