We Created SSA's Curriculum By Identifying Concepts Frequently Tested On The SAT
SSA’s approach to creating curriculum hinges on concept-indexing all the materials put out by the College Board.
SAT materials released by the College Board are most important to us because they are more predictive than SAT materials released by other organizations.
SSA staff also take the SAT each year to monitor changes.
How SSA Creates Curriculum by Identifying Concepts on the SAT
SSA creates all its own curriculum and strategies for approaching the test, and we update them each year to keep them as effective and similar to the actual SAT as possible.
We create our curriculum by concept-indexing every concept that shows up on the test.
What is concept-indexing?
We identify every concept that is tested in every question in every test the College Board has released.
We’ve made a list of concepts for each section, compiled over the years. Since we can’t know the exact content of the SAT exams before they are released, the next best thing is to identify all the concepts the College Board tests, and see how they test those concepts in previous tests to help predict what they may do in the future. We also identify which concepts show up together, how frequently each concept shows up, and how concepts correlate with difficulty.
By concept-indexing, we can create a curriculum that is as close as possible to the College Board’s actual SAT exams. Moreover, by knowing which concepts are frequently tested, we can help students identify what they need to work on, what would be most helpful to study, and what wouldn’t be a good use of their time. We can target specific concepts for students to work on based on their score, and know what type of questions they’re already doing well on.
Concept-indexing is incredibly powerful, and is one of the reasons our curriculum is so effective, year after year.
Why is concept-indexing so important?
The materials that the College Board releases are very different than materials that other organizations release. It’s incredibly important to us that the material we give students is as close as possible to what they will see on the actual SAT, so that we’re replicating the experience of taking the SAT as closely as possible.
Our staff takes the actual exam!
Our staff, including our Executive Director and Curriculum Director, take the SAT exam themselves the three times a year that adults are allowed to take it.
This allows them to monitor developments and changes, not only in the test itself but also in proctoring instructions and procedures. It also allows them to test the strength of SSA’s strategies in a timed environment, to make sure that the strategies really work. It’s the best way we can ensure that our students’ experience of taking the test most closely matches the actual experience of taking the test.
