Award-Winning PSAT Tutors serving Cambridge

Today we reviewed and discussed the incorrect answers from her homework (diagnostic test section 2 - math). We began discussing strategies to use in the math sections and went through different examples using each strategy. We also completed going through the sentence completion strategies and example questions. The student also completed the diagnostic test section 5 - writing skills to see her weak and strong points in this section. We discussed all wrong/omitted questions from this section. Based on the diagnostic test, we will focus a lot on strategies for the sentence errors and improving sentences sections. Next week, we will focus solely on writing skills and mathematics.

We went over a diagnostic test from the student's book. He has good critical reading and comprehension skills. We also went over math.

We went over the writing section and talked about grammar rules, and what to especially pay attention to, such as parallelism and subject-verb agreement. She did well with most of the writing section. We also went over some vocabulary in the critical reading section, and some of the math section. It seemed that she was a bit unsure about geometry, so I clarified some concepts and told her some tips and refreshed her memory. I told her to do a PSAT test today or tomorrow and time herself. Overall, I think she is ready for the test and seems to take interest in learning new words and is very motivated to learn. Best of luck on her PSAT!

We covered the PSAT today; we started off with the overall context of the 10th grade practice PSAT with the actual PSAT and eventual SAT, we did an overview of the critical reading, math, and writing sections, we talked about the scoring system and the process of guessing, and then we went through sample problems and concepts. We focused more on the reading and writing sections, identifying different types of questions (e.g. passage based vs. vocab vs. identifying errors), and then went through some sample problems from the database of questions. Afterwards, we covered the MC vs. grid questions in the mathematics section and talked about some of the common concepts tested. The student will take the practice PSAT during the next week, and will eventually use the experience to prepare for the actual PSAT and SAT later. I recommended a test prep book as a potential future resource.

We spent this session going over a variety of polynomial problems. I identified system of equations as a topic we will need to work on more. We went through a couple of types, and her issue seemed to be knowing how to progress through the steps. This will be a focus of part or all of our next session. We also went over how polynomials work when adding and dividing and how to simplify them. She picked up this material quickly.

Concepts covered today include midpoint, distance, multiplying with exponents, and rational expressions. The area in which the student needed help the most was with linear equations. We worked on finding the slope of a line given two points, and converting an equation into slope-intercept form. We also went over finding the slope/ equation of a line that is perpendicular to another line. She is doing better with these concepts, and we will continue to work on them until she has them down completely because they will appear on both the SAT and ACT tests (as well as re-surfacing in algebra II next year).