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COLLEGE APTITUDE VERBAL SKILLS THE COLLEGE APTITUDE VERBAL SKILLS SERIES is intended to provide college-bound high school students with practice in answering three of the four kinds of questions found in the verbal sections of the Scholastic Aptitude Test: analogies, antonyms, and sentence completions. Research has shown that most students benefit appreciably by following the procedure used in this series: ■ Learning a systematic approach to answering each kind of question ■ Practicing with numerous sample items modeled on those found in the actual SAT ANALOGIES I & II Program Contents ANALOGIES I leads students through a step-by-step process for solving analogy problems. The program recommends following a four-step procedure for each analogy: 1. Define the key words, considering possible alternate meanings and connotations. 2. Identify the relationship between the two key words. 3. Formulate a sentence that expresses the relationship as specifically as possible. 4. Use the sentence to find the pair of words among the five answer choices that most nearly expresses the same relationship. The exercises in the program reinforce the recommended procedure by requiring students to solve each analogy in two steps: 1. Select the "formula sentence" that best expresses the relationship between the two key words. 2. Select the word pair among the answer choice that expresses a similar relationship. In ANALOGIES I, each of the 13 kinds of relationships discussed is introduced in a separate lesson. Periodic practice lessons are cumulative reviews of all the relationships covered to that point. The 13 kinds of verbal relationships discussed are: 1. Synonyms 8. Function 2. Antonyms 9. Composition 3. Degree of difference 10. Sequential 4. Cause and effect 11. Characterization 5. Whole-part 12. Grammatical 6. Part-part 13. Association 7. Classification Each of the two programs in ANALOGIES I is organized into ten lesson modules. Even though each lesson can be accessed separately, it is recommended that students work through the lessons in the order in which they are listed in the program Students should complete ANALOGIES I before beginning ANALOGIES II. The first program (IIa) in ANALOGIES II requires students to answer analogy questions in two steps. First, they must identify the relationship expressed by the two key words. Then, they select the word pair that most nearly expresses this relationship from the five answer choices given. The relationships given as choices in the first step are selected from the 13 kinds of relationships covered in ANALOGIES I. The second program in ANALOGIES II (IIb) presents more analogy practice; in this program students are asked to enter only the correct answer for each analogy. Each of the two programs in ANALOGIES II is organized into ten lesson modules. These lessons can be accessed separately from the program menus and may be done in any order. Program 1(IIa) includes about 60 analogies; Program 2(IIb) includes 70 analogies. ANTONYMS The antonyms items in the Scholastic Aptitude Test are intended as tests of students' vocabulary. Students are shown a key word and five words as answer choices; they must choose the word that is most nearly opposite to the key word. Although the structure of antonym questions is easy to understand, students with poor vocabularies may find these questions more difficult than the analogy questions. Since words used are never shown in context, few clues are available to students who are not familiar with the words. Two kinds of clues are suggested: 1. The program suggests that students use their knowledge of roots, prefixes, and suffixes as clues to the meaning of unfamiliar words. 2. Since all six words shown in an antonym item (the word and the five answer choices) on the actual SAT will be the same part of speech, students can infer the part of speech of the key word by examining the answer choices. Students should use the following procedure when answering antonym questions when they do know the meaning of the word: 1. Before looking at the five answer choices at all, try to think of an antonym for the key word. For instance, if the word is "belligerent," think: "Belligerent" means "warlike" so the answer is a word that means "not warlike" or "peaceful." 2. Then look for the word that means "peaceful" among the answer choices. If the word is not there, look back at the key word to see if it has a second meaning. The ANTONYMS program is organized into ten lessons, each of which can be accessed separately from the program menu. After completing the introduction, students may do the lessons in any order. The program includes more than 100 antonym questions. COLLEGE APTITUDE READING COMPREHENSION Program Purpose COLLEGE APTITUDE READING COMPREHENSION is intended to help students bring their reading comprehension skills up to a college level. The program is also designed to provide practice in answering reading comprehension questions modeled on those found in college aptitude tests such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test. After completing this program, students will have practiced the following reading skills: ■ Finding the main idea ■ Identifying supporting details ■ Determining phrase meaning ■ Determining paragraph meaning ■ Drawing inferences ■ Making generalizations ■ Determining the author's purpose ■ Identifying points of view ■ Summarizing ■ Using context clues to determine the meaning of new vocabulary Program Contents College Aptitude Reading Comprehension tests contain five categories of reading passages: science, social studies, humanities, argument, and narrative. This program contain six examples of each type of passage. A study of the college aptitude tests reveals that the typical reading passage is between 390 and 600 words long, with the average length being 470 words. Due to the limitations imposed by the size of the screen on a microcomputer, it is not possible to display reading passages of comparable length. This limitation was overcome by using more than one screen to present a passage. One question at a time appears on the screen under the relevant section of the passage. In some instances, the questions refer to the passage as a whole; therefore, students will have to read each screen carefully before going on to the next section of the passage. Most of the reading passages have been edited because of space limitations. Questions and answer choices have been carefully modeled on the types of questions asked in the actual tests. A multiple-choice format is used throughout. Many of the questions require inferential reasoning. Typical question stems are: ■ It can be inferred.... ■ Judging from the passage.... ■ In presenting the argument, the author uses all of the following except.... ■ The author's primary purpose in this passage is to.... ■ The author suggests that one of the reasons for _____ was that.... ■ Based on the information in the above passage.... ■ The passage as a whole suggests.... ■ Which of the following best expresses the main idea of the passage? Suggestions for Use Grade Recommendations: Appropriate for college-bound high school students in grades 10-12. Classroom Use ■ Before using the program with students, discuss the kinds of reading passages and questions included in the program. ■ Discuss the format of the verbal SAT, emphasizing the reading comprehension sections and test-taking tips. 1. Of the 85 questions on the two 30-minute verbal sections 25 are reading comprehension questions. On the average, each test will have five reading passages. each followed by five questions. 2. When budgeting their time on the test, students should leave about seven minutes for each passage. Since the reading comprehension questions take longer to answer but are not worth more than other questions, most students are better off leaving these questions until last. They should first complete as many of the short questions (antonyms, analogies, sentence completions) as possible. 3. Students should skim a passage for the main ideas before looking at the questions. Most questions on the test require students to understand the meaning of the entire passage; very few answers can be found by looking at a specific part of the reading passage. Students should realize that both the passages and the questions are written on a college level. They should be prepared to reread the passage at least once and to make very fine distinctions among the answer choices presented. SENTENCE COMPLETION SENTENCE COMPLETION questions require students to read a sentence from which one or two words have been omitted and then to select from five choices the word or pair of words which best completes the sentence. These questions test a variety of skills in reading comprehension, vocabulary and usage. More specifically, they test students' ability to infer fine distinctions of meaning from context. Students should be made aware of the kinds of context clues often used in these sentences. They should look for words that indicate the relationship in meaning between the two parts of a compound or complex sentence. The relationship is generally either contrasting (indicated by words such as "but," "however," "although," "instead of") or parallel (indicated by words such as "and," "because," "since"). Students should use the following procedure when answering sentence completion questions: 1. Read the sentence carefully before looking at the answer choices. Look for clue words that indicate the relationship between the parts of the sentence. Try to think of the word or words that might fill each blank. 2. Go through all the answer choices, trying them out in the sentence and ruling out the ones that do not fit. Select the choice that makes the most sense and sounds best in the sentence. The SENTENCE COMPLETION program is organized into ten lesson modules, each of which can be separately accessed from the program menu. After completing the introduction, students may do the lessons in any order. The program includes over 100 sentence completion items.