[blindkid] Test Prep

[EMMOL at aol.com]

Dr. V,
After registering for the tests and creating an account, my son,  Patrick, 
tried the online sample questions provided by ETS. Not always easy  to do 
with JAWS, but that was a few years back. Then ETS would send prep  materials 
in Braille to my son's guidance counselor,  who happened to be  the testing 
coordinator in our high school. I believe they were copies of old  tests. 
They also sent a Braille booklet of Nemeth symbols that would be used in  the 
math section of the SAT. 
 
The PSAT in Braille was only offered on the Wednesday before the PSAT  
Saturday date. A challenge to find a quiet testing environment on a normal  high 
school day with a couple of thousand teenagers moving around the  building 
following their usual schedules, not quite like the totally quiet  building 
the other kids have on a Saturday morning. Also, when testing on a  
Wednesday, one misses the regularly scheduled classes and is of course  responsible 
for presented information. Looked into this and it is just the way  it is 
done, throughout the country, I was told. I decided this was one of those  
"Pick and choose your battles" situations. 
Guessing you may have a couple of years before dealing with the AP  final 
exam testing. That was another whole situation and a battle I chose to  
fight. 
Eileen Molloy
 
Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2012 16:38:43 -0700
From: DrV  <icdx at earthlink.net>
To: "Blind Kid Mailing List, (for parents of blind  children)"
<blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [blindkid]  Preparing for the PSAT & Pre-ACT - Seeking
Insights
Message-ID:  <CC94BD93.B459%icdx at earthlink.net>
Content-Type: text/plain;   charset="ISO-8859-1"

Hi All, 
My 10th grader Vejas  (braille-reader; no vision) will be taking the both 
the
PSAT & Pre-ACT in  the next 3 weeks ? any suggestions on taking the actual
test? Any suggestions  on how to best study for these? All the kids got a
PSAT descriptive booklet ?  we found a PDF of it on the web. The actual
Pretest booklet however seems to  only be available in print. Suggestions
anyone? Words of experience &  wisdom?

He did look on Bookshare but he says there were problems with the  books

Book 1: Cracking the SAT (2013 Edition).
Problems: Most, if not  all, of the reading comprehension passages are
omitted & in some of the  multiple choice questions, the choice answers are
cut off.

Book 2:  Cracking the PSAT/Nmsqt (2013 Edition).
Problems: The reading comprehension  passages seem to have been omitted.

Thanks in advance for your time &  input.
EricV