Award-Winning Private SAT Writing and Language Tutoring in Atlanta, GA

"- Reviewed homework from last week. - Reviewed lesson on grammar (punctuation, parallelism, consistency, etc.). - Completed examples."

"In this session we started with an overview of punctuation rules. We then examined a few of her previously written essays to practice correcting errors. We also worked on word choice and general style discussing how to word certain phrases, sentences, etc. Her main struggle still seems to be articulating her thoughts clearly. She writes quite well, and, when given the time, writes very intelligibly. Her attitude was one of constant engagement and inquisitiveness. The main two strategies I recommended were looking up grammar and punctuation rules online and - at least as a default - always writing with a professional tone rather than a conversational one. A secondary strategy I recommended was becoming familiar with diagramming sentences for the sake of understanding sentence structures better. I left her with the assignment of e-mailing me a critical essay that she writes soon or has written recently so that we can discuss her rhetorical skills. The student is bright and eager to learn."

"Today we wrote a SAT essay together to get at what makes a great essay on test day. Afterward, we covered how to do the writing section on the SAT. A great session!"

"The student and I reviewed strategies for the multiple choice writing sections, focusing on error identification and paragraph improvement questions. He showed real improvement in being able to identify common errors, especially agreement of verbs and pronouns. After working through many problems, the student was able to list the strategies that work best for him. He seems to really be learning how to answer SAT writing questions, along with the grammatical knowledge involved in the questions. "

"The student and I covered some grammar rules and conventions commonly tested on the identifying sentence errors part of the writing section. We covered all of the major issues, including but not limited to noun-verb agreement, faulty idiom, wordiness and redundancies, parallelism/comparisons, pronoun and verb agreement issues. He was quick to pick up on most of these topics, but did have trouble a little with figuring out the correct verb tenses and with identifying faulty/ambiguous pronoun reference. For the verb tense issues, I suggested he think about the problem in two parts - 1) what tense is the verb in and does this event/action happen at the same time or at a different time than other events in the sentence? 2) Is the action completed just once or is it happening continuously? (simple vs perfect tenses). For the pronoun issues, I've suggested that the first thing he should do is attempt to find the various nouns of the sentence. After finding the nouns, he should ask himself, "Can my pronoun refer to this noun? Can it refer to this one as well?" If the answer to the question is yes, then he has an ambiguous pronoun reference on his hands. I've given him practice worksheets containing about 60-70 practice questions to do before our next session. "

"We spent the entirety of our time going over SAT writing; more specifically, the essay portion of the SAT writing section. I wanted to touch base with him and see where he felt our attention would best be placed. He said that he never really understood the essay portion. We spent the next hour and half deconstructing the essay (formatting, expectations, limitations, practicality), while also spit balling entire essays. Our first prompt was on heroes and whether or not their legacies would live on after they died. I wanted to keep our interaction much more conversational, almost like we were in a writers room coming up with a joint essay. I was very pleased with his enthusiastic response. His essay on heroes and their role in today's culture is due next week, and I look forward to seeing how he translates the strategies and his ideas to the page."

"Today, we went over strategies for the SAT essay section, and I provided her with practice prompts to work on for homework. "

"We talked about what the SAT essay entails, when she will likely take the test, and making the choice between SAT/ACT. We discussed not taking the test too early, but giving yourself time to take it more than once by getting started in the fall of junior year. The schools the student is interested in require either the SAT plus 2 subject tests (she already has a couple in mind) or the ACT plus the writing section. We discussed what readers are looking for in an essay and strategies for success. We worked through a thorough an outline of an essay. The student is starting from a good place in terms of forming opinions and logical arguments. I look forward to helping her improve in grammar and vocabulary. We worked on some practice questions from the sentence correction section. She is doing a number of things outside our sessions to prepare for the test, so I did not assign any work (beyond studying a bit of grammar and beginning to use flashcards) from this session. "