Award-Winning SAT Math Courses & Classes in Birmingham

If the college-bound high school student in your life could benefit from a dedicated SAT Math prep class, Varsity Tutors is happy to offer comprehensive SAT Math prep courses that you may want to look into. Math anxiety is a common obstacle faced by many students, and can lead to them freezing up during math tests or sections, even if they actually know how to do the problems. When you sign your student up for an SAT Math course through Varsity Tutors, they receive personal attention to help them overcome their obstacles, whether they come from lack of content knowledge or mindset and anxiety issues, or both.

What type of SAT Math courses near me can I sign up for through Varsity Tutors?

Varsity Tutors offers two distinct SAT Math course options. The first is private tutoring, allowing your student to receive individualized attention as they work toward their educational goals. Each SAT Math class session will be dedicated purely to meeting their study needs. This can be especially helpful for students who are have one or two specific difficulties or one or two topics they've completely mastered. With private tutoring, your student doesn't have to sit through group SAT Math prep courses when the focus is on something they don't need to review. On the flip side, they don't have to suffer from being completely lost when the focus of their SAT Math course is on a skill that they need more foundational knowledge review.

During these individual SAT Math courses, any questions your student asks can be answered on the spot, so they can get the most benefit out of their study time. Your student and their tutor have the flexibility to spend as much time as they need to on any concept that your student finds particularly challenging.

Their SAT Math class instructor can assess your student's skills in depth when they first study together, and make a plan to help your student work towards reaching their goal score. In a large classroom setting, these plans come in the form of a syllabus, and classroom teachers generally need to adhere to the syllabus to be fair to all students. In your student's one-on-one SAT Math prep class, their tutor can create dynamic lessons and adjust the specifics in real time as your student experiences growth more quickly on some things and needs a bit more time with other things. Every minute of their SAT Math prep course can be spent thoroughly covering exactly what they need to, no more and no less. If your student does better with a personal approach, this is the choice for them.

Alternatively, your student might opt for a small-group SAT Math prep course. A small-group course is essentially a very small SAT Math class consisting of your student, the instructor, and a handful of other students preparing for the same test. Students may interact with one another as well as the instructor, fostering a collaborative learning environment as everybody pursues their academic potential. If your student enjoys being part of a team working towards the same goal and would rather share ideas and encouragement with fellow test takers, these small-group SAT Math prep classes are the right choice for them. If they do run into specific concepts or skills they find especially challenging, you can always have your student sign up to work with their tutor in a one-on-one setting for as much or as little time as they need.

Whether your student's taking an individual or small-group SAT Math course, all instruction takes place over the Internet using the Varsity Tutors Live Learning Platform. This helps make SAT Math classes as convenient as possible, and increases the flexibility for both student and tutor even more. With the removal of any obstacles relating to travel time or transportation availability, there's more room in everyone's schedule to actually do the work of studying for the SAT Math section.

Although an SAT score is not required by all colleges and universities in the US, it is accepted by virtually all post-secondary institutions as part of your application packet. The test was created to provide a common data point college and university admissions boards could use to evaluate and compare applicants from around the country and even around the world. They include each applicant's SAT score as one of the tools they use to evaluate how well prepared they are to succeed in a college environment. For highly competitive programs, your student's SAT score could end up determining whether they get accepted or not. This is the main reason the quality of your student's SAT Math course is so important.

What will happen during SAT Math prep classes near me?

Most SAT Math courses begin by giving students a sense of the structure and content they can expect on exam day. The SAT Math section is part of the full SAT, and 80 minutes of the total 3 hours (plus 50 minutes if your student takes the optional Essay section) are dedicated to math. This is the longest section from the perspective of time, and their tutor may devote a bit of time during your student's SAT Math prep courses helping them build up their stamina. This is sometimes done by the SAT Math class instructor administering timed practice Math sections. Continue reading to learn more about test-taking strategies your student can learn in their SAT Math courses.

The Math section is further divided into two sections that are timed separately. Your student is allowed up to 25 minutes to answer all 20 of the questions that do not allow them to use a calculator, and up to 55 minutes to complete the 38 problems on which a calculator is allowed. It can be tempting to want to use the calculator at every opportunity, but most students find that they do not have enough time to double-check every answer with it. Spending time in their SAT Math prep classes learning how to do well on the exam with minimal calculator use can be a good idea.

The majority of SAT questions, including the Math section, are presented as multiple-choice questions. A handful of Math section questions, however, are called grid-ins. This means that rather than choosing the correct answer from a list of options, your student must work the whole problem and provide the correct answer in written form.

The list below highlights some of the most important concepts your student may want to review in an SAT Math course:

SAT Math Content Areas

• Heart of Algebra - solving problems involving linear equations and systems
• Problem Solving and Data Analysis - using math skills to understand presented data and solve problems
• Passport to Advanced Math - understanding of the structure of expressions and the ability to analyze, manipulate, and rewrite these expressions

It's not a very long list, but the concepts may be applied to a lot of different problems. Check out the practice problem below for an example:

Aaron is staying at a hotel that charges $99.95 per night plus tax for a room. A tax of 8% is applied to the room rate, and an additional one time untaxed fee of $5.00 is charged by the hotel. Which of the following represents Aaron's total charge, in dollars, for staying x nights?

1. (99.5 + 0.08x) + 5
2. 1.08(99.95x) + 5
3. 1.08(99.95x + 5)
4. 1.08(99.95 + 5)x

The answer in bold, B, is the correct one. If you're worried whether or not your student would find that correct answer quickly enough, it's good that you're looking into obtaining private or small-group SAT Math classes for them.

How can an SAT Math class near me help me understand each content area better?

The instructors, or tutors, who Varsity Tutors can refer you and your student to are familiar with the SAT Math section. They can go as deeply into each content area during SAT Math prep classes as your student would like. We can look a little closer at each section here, as well.

There is a strong focus on algebra because many of the key concepts your student needs to succeed in college and their career can be found within algebraic content. Your student's SAT Math prep class instructor can help them practice properly analyzing, fluently solving, and adeptly creating linear equations and inequalities. Students will also be required to analyze and solve equations and systems of equations fluently using a variety of techniques. Some algebra problems may involve using the kind of strategy or understanding necessary to perform tasks like interpreting the interplay between graphical and algebraic representations or using problem solving as a process of reasoning.

Another crucial skill set for success in college and life in general, especially in the workplace, is the aptitude needed in first developing a meaningful representation of a problem considering the units involved, then attending to the meaning of quantities, and finally knowing and properly using the different properties of operations and objects. In other words, problem solving and data analysis. A number of these questions will use content drawn from the sciences and social sciences.

Your student may want to spend a good deal of their SAT Math class time reviewing the advanced math questions, which involve topics they must master before taking college math courses like calculus, mathematical physics, or differential equations, to name a few. Whether your student plans to pursue further math education or not, they do need to know the material in this section. A few samples of tasks your student will need to perform on this portion of the SAT Math section are creating quadratic or exponential functions, manipulating polynomial expressions, and understanding a nonlinear relationship between two variables, among others.

How can SAT Math prep classes near me help me prepare in addition to studying content?

There's more to studying for a standardized test like the SAT than making sure you know the subjects that will be tested. Test taking is a skill on its own, and not one usually taught in schools. Since SAT results come with much higher stakes than any one classroom quiz, it's important to be thoroughly prepared for the SAT. Your student's SAT Math classes will almost certainly include working on study and test-taking skills in addition to subject review.

Your student's SAT tutor can help them improve their pacing if they're concerned about answering all the questions in the time allowed. Because there's a penalty for each question not answered, but none for getting the wrong answer, time management strategies can be nearly as important as content knowledge on the SAT Math test.

Some students find the wording of SAT questions confusing, or at least different from what they're used to. Their tutor can help them practice reading questions carefully so they don't miss a crucial word in a problem, like "not," which can lead them to give the exact opposite of the correct answer. By becoming familiar with the way SAT Math questions are worded, your student could greatly reduce the time they need to answer a question correctly. It's a bit like learning a new language. If your student can look at a question in "SAT" language and understand it immediately, they're able to work at a quicker pace.

Throughout their school years, your student's been told before quizzes and tests in their various classes to be sure to double-check their work before turning it in. Their private or small-group SAT instructor may advise them to lose that training and learn to trust their first instinct on SAT Math questions. If they can answer a question in their head before checking the options offered, they can feel confident they have the right answer if they find theirs in the list of possible answers. Even if the answer doesn't pop right into their head, it's not necessary to work out entire multiple-choice math questions. Their SAT tutor can show you them to work problems just until it becomes clear which of the answer choices provided is correct. Their tutor may even be able to show them how to increase their chances of picking the right answer when they don't know it at all.

For many nervous students, having each SAT Math class focus on helping them become familiar with the exam is enough to help reduce their anxiety. In addition, their tutor can demonstrate relaxation techniques they could use on test day to keep their mind sharp.

Varsity Tutors strives to ensure each student's SAT Math prep course is an enriching academic experience that helps them gain confidence in their test-taking abilities. To enroll today or discuss which option would be best for your future college student, reach out to an Educational Consultant at Varsity Tutors today.