Award-Winning Private Social Studies Tutoring in Louisville

Today's session focused on bringing together our final preparations for the student's test tomorrow afternoon on Chapter 8. To that end, I had compiled in advance a list of short answer/discussion questions to ask him that focused on the key topics/definitions of the material. He also brought sample questions he'd found online, so together with these resources, we moved through the subject matter. I also checked for comprehension and accuracy. He demonstrated a very strong determination to succeed, and he asked many pertinent questions, indicating a strong sense of the topics at hand. There were a few issues with which he seemed a bit shaky, but I paid special attention to going into greater detail here. He then grasped the issues at stake very quickly and correctly.

At this session, the student and I discussed trade from 1500-1700. She mostly struggled with distinguishing the patterns between countries during that time, but after talking through it, she seemed to better understand. We also looked at a list of essay topics given by her teacher, in order to gauge what she needed to study the most. At the end of the session, we reviewed broad trends from 6000 BCE to 600 BCE to start reviewing for her upcoming midterm. We also planned to meet again later in the week for a focused review session.

The student has a chapter quiz coming up in the next day or so, and then unit test next week. Curiously enough, we didn't spend the bulk of our time looking at the material for this quiz and test. Instead, his AP World History teacher has assigned two projects. One is a write-up he has to do for a mock trial of Genghis Khan, which I reviewed and gave him some feedback on how to make his language stronger. Another project involves him interviewing a family member and creating a presentation about it. Next time we'll go over that presentation to ensure it's as strong as it can be.

This session was very productive! We spent the first bit of the session going over her class and her upcoming exam as well as going over her strengths and weaknesses in terms of the class and her class material. Then together we went over her last test and the answers she got wrong and discussed why she put the answer she put. And we concluded the session by scheduling our next meeting time as well as going over what she should do before we meet with each other again.

Tonight the student and I continued our work in AP World History. We went over some of the major concepts I found in the chapter on the Rise of Russia and I fielded any specific questions he had as well. More importantly we went through several multiple choice questions and discussed the best route to the correct answer. I offered advice on how to discover the most important aspects of a chapter in order to best prepare for a quiz/ test and he seemed to really respond. On Sunday we will begin preparing for his final exam next week.

I instructed the student in the rise of and spread of Byzantine Christianity. We discussed the political power of the Roman Catholic Church and the battle between spiritual and secular authority leading to the Great Schism of 1054. We discussed the Frankish Kingdoms under Charles Martel and the Battle of Tours which stopped Muslim expansion into France and the reign of Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire. We concluded with the Treaty of Verdun and how it fashioned the geopolitical contours of Modern Western Europe. He is doing very well.