basic_test_prep

> score, is very much a reflection of your parents' willingness to push you academically.

Test prep has diminishing marginal returns.

On the flip side that means just 1 hour of prep makes a big impact.

This is what research has found and why a lot of focus is on getting kids to do any studying for anything at all.

Many kids do zero homework and zero studying. Getting them to 1 is the hardest part.

This is the biggest actionable problem for these exams. It doesn’t require race or culture or whatever at all. The research says it requires specialized instruction during school - something to achieve focused studying, as opposed to merely watching the clock go down. Difficult for the hardest students but on average, in aggregates, performs well.

My point is that there are a lot of Asian students at Harvard who did 10 hours of test prep for the SAT. They didn’t go to cram school. There are also students who DID go to cram school. I myself studied about 10 hours for the SAT.

You don’t need cram school to improve test scores. You need some studying instead of none at all.