Re: What is guessing?

[Drnanjo]

Listmembers -

Karl W wrote:

"And if this is what
Nancy's students understand "guessing" to mean, her telling them not to
guess on the SAT is very poor advice indeed!"�

I have noted and am offended by your patronizing tone. I have been doing this
work for four years and I am very explicit about what kind of guessing I mean.

We (the tutors) tell them not to WILD guess - not to guess when they have no
clue and have not eliminated any of the answer choices. We coach them on all
kinds of elimination strategies, in order to help them raise their chances of
picking correctly.  We also (Dr. Timmerman) help them review and learn all
kinds of relevant content in order to become more knowledgeable people as
well as better test takers. Standardized test taking is a skill that can be
learned, and that appears to control the destiny of many students (or
understandably appears to do so.) Many students, both worthy and perhaps not
so have figured out that taking a test that has a limited predictive value in
determining their success in college, will be a major hurdle. I don't see the
moral issue in teaching them to do better on the test, using every legitimate
strategy available.

Nancy Melucci