Award-Winning Private SAT Tutoring in Oklahoma City, OK

"Today we focused entirely on the Verbal and Reading Sections. Her ability to recognize errors in the Verbal section is very good. The student is very good at reading, comprehending, and retaining the information in the critical reading passages. "

"The student and I began working on his goal to raise his SAT score with some strategies for the math section. His calculation method is quite deliberate, so I am helping him circumvent lengthy calculation by learning to scrutinize the question and the answer choices, eliminating poor choices early on and minimizing time for each problem. When estimation is unsuitable, drawing a diagram or reducing a word problem to a clearer mathematical formula can cut down on time needed for calculating. Most of all, I recommended he look into getting a graphing calculator as it will drastically reduce confusion over answers that require translation between fractions, decimals, and percentages. I assigned the student a critical reading diagnostic test which we will review the results of at our next session and address potential tactics."

"We reviewed SAT verbal and math problems from her review. The student has improved speed. I also presented the student with "advanced-math" problems, which are really logical problems that cannot easily be solved using traditional approaches of simplification."

"We began the tutoring session by discussing strengths and weaknesses in the essay and general strategies for improvement. She's going to work on including more examples and bigger vocabulary in next week's practice essay. We then quickly reviewed last week's general Critical Reading strategies (skipping the long questions, reading the question first and then only reading the part of the passage that's necessary, answering the question in your head before you look at the answer choices) and added note-taking and underlining to the list. After that, we spent the rest of the session working on close reading. I modeled the kind of metacognition that helps with reading comprehension (e.g. This is what I'm thinking as I'm reading this sentence; These are the kinds of questions I'm asking myself; Here's a link to my own life; What is the article going to discuss next?; How can I summarize this idea? etc.), and then the student followed my example with two news articles that we read together. We stopped between every sentence to discuss content and to link it to her life or ask questions, thereby building comprehension and retention. We're going to try to build up the student's "reading muscles" with lots of long passages in our sessions and lots of independent reading on her own time. Her homework this week is to find a good book and start reading 20 pages a night, to read through the "Getting Started" chapter in her test prep book, and to do as much of the first practice test in her test prep book as she can. Overall, a very productive session with definite improvement."

"Today we worked on strategies for all of the SAT sections, focusing on some of the more difficult questions. The student did wonderfully as usual, and we will work on some more difficult and general test taking strategies for our next two meetings before she takes the SAT."

"We spent some time on the writing section this session. We looked at examples of 6, 5, and 4 score essays and overviewed the grading guidelines for essays. I modeled pre-writing based on a sample essay prompt and outlined my process for her. I assigned her a timed essay for homework. We worked on math for the rest of the session. The student is growing more confident and competent with every session. The main new content we covered were graph transformations. We worked based on a sample problem, and I created a sheet for her to study. We reviewed special triangles."

"The student and I started working through a math section on a practice test. He had a little trouble setting up two problems on ratios. I talked to him about setting up as equations (proportions). for instance the ratio of x to y is 3 to 4 means x/y = 3/4. We also looked at strategies for handling trickier problems. These included solving for easier intermediate quantities on the way to a solution, plugging in numbers, and plugging in the answer choices. We finished the lesson with some practice problems on critical reading and sentence corrections."

"Today was devoted entirely to math. To start out, I just went through a sample section with the student to determine what his strengths and weaknesses are. His algebra, arithmetic, and reasoning ability are all very solid. His geometry is the one part of his skill set that needs some work, so we ended the session by going over some triangle problems. "