Franklin Yard Q+A: Caroline Delucca

The Notre Dame Senior, who scored a 1510 on the SAT, sits down for a Q+A with Sam Bellows, her tutor at Franklin Yard.

So remind me what your PSAT score when we got started?

It was 1100—that was my sophomore PSAT.

I'm not a math whiz, but that's mean you improved more than 400 points.

Yep.

That's a lot of points. So how did you manage to pull that off? [laughs]

I think it was just the constant practice. I think it's so important to keep on using what you're learning and actually applying it, because if you're not, you're not going to remember it and be able to use it on the actual test.

Also, another important thing: the first time I took [an official test], I got a 1350. And I remember that all of the Reading passages just seemed so hard, and it kind of affected my mindset for the rest of the test. But I think I grew from that experience—I learned that if you hit a hard section, you move on and just keep going and try to do your best on the rest of the test. And that's what I did the second time I took it. Every time I’d come across something hard, I would just keep going and put it behind me.

Whenever I ask students, especially students who end up scoring really well, they almost all say something similar to that. They all mentioned that their first test result didn’t actually matter in the end, and that realizing that was a super important part of the process for them.

Yeah I totally agree.

You did really well overall, but you scored especially high on the Math section. With Math, aside from just knowing the content, what were some of the “tricks” that helped get your Math score to where it is?

I think being extremely clear on each of the concepts that I was going to see on the test. Like, for instance, you’re not going to see any calculus. So really understanding what content to expect, and then being able to quicky identify the specific question type in front of you. Like, if I can immediately identify this question as a parabola question, or a quadratic formula question, then I know the path I need to take to solve it. That sounds simple, but it takes practice to really get that down.

Before people really get into standardized testing, I think that they come to the process with a lot of ideas about the SAT or ACT. Some right, some wrong. What do you feel like people misunderstand about the testing process and making improvement?

Good question. So I think that your score is definitely affected by what you know starting out and your natural ability, but I think there's a lot that you can do to improve your score, which is why tutoring helps. I feel like some people think that like, “oh, if I don't do well at school or I get bad grades, or I'm not good at math, I'm automatically stuck with a bad score.” But I don't think that really is the case, because there are a lot of ways to get around not knowing some concepts. There are tricks and strategies that you get to understand afer you’ve been practicing for a while.

How do you think people can avoid “freaking out” about the test?

Yeah, that was something that was difficult for me. But I think just going into it, knowing that there are going to be some things that you're not going to know, and you're probably going to get at least one question wrong. And just knowing that you're not going to do perfect is, I think, really important. If you get stuck on a problem, you can't stay stuck on it because then you're just going to do bad the rest of the test. You really do have to just try your best on each one and move on.

I know I was your tutor, but what was working with a tutor like [laughs]? What was that process like for you?

I remember the first couple of classes, we went through your whole slideshow and you would just go into detail about what the test is. I think it was really helpful to start with that, just beginning with a real deep understanding of what you’re getting into. Then once we had those basics, then the constant practice and just using all the information that you give me in practice problems—that was really helpful. And then I also think that the whole tutoring process was motivating in a sense, because I feel like if I had to sit at my computer for an hour and just do Khan Academy or practice SATs, I just wouldn't do it [laughs]. I would just stop. But knowing that I had a weekly class that I needed to finish the work for, that’s what made me do the work. And knowing that even if I get something wrong, we'll go over it and you'll explain it. That was super helpful.