Tutoring For All Ages

You’ve been planning for this; you’ve studied and practiced and studied some more, and now the thing is tomorrow. The big test, those all-important pages that will determine your future education. You crack open your study guide (for the last time, hopefully) and start to review.

You notice a question that stumps you for a minute or two, and you go review that topic. And since you’re reviewing that, you might as well double-check a few other things. How many practice quizzes will it take for you to beat your top score? And while you’re checking answers, you see the vocab list and realize that you don’t know at least half the words on it. Panic! You studied and studied, memorized all kinds of vocab, but what if none of it is on the test? What if they ask about that algebra concept you never quite mastered? There’s not much time left! But at least you have the nighttime hours to cram as much knowledge as you can into your head. So you’d better put on a pot of coffee and get down to studying, right?

Wrong — and stop, just stop. Take a deep breath before you do something you will most definitely regret when you wake up, mind in a fog, to a drool-covered test booklet and an empty answer sheet at the end of section 3. (more…)

Spring is just around the corner, and plenty of students and parents are facing the same scheduling issue: when should we schedule the SAT: subject tests? For many students taking the SAT in the spring of their junior year, the prospect of adding another barrage of tests to the to-do list is daunting, to say the least. The temptation is to push those tests to the fall and say, “with the SAT out of the way, I’ll have all summer to study for the subject tests.”

That may be true, but it also may not be the best option for you. (more…)

Scores on the SSAT and ISEE are coming in, and our most frequently-asked question at this time of year is: how do I know if my score is good enough?

Unfortunately, there’s no straight answer (yes, you knew that one was coming). Score expectations vary almost as much as scores themselves, and every school has a different way of factoring test scores into their applications. Some applications are little more than “Name, date of birth, test scores,” while others strongly resemble college applications in their depth and breadth.

One thing’s pretty certain: (more…)