SSAT, the full name is Secondary School Admission Test, and its Chinese name is the American Secondary School Admission Test. It is suitable for admission to private high schools in the United States and Canada. It is a test score that applicants must have. It mainly measures students' mathematics, Chinese and reading comprehension abilities, and examines candidates' logical thinking and development potential. Proposed by the Admission Test Board. For students of different ages, the SSAT exam is divided into upper level and lower level. The former is for students currently in grades 8-11, and the latter is for students currently in grades 5-7.
SSAT is divided into two types of questions: writing and multiple choice. The multiple-choice questions are all 1 out of 5, and the way to answer the questions is to fill in the answer sheet (be sure to bring a pencil and eraser when taking the exam).
Writing is the first part and the test time is 25 minutes. This section requires candidates to support or refute a point through examples. Examples can come from personal experience, history, literature, etc. This part will not be included in the total score, but will be sent to the school you are applying for along with the scores of other parts. The school will evaluate it based on needs and use it as one of the references for admission.
The next four parts of the multiple-choice test are all multiple-choice questions, including two parts of mathematics (30 minutes each, 25 questions each), Chinese (30 minutes, 60 questions), and reading (40 minutes, 40 questions) question).
1. Mathematics. Regardless of whether it is the low-level or advanced level of the SSAT, the test content of the mathematics part does not exceed the knowledge points taught in domestic junior high schools. The difficulty is that because all English propositions are used, when understanding the meaning of the application questions, you must be familiar with the most common ones. way of expression. The questions will not include complex precise calculations, but will test estimation skills, so calculators are not allowed into the examination room. The difficulty and scope of the two math parts are exactly the same. The SSAT will insert a non-mathematical part between the two math parts to allow test takers to use their brains scientifically.
2. Chinese. The Chinese part is a direct test of vocabulary, which is very difficult for middle school students whose native language is not English. This part has 60 questions, which are divided into: 30 synonym questions and 30 analogy questions.
For synonym questions, the stem of the question is a word, and the examinee is required to select an option from 5 options that has the same meaning as the word in the stem. The vocabulary tested in this part reaches the level of 9,000 words in the advanced SSAT and 7,000 words in the low-level SSAT, which far exceeds the requirements of the domestic syllabus. When answering such questions, in addition to relying on a large vocabulary, you can also use methods such as guessing and elimination based on word formation knowledge.
The format of analogy questions is close to ancient Chinese pairs. For example, for a certain question, the question stem is "frog versus toad", and the answer can be "turtle versus tortoise" (the internal connection is aquatic versus terrestrial). To answer this type of question, explore the inner connection between the two words given, even in terms of spelling, and then look for an item with the same type of inner connection among the options.
3. Reading. Reading generally tests 7 to 8 articles from a wide range of sources, with various themes and genres, and sometimes even short abstract poems. With such a fast pace of reading and answering questions, candidates must have the ability to grasp topics and locate details in fast reading. Some questions also involve subjective understanding, which is somewhat similar to the subjective reading questions in domestic Chinese language exams.