Award-Winning Test Prep & Academic Tutoring in Richland, WA

"We spent this session continuing material in Algebra 2; most of the concepts were the same, working with quadratic equations and parabolas, finding vertices, y-intercepts, zero(s) and sketching graphs, but this week with an added equation form to help draw parabolas more quickly, their "vertex form." Standard quadratic form is written as y = ax^2 + bx + c, with a, b and c as any real number, while vertex form is written as y = a(x - h)^2 + k, with a corresponding to a in standard form and h and k representing the x and y coordinates of the parabola's vertex (i.e. ordered pair (h, k) is the parabola's vertex). The vertex form allows graphs to be sketched more quickly as the vertex is immediately available and the y-intercept can easily be found by substituting 0 for x and solving for y. The student's homework consisted entirely of taking equations in the standard form and converting them to vertex form, with problems at the end taking it one step further requiring an approximate graphical sketch of the parabola. He understood this process well and was able to complete the steps more and more quickly with each problem. The main source of difficulty was the complicated arithmetic involving fractions, whole numbers and negative numbers simultaneously; these issues were mostly review and we were able to spend time covering the areas that needed a little bit more practice. When we next meet we will review again the problem areas of arithmetic and proceed through the next section of the chapter."

"During this session we went over various AP multiple choice questions from the packet the student had. Overall this session went well."

"The student has a test on her summer math packet in about 2 weeks so we did a review of the major concepts in the packet. We covered how to add, subtract, and multiply numbers with decimals, specifically learning the rules for figuring out how many decimal places the answer will have. We also briefly introduced negative numbers. We finished up with a few practice word problems and she did an excellent job. Her hard work in the summer will pay off and she has improved significantly since our first meeting. "

"We made good progress on the student's lab on lexical analyzer. He was catching up with the cin.get method of C++ to read input by character. He was bright and motivated to learn the materials"

"In this session, the student wanted to get a hold of writing to compare and contrast. He first presented me with an essay. We reviewed transitions and sentence structure. He does a great job at going back and recognizing how he needs to make one element or another stronger. He had to readjust to slowing down and planning his essay before beginning it. Quality not quantity! It was a great session."

"The students started learning the substitution method for solving a system of equations. They are both doing very well at understanding the substitution method. We reviewed their homework, and then I introduced the elimination method to solve a system of equations, which is the next chapter in their book. We did some problems using the elimination method as well, including a three-system solution. We spent the last twenty minutes of the tutoring session talking about science, specifically what electricity is and how it moves through some substances but not others. Next week, we will likely start working on word problems using the substitution and elimination methods. We will be meeting on the same day at the same time."

"This morning, the student and I reviewed for her upcoming test on vectors. I addressed some of her concerns over the dot product and cross product, and we also went over one extra lesson on parametric equations, which will be included on the test as well."

"During this session we worked on subtraction with triple digit and double digit numbers. The student is doing well mastering carrying over numbers. We also worked on word problems using multi-equation addition. "

"Both students continued with reading comprehension. We worked through 2nd-grade long passages and multiple choice comprehension questions. Student A continued using strategies to sound out challenging words and was able to sound out new words such as "frowning" and "unstoppable." Student A is also able to identify the sounds in a given word. She was most successful when she used context clues to identify difficult words. Student A excels at recalling story details and events, making connections, predictions, and drawing inferences about meaning."

"We covered triangle proofs, similarity, and some dilations. Most things came easily to the student today. A few concepts were a bit slower, including proportions again, but for the most part things went well. He was positive today and worked very efficiently. I let him try the questions individually as I usually do. He worked much better on his own today. I think it's possible that the success with the first DBA has given him a bit more confidence to try his math without asking me questions right away. He still has questions, but there is a lot less of him feeling completely lost right away. He will do some biology and look over his math for tomorrow's DBA. "