Instrutor's Guidelines

Guidelines for Teachers of PERT

The assessment test for Florida's undergraduate students

From: Steve McCrea [mailto: TheEbookman@gmail.com]

This document gives you:

Summary
Major Differences (PERT vs. SAT)
Suggested Schedule over 4 classes
Typical Exercises

Contact: Steve McCrea

Freelance Instructor at Broward College
SAT Test Prep, ParaPro and PERT
954 646 8246
TheEbookman@gmail.com
Send suggestions and comments.

KEY POINT: If you

SUMMARY are good at math
The PERT is similar to a more relaxed and you are slower
PSAT. The vocabulary requirement is at reading or
lower and the reading passages are writing, take your
shorter. Since the test is shorter than time when you are
the SAT, many students who tire in the reading and
quickly will find that they can do well writing sections.
on this test.
KEY POINT: If you
Since the test is computer based, the are good at
usual techniques used on paper-based reading and
tests do not apply (do the problems you writing and you
know well first, then go back). You are slower at
can't skip problems, so click and move math, take your
on. However, since there is no time time when you are
limit per section, students should go with their strengths.

Virtually every question that appears in the PERT could

appear on the SAT in the easier sections of the SAT. Test prep
leaders can use the SAT workbooks as a basis for prepping
students.

MAJOR DIFFERENCE: An emphasis on phonetic spelling

should be added. You can take a word like "ACTUAL" and
write it five ways: akchual, acchual, actual, acktuel, acktual
... there were three questions related to "creative spelling."

MAJOR DIFFERENCE: There are no breaks. 120 minutes

divided into three sections.

MAJOR DIFFERENCE: Reporting is within five minutes.

That's the time taken from clicking to end the test until the
report sheet is given to the test taker. The goal of this test-
prep course is to make the scores as high as possible for the
test taker and to reduce anxiety by showing the student
examples of the type of questions that will be asked.

Personal Experience: I feel more comfortable in Math, so I

divided the time (103 minutes, I finished with 17 minutes left)
as follows: Reading 40 minutes, writing 40 minutes, math 23
minutes.

FEATURES OF THE TEST PREP COURSE

Since the aim of the PERT Test Prep is to make sure there is
no homework, that all work is done in class, a practice test
(45 questions in one hour) is recommended. Timing is
important, so I recommend that the instructor should
test students early and often – get students used to quickly
looking for the main question in the exercise.

LENGTH OF THE TEST

Number of questions: 90 questions in 2 hours. 30 Questions
in Reading, 30 in Writing and 30 in Math. There is no time
restriction within a section – just an overall limit of 120
minutes (2 hours).
TIP: Don't worry about timing -- if you are strong in math,
you will gain time when you do the other sections. If you are
weak in math, you can do the other sections quickly and
allow more time for yourself on the math.
DIFFERENCE: In other tests (SAT), each section has a time
limit.

COMMENTS ABOUT SPECIFIC SECTIONS

READING
My test included a Greek tragedy:
a) Vocabulary in Context: there was a word that was
underlined. Choose the best synonym. (FOR TRAINING:
choose a similar exercise in the SAT reading sections).

b) Newspaper feature story (the test takers can practice by

reading the lifestyle section of the newspaper)
Describe the type of article (living section, hard news, sports,
opinion)
FOR TRAINING: Take actual newspaper articles, cut them up
see if students can rearrange the sentences. Ask them to
find the most important facts.

c) Compare two movie reviews

What fact would both reviewers agree on?
FOR TRAINING: Get two reviews of a movie from the Internet.
Ask the same question.

d) Interview
Test takers should be able to read interviews in Rolling Stone
magazine, or similar formats, and quickly pull out
information.

Vocabulary (with underlined words) was a tip: as a test

taker, you could tell that there would be a synonym given for
the underlined word, so as soon as I saw the passage, I
started thinking about associated words and various contexts
for using the word.

TIP: READ AHEAD. Read the questions FIRST. Some

questions could be answered without actually reading the
entire document: "What type of style is the form of
presentation? Interview, narration, compare and contrast or
exposition?"

Some passages were surprisingly long, but the above tips can
help.

An interesting technique: Some readings had three

questions, then the next reading was shown with one
question, and then the first reading was shown again with an
additional question.
THIS IS A KEY DIFFERENCE – VERY SURPRISING --
It is an excellent technique to address boredom in a test
taker. As a person with ADHD, I applaud that design because
people with attention deficit get a spark of adrenaline every
time we see something new, so this test is ideal for someone
who quickly gets bored analyzing the same reading.
e) "What is implied in the story?"

CURIOUS FACT: Every bubble that test-takers need to click

on is a STAR. Yes, when you click the shape next to the
answer that you select, it turns into a red star. Cute and
distinctive.

f) The test taker is asked to evaluate the phrase that has the
most emotional content. "She owns three cars." "She said
that the situation was ready to explode with frustration."
FOR TRAINING: Show the students a paragraph that includes
emotional content and descriptive facts. “Identify the
sentence with the most emotional content.” Write the
following sentences. He sat down at the table. Before him
was the largest sandwich in the world, oozing with shiny
sauces and overflowing with crisp lettuce and mouth-
watering slices of ham. The clock showed 4:15. A tram
passed the window. “Hmm, I think it's Tuesday today,” he
muttered to himself. Ask, “What sentence has the most
emotional content.

Note: There was a fascinating article about "pleasure

centers in the brain" -- students will really enjoy some of the
readings.

WRITING

Look for the following:

a) What sentence in the paragraph does not belong?
Write a paragraph or find a paragraph from an article and add
a sentence that does not below. Write on the board,
“Remove one of the sentences that was NOT appropriate
(what sentence can be removed because it sounds out of
place).” FOR TRAINING: Take actual newspaper articles and
add an extra sentence. See if the students can remove the
correct sentence.

b) Strong emphasis on double negatives: He didn't know

nothing about that movie's plot.

c) order of incidents, time order is important (arrange these

events in the logical order)

d) Review writing of recipes

e) Look at the twelve tenses, especially He had been sitting /

he had sat and he sat / he has sat (for/since)

f) Look for unnecessary repeating of pronouns Fred he

took his car to the mall.

Me and Joe we went to the mall.

g) Punctuation: review commas. there were no questions

about semi colons

MATH

I did not encounter any geometry.

The other components: Algebra, Number Sense, Conversions
and Data Analysis.

Algebra
Five questions with variables: 3x + 5 + 6x = 20

Number sense
PEMDAS There were some tricky "order of operations" 3
+ 5^2/(3 + 5) - 15/5 + 6 (5 - 2)
I counted

The test taker should be strong with exponents. 5^-2 6^

There were three versions of "cross out the duplicates"

EXAMPLE:
xyz
-------------------
(xy) (y) (yz)

There were four problems with number substitutions

if x = 4 and y = 6 what is the answer?

2x + 4y = ?

It is a good idea to practice exponents with parentheses

(x^2y^3)^2

Tricky miles per hour on a stream. That one caught me, I

think. Review speed upstream and downstream, including
the minutes traveled.

If Fred takes 60 minutes to go 3 miles upstream and 22

minutes to go 4 miles downstream, what would be the
formula to calculate his average speed?

There were no Pythagoras problems. I would teach it anyway.

Conversions and measurements

I didn't see any questions about converting miles to feet,
minutes to hours or metric to U.S. measurements (Km to
miles)
Data Analysis
Excellent questions that ask the test taker to compare graphs
over time. "What general statement is true about these
four maps?"
The test taker needs to be able to compare trends, not just
comparing one quantity over several graphs. The ability to
spot patterns is highlighted.

Probability
I didn't see any questions about coin flipping

The basic recommendation: use a standard SAT

test prep design but add a wider variety of
reading, put more emphasis on number lines,
square roots, PEMDAS and "find the slope" (two
points are given, you have to give the line's equation),
plus some examples of confusing "creative
spelling." This is not a wired / weird / wierd /
weerd / wierde test. It's just a bit more
accommodating to people who are strong in one
area and who need a little more time in other
areas.

This should guide the instructor for 4 classes, 12 hours.

Test Early, Test Often

Day 1
Read highlights from the Instructor's Guidelines
Give a sample of each type of problem. This should take at least 90-
120 minutes
Break after two hours
The remaining one hour: Focus on Math review
Data Analysis (looking at graphs and talking about them)

Day 2
Pop Quiz: What do you remember from the previous class?
Create a sample test, 5 minutes per section, so that the students can
practice dividing their time between the three sections.
Go over the answers to the pop quiz
Ask for questions
Break after one hour
The remaining 2 hours:
Focus on Spelling rules
Focus on Writing rules, punctuation, double negatives
Focus on Math review
Algebra (lots of number lines and inequalities)
Conversions
Ask for Questions

Day 3
Pop Quiz: What do you remember from the previous class?
Create a sample test, 10 minutes per section, so that the students can
practice dividing their time between the three sections.
Go over the answers to the pop quiz
Ask for questions
Break
The remaining two hours: Focus on Math review
Data Analysis
Conversions, PEMDAS

Day 4
Pop Quiz: What do you remember from the previous class?
Create a sample test, 15 minutes per section, so that the students can
practice dividing their time between the three sections.
Go over the answers to the pop quiz
Ask for questions

End of Guidelines for Instructors