Your first session is an assessment and planning meeting. A tutor will review your current SAT Verbal skills, discuss your score goals, and identify which areas need the most work—whether that's pacing through dense passages, mastering grammar rules, or building vocabulary. This helps create a personalized study plan tailored to your strengths and challenges, so you're not wasting time on concepts you already know.

Pacing is one of the biggest challenges students face on SAT Verbal—you have about 2.5 minutes per question, which feels tight when you're reading dense passages. A tutor can teach you strategic reading techniques, like identifying key information quickly and skipping difficult questions to return to later. Practice tests are essential here; working through timed full-length sections helps you develop a rhythm and learn which questions to prioritize based on difficulty level.

The best way is to take a full-length practice test under timed conditions and review your results carefully. Look at which question types you're missing most—are you struggling with vocabulary-in-context questions, main idea questions, or grammar rules? A tutor can analyze your practice test results and pinpoint patterns in your mistakes, then create a focused study plan to address those specific gaps before test day.

Test anxiety often stems from feeling unprepared or uncertain about question formats. Regular practice with a tutor builds confidence through familiarity—the more you've seen and solved similar questions, the less intimidating test day feels. Tutors can also teach you practical strategies like managing your time wisely, staying calm when you encounter a difficult passage, and knowing when to move on rather than getting stuck on one question.

Most students benefit from 5-10 hours of focused practice per week over 2-4 months, though your timeline depends on your current score and target score. This typically includes tutoring sessions plus independent practice with timed sections and full-length tests. A tutor can help you create a realistic study schedule that fits your other commitments while ensuring you're getting enough practice to see real improvement.

Many students try to read every word carefully, which eats up time. Instead, focus on reading for structure and main ideas first, then return to specific details when answering questions. A tutor can teach you how to quickly identify the author's purpose, locate supporting evidence, and distinguish between what the passage says and what you might infer. Practicing this approach on dozens of passages helps you develop the speed and accuracy needed for test day.

Traditional vocabulary memorization isn't the most efficient approach for SAT Verbal, since the test focuses on understanding words in context rather than isolated definitions. A tutor can teach you how to use context clues to figure out word meanings and recognize common word patterns and roots. That said, building familiarity with mid-to-advanced vocabulary through reading and targeted practice does help you feel more confident on test day.