Michael

Certified Tutor

I am Chemistry & Chemical Biology graduate of Cornell University, Magna Cum Laude, very experienced with chemistry and standardized test taking tutoring. Teaching and learning are passions of mine, and I really enjoy helping students exceed their expectations, improving intellectually and paving the way for their futures.

My teaching style is a long-term approach to mastery. I believe it is critical to first master fundamentals before building on these concepts to solve more complex problems – the ones on your exam. The best approach for this is regularly scheduled sessions a period of time before an exam, so that come exam time students have had to the opportunity to understand the basics and tackle the most challenging questions that will show up on the exam. I emphasize a problem solving approach, and believe extracting and retaining all information from test questions and practice exams is critical to test performance. I encourage students to take exams under test conditions, and will guide students through challenging problems.

Critical to my teaching philosophy is developing test-taking strategy – gaining an in-depth knowledge of questions that will be given on the test, and how to solve them most efficiently. For GRE Math, this involves first reviewing all subject material that could appear on the exam to make sure the basics are mastered, and then moving through exam problems of increasing complexity. For the GRE Verbal section, this involves learning the finite question types for this section, and using the clues each of these formats provides to solve problems. For those who have difficulty navigating longer passages, I encourage zoning in on key turning points, indicated by action words, which many exam questions come from. I also encourage reading Op-Ed articles daily to build reading skills. For those who have trouble with vocabulary questions, I also encourage zoning in on key turning points, learning the nuances of each vocabulary word, memorizing the lists of frequently appearing words on the GRE and learning new words from practice exams. For Chemistry, this involves reviewing practice exams and trying to gauge exam style once the basics have been fully mastered.

My strongest tutoring subjects are General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, GRE Math and GRE Verbal. For three semesters at Cornell, I tutored Organic Chemistry with the Learning Strategies Center. Here, I guided students through problems sets and practice exams, with a particular focus on improving critical reasoning, time management and test-taking strategy skills generally applicable to all academics. I have tutored university level General Chemistry, AP, IB and high school math & chemistry privately.

When I took the GRE in August 2014, I scored on the 94th Percentile for both the Quantitative (167) and Verbal Reasoning (164) components. These scores are in the range to attend the nation’s most selective graduate schools. At Cornell, I scored an “A” in all of my general chemistry and organic chemistry courses, including a graduate level organic synthesis course. My professional experiences are strongly researched oriented, and I have worked in 3 organic chemistry labs at Cornell, The Scripps Research Institute and Stockholm University. During my summer internship at Scripps, I was supervised by Phil Baran, winner of the 2013 MacArthur “Genius” Award.

Outside of work, I enjoy traveling, Italian language and culture, basketball, hiking and reading. I have visited 23 different countries, lived for 9 months in Sweden, and some of my favorite works of literature are the essays of Massachusetts natives Emerson and Thoreau. The picture in my profile was taken on top of the Duomo in Milan, Italy.

Teaching is one of my favorite activities, and I cherish the opportunities to help students succeed. I am happy to help with any and all General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, High School Math, GRE Math and GRE Verbal tutoring!