Award-Winning Private SAT Writing and Language Tutoring in Orange County, CA

We went over the full practice test that I had assigned, to show her that she is close to reaching her goals for the combined SAT score. We then worked on the questions she got wrong or didn't have time to answer, which we will finish next session.

We spent the majority of our time today going over math. We reviewed a few subjects that were giving her difficulty, and then went through a math section talking about strategies to help her work through the section. I think what would best help her would be to practice writing equations from word problems so that she could apply this skill to a variety of problems. Next, we talked about some strategies for building her vocabulary and I told her to enlist her mother for help with this (I also talked to her mother about ways that she could help). Finally, we practice grammar, specifically vocalizing the problems that were wrong in each sentence, and fixing the sentences. She told me that she has been doing an entire practice test every Saturday, which is very good!

The student does well with the multiple choice section on the grammar section. She has good ideas and is working on fleshing out the ideas and connections. I'd like to see her make at least a 10 on the essay because her multiple choice is so high, that she deserves to be at 700+ for writing.

The student and I worked on Critical Reading, Writing, and Math problems today, with a focus on time management and him getting to work longer stretches of problems at once. My goal at this stage is to get him as prepared for the experience of taking the test as possible, with a secondary emphasis on working on problem spots comprehension-wise. Today I thought went very well. He did very well with time, and didn't seem to put any undue pressure on himself in order to finish on time, nor did he make many unforced errors. There was one stretch where he missed 8 out of 9 questions in an otherwise nearly perfect section, but going over those, that grouping seemed to be coincidence rather than spiral. He is still scoring in the mid-500 range, and I hope with some luck and some refinement he can get that up to around 600 in each section.

The student's essay shows great improvement. Good structure, good example. Example could still use more elaboration, but it does show vs tell overall. Fewer grammar/ spelling/ syntax mistakes than before. The student finished writing/ reading of test 6. Scores: 630-710 on reading, 660-800 on writing. Her goals are 610 on each section, so this was a surprising and happy result. Work done today: specifics of grammar (dangling participles, redundancy and wordiness, abstract/concrete language). Using these topics to improve essay and understand correct answers of grammar sections. Identifying key words to reading comprehension questions: choosing the best answer and how to use elimination. We did several practice passages with the student summarizing passages for me before attacking questions. We also did a practice grammar section: more thorough reading of the questions was slightly lacking here. Homework: Essay, reading, math. I asked her to start using the scantron to get used to it and as it will take up time on the test.

The student did really well today! We went at a little slower pace than normal because I really wanted to help give him the right motivation and mindset for taking this test. I think he has a lot of potential and has the ability to reach his goal (of 2000); he just needs to be a little more careful and focused in the reading section. I assigned an essay/ grammar and reading section as homework for this Thursday so hopefully, we can make some more progress with grammar by the end of this week. He is doing really well and has a good attitude, so I really hope he can keep this up to do well for the exam!! I am really rooting for him!!