Why, hello. As you've seen above, my name is Karl and I'm originally from the great Northwest. I moved out to New York originally to take advantage of an exciting opportunity to work towards the development of a safe and effective vaccine for the HIV virus. I've stayed because of the vibe of excitement and competition in the city. It truly does push you to be your best. In my free time, I enjoy exploring the ever-changing NYC landscape, stumbling about the internet learning whatever it has to teach me, studying politics both as an art and a science, as well as my guilty pleasure of watching the NFL and the occasional Newcastle game.
As an HIV vaccine researcher for several years, I was taught many obscure facts and techniques. As a specialist in assay development (making up new experiments), I created even more. All of these techniques and ideas had to be passed on to the next generation of researchers, so I spent much of my time developing techniques to teach topics on which my pupil knows little to nothing to begin. Further, this information had to be passed on with no margin of error, as a single deviation between tests can render any and all data meaningless.
In part through these laboratory experiences, I have learned that true understanding comes from the teaching of central concepts rather than brute-force memorization. In short, you don't learn THAT 62=3, you learn WHY 62=3, allowing you to find 82, 122, 93, and all the others (this technique can be extrapolated to many of the graduate test prep tutoring work I do).
Similarly, I don't teach what the answer to a particular LSAT question might be, but rather why it is so. I don't simply warn you that question X of practice GRE Y is a trick question; I show you how it is a trick question, and teach you how to spot similar tricks in the future. Just like counting to 100 (or even 1,000,000,000) is no longer scary once you learn how the numbers are combined, so too the placement exams will lose their bite once you learn how they are constructed and how the test-makers think.
The joy of using a tutor, like myself, is that I can not only show you the tricks that DID work for me, but I can also help you find the tricks that WILL work for you. The test prep books, and the cookie-cutter classrooms, must remain generic so that they can work, at least on some level, for all of the students who might read the book or take the class. With 1-on-1 tutoring, we will be able to create personalized strategies for preparing for, and eventually taking, the exam in which you are interested that are able to maximize your personal and unique set of knowledge and abilities. I look forward to helping you to find your personal path to success!
- Karl
