Cooking up good test scores

For students interested in continuing their education after they earn a four-year degree from UCF, the pressure starts to build up when it comes time to study for the various standardized tests, which are a major variable in determining students' eligibility to move on with their education.

With these types of tests evident in many students' lives across the country, 14-year-old Charis Freiman-Mendel and her mother, Jennie Ann Freiman, co-wrote the self-published standardized test preparation cookbook titled, "Cook Your Way Through the S.A.T."

By combining her passion for cooking and what started out as fulfilling a home-school class requirement to prepare for the Secondary School Admission Test, which resembles the SAT and helps determine placement into independent junior high and high schools, Freiman-Mendel created a new and innovative way for others to prepare for the verbal sections of standardized tests.

"The book combines recipes and fun-fact blurbs about an ingredient in or the history about a recipe," Freiman-Mendel said. "The fun-fact blurbs contain 10 vocabulary words. It is truly a great way to memorize words for numerous standardized tests."

Although the book lists the SAT in the title, the test Freiman-Mendel had in mind when writing it, she believes all standardized tests use the same vocabulary and could be used to study for any number of them, including the SAT, ACT, PSAT, SSAT, ISEE, COOP, GRE and the TOEFL exams.

"If a student learns all 1,000 words that are in my book, they can improve their scores on any of the standardized tests," Freiman-Mendel said.

This unique test-preparation book incorporates various strategies for building vocabulary, including contextual reference, making associations and connections and engaging in word play, rather than just using note cards to memorize vocabulary words.

"Most of the time, learning vocabulary consists of memorizing long lists of words," Freiman-Mendel said. "This can become mundane quickly. Our aim for this book is to encourage people to learn vocabulary, but do so by discovering the meaning of words through context and by having fun."

Freiman-Mendel had a goal of helping test takers realize that studying doesn't have to be an annoyance while encouraging gourmet cooking and healthy eating among younger people.

Russell Schaffer, Kaplan Testing Center senior communications manager, thinks this cookbook could be a great way for students to study, but he warns that it should not take the place of all other studying material.

"At Kaplan, we know from experience that learning is most effective when it's reinforced through multiple methods of study, so supplemental options that help increase a student's vocabulary can definitely be a good idea," Schaffer said. "It's important to note that an offering like this isn't a substitute for a comprehensive prep program — rather, it's another resource to serve students who are looking to supplement their learning in fun, non-traditional ways."

With recent changes to the GRE, including a longer test and more focused essay prompts with only half an hour to complete each one, perhaps the most prominent change is the fact that the quantitative and verbal sections, which deal with math and language skills respectively, now make up the bulk of the four-hour test.

These changes means there is a bigger emphasis on vocabulary knowledge and a better chance for students studying for the GRE to try this new and different approach to learning vocabulary, like Ryan Grail, who will be taking the GRE next year.

Grail, a junior public administration student, thinks the "Cook Your Way Through the S.A.T." preparation cookbook may be a good way to get some studying in for the major test.

"It seems like a fun and interesting way to learn definitions of many complex words that will be on the test, and I think it is possible to learn a lot from it," Grail said.