Award-Winning SAT Tutors serving Portsmouth

In this session, we worked on statistics in order to prepare for the students upcoming exam. We went over some of the trickier formulae, as the test will require him to solve some of these problems by hand. Overall, he gets a bit tripped up with trying to read some of the formulae, as the sums can be difficult to understand. However, when he plugs everything in with confidence, he gets the answers correct. So long as he takes a good long look at his notes on regressions, he'll do quite well on this exam.

The student and I practiced speed reading and she is now reading at over 1000 WPM (this will drastically improve her timing for the reading section of standardized tests). We then reviewed her incorrect responses from her most recent ACT and SAT. Her scores have increased dramatically since the beginning of tutoring!

When I meet with the student, he told me he was most worried about the math section. He felt he had forgotten a lot of the material the math SAT tested and that he wasn't used to the SAT format. I went over word problems with him, because going over those types of problems is a great way to acclimate to the SAT format. Once you're able to translate word problems into equations, you've cleared the most difficult hurdle that most math SAT students face. We also did a practice math section of SAT (with a timer) so he could get used to the test environment. At the session, he was confident and able to manage his time.

During this session we focused exclusively on the grammatical portion of the SAT. The student tends to do well with the more mechanical questions, but struggles with the questions that deal will paragraph structure and flow. To combat this, I worked with her through a series of exercises step-by-step to show her the process of evaluating the text. For homework, I assigned a bit of reading.

We worked on the essay portion of the SAT, going over the task, the grading rubric, and examining sample essays. Then we worked on a practice essay. The student did well after knowing what was expected and what that looks like. There are still elements to improve on, including the analytical aspect of grading. We also did more algebra topics, including factoring and quadratic equations. These were not difficult for him after going through examples.

Today I met with the student at his lovely home to continue our math practice for his upcoming SAT. We worked on several math problems, with specific focus on Algebra and Advanced Math, and he did well after some practice. He struggled with identifying how to begin setting up a solution after reading word problems, but once he did a few problems he was able to get the concepts down and improve in his practice.