Nothing bothers me more than hearing a high school junior describe herself as smart but a bad standardized test taker. That reflects a widespread misconception, and my job is to show students how to overcome it. Through patient preparation, native intelligence, and ordinary common sense, anyone can significantly improve their scores.
Another common misconception is that what the SAT/ACT/GRE exams test has nothing to do with the “real world”. While I share the test-specific tips, tricks, and shortcuts you need, my focus is on teaching fundamental language and analytic skills: how to read both carefully and quickly, building a strong vocabulary, understanding the rules of evidence and applied logic, how to supply arguments with evidence, how to write clearly, quickly, and effectively. These skills are essential to mastering the verbal sections, but you need them even more for life.
While I organize sessions around each student’s needs, here’s the general process:
- Detailed assessment to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses
- Full-length practice tests
- Detailed score reports to track progress
- Individualized strategies tailored to each student’s strengths, weaknesses, and anxieties
- Specific strategies for each type of test question
- Advice on overall strategy, time management, when and how many times to take the SAT, ACT, or GRE
In my experience, assuming students work hard and follows my guidance, they can roughly expect 100–300 point gains on the SAT English test and 3–8 points on the ACT (and commensurate improvements on the GRE). Better scores mean more opportunities and choices: for college or grad school admissions, scholarships, and beyond.