Award-Winning Private PSAT Tutoring in Indianapolis, IN

"At this point, we have gone over all the material that is in our practice book, so we've been working primarily on SAT practice problems. We take it one section at a time, and I will time her, and then go over any problems she missed afterward. At this point, she seems pretty strong in all areas, but we are going to continue to work at it to make sure she doesn't make any small mistakes. Writing currently seems to be her most challenging subject, so we will be especially focusing on this."

"Today we went over the advanced math section and he did well. He understands the concepts thoroughly. We went over strategies for how to tackle different types of problems, in particular long division/factoring problems and radical simplification problems. I asked him to find time before our next session to take and grade a practice exam so that next week we can go over any areas his performance may be weak in. "

"We continued to work on the vocabulary and math sections of the PSAT. We covered two-blank sentence completion questions, and by determining the relationship between the two blanks, we arrived at the correct answers and eliminated the incorrect ones. Next, we finished the geometry practice test for the math section. The concepts we covered included: side lengths of triangles, volume of solids (cube, cylinder, rectangular solid, cone), sum of angles in a polygon, finding volume of a solid within another solid, finding area of a shape inscribed within another shape, finding length of a diagonal of a solid, solving systems of equations, the equation/center/radius of a circle, the determinant of a quadratic equation, 0/1/2 solutions of a quadratic equation, and isosceles triangles. The student did very well on most of the practice questions, especially area of geometric shapes and solving equations."

"We went over basics of the critical reading and some of the writing section. The student showed good aptitude in the writing section. In the reading section, we started with some basic strategies and rules that will hopefully improve her speed and reasoning there. We will continue next session with the reading and math."

"The student and I went over the reading section of the PSAT that he completed for homework. His incorrect answers were often second best (and feasible) answers that he could make a case for, which indicated to me that he had read and really thought about the answer. He also understood on review why the correct answer was a better answer. I think he has pretty strong comprehension skills and, with a little more focus, can get an even better score. I assigned work from the SAT book: math pages 375-378 and 387; Language/Writing pages 350-364."

"We went over the student's practice test, which went much better. We also went over some practice problems I brought. The student had never heard of the concept of base changing, which was one of the practice problems, so I taught that concept."

"The student recently took a practice PSAT through her school, and her mother sent me scans of several questions that the student wanted to review. We started with math questions from her test that she found confusing. As we worked through each one, she saw what she needed to do to solve them. For some, I suggested a few different ways to approach them that might make solving them easier, but they seemed to click for her upon review. Next, she sent me a shot of a page from her test involving a passage on which she missed a number of questions. I helped explain some of these concepts, and again, they seemed to make sense for her. For the remainder of our session, we looked at practice questions from a review website. We started with a handful of passage-based questions dealing with vocabulary in context and analogies, and she did incredibly well with these. Next, we looked at some questions on error recognition and improving paragraphs. She answered the vast majority of these correctly on her own, even though some took a little more thought than others. We reviewed the relevant principles a little, but she seemed to have a pretty solid grasp of them. We finished off with a few math questions covering sectors, algebraic fractions, and one inequality with absolute value. Even though she made some small errors here and there, she was able to spot her own mistakes and find the correct answers without a great deal of help. Overall, I think she is doing very well. We'll meet again in two weeks just before she takes the PSAT."

"Today we worked through a new practice test. The student is performing at high levels, but some things we're working on are higher level vocab and grammar rules. He aces every math section, and only misses a few questions between the other two sections. Great session."

"The student and I had our final session in preparation for his October 14 PSAT. He has learned a tremendous amount of new material and sharpened the skills to strategize the test. It's been terrific working with him; as a fledgling freshman, he has a larger task ahead of him in mastering this material than, say, an upperclassman, but he has risen to the occasion nicely!"

"The student and I started our first PSAT review session with a timed math section. She did well on the non-calculator portion. She completed the entire section with about 5 minutes remaining and used that time to review some prior questions she had skipped. She has very strong math skills. We also completed 2/3 of the calculator-based math section. She did very well on this section. She completed the questions in a timely manner. She correctly answered 18/20 questions. We reviewed the two problems she missed. She was able to see her error in interpreting a histogram and picking the correct ratio to apply to a population. Based on her performance at this session, I expect her to achieve a high PSAT score. She is very bright and a hard worker. We will review additional strategies for the exam on Sunday. "