A group of suburban high school juniors is studying for the spring’s SAT test by reading a mystery novel that, while not as gripping as a John Grisham yarn, does double duty as a teaching aid.
The best-selling book is “Tooth and Nail: A Novel Approach to the New SAT” (Harcourt Brace, $12), written by the educators and language experts Charles Harrington Elster and Joseph Elliot.
The co-authors pepper their mystery caper, involving freshmen students at a Midwestern college, with boldfaced words culled from a computer analysis of the most frequently tested words on the verbal portion of the SAT exam.
With a glossary of definitions in the back for quick reference, in addition to entertainment, “Tooth and Nail” is meant to strengthen vocabulary and reading comprehension by placing challenging words in context.
Word spread quickly about the book. “It was so popular that we sold out,” said Denise McCoy, owner of the Bookmark, a store that supplied books to the Shaker High School book fair in suburban Colonie, N.Y. Shaker students, including those in the group of juniors who will take the SAT in May, bought 32 copies of “Tooth and Nail.”
“I knew these kids were serious because they were coming on their own time and buying the book with their own money,” said Kathy Odabashian, head of the parent advisory group that organized the book fair. Her son, Dan, is a senior at Shaker.
Credit Odabashian for helping to fuel the run on “Tooth and Nail.” She happened upon the book in the Bookmark last Christmas season and bought it for her son. “I figured it was helpful because Dan read it every night over the holiday vacation, finished it and asked if there was a sequel,” Odabashian said.
“It really helped on the verbal part of the SAT, which isn’t my strength,” Dan Odabashian said. “It made hard words easier to understand in context and you can quickly look up the definitions in the back of the book.”
In fact, Odabashian boosted his verbal score on the SAT by nearly 90 points (to 640) between the first and second time he took the test. “I’d say a good part of that was due to `Tooth and Nail,’ because it’s about kids in college and a fun story,” he said.
In addition to reading the SAT novel, Odabashian completed an SAT prep course with the Princeton Review.
He ended up with a strong SAT score of 1360 (640 verbal, 720 math) and talks up “Tooth and Nail” with underclassmen at Shaker.
Her son’s enthusiasm for “Tooth and Nail” convinced Odabashian of the book’s worth because Dan, although an honors student, is on the track team and would rather be running than reading.
The quest for higher scores on the SAT — an objective measurement used by college admissions offices — is reaching new levels of competition among the roughly 1.2 million high school students annually who take the standardized test administered by the College Board.
Bookstore shelves are filled with thick SAT test-preparation tomes — some include CD-roms — published by Kaplan, Barron’s, HarperCollins, The Princeton Review, Peterson’s, the College Board and Cliffs Notes. In addition, an SAT industry has developed among companies such as Kaplan and The Princeton Review that offer instruction and tutorials in SAT test-taking.
“There’s a tremendous intensity surrounding the SAT right now,” said Anne Kuthy, the English supervisor at Shaker, where she has watched the phenomenon of SAT score fixation ebb and flow over the past three decades.
But Kuthy cautioned that cramming with SAT prep courses or study aids may be too little, too late.
“To be prepared for the SAT, you need to become a serious reader and that starts in elementary school,” Kuthy said. “Students in their junior year and their parents looking for a quick fix will be disappointed.”
“Tooth and Nail” is Harcourt’s best-seller in its test-preparation division. There are regional surges as word spreads among students.
For instance, “Tooth and Nail” was the No. 1 seller in Freemont, Calif., last week for the online bookseller Amazon.com.
