The SAT & ACT Prep Roadmap

Nathaniel gives his full spiel on how to plan and prepare for the SAT and ACT. If you were to call Grove Prep and ask for a consult, this is the exact speech you would get!

Show Notes

For questions or comments, please email [e-mail]. We look forward to hearing from you, and would love to answer your question on the show.

For more information, visit:
Nathaniel's agency, Grove Prep, at groveprep.com
Alex's agency, Brooklyn Math Tutors, at brooklynmathtutors.com

Nathaniel Dolquist, Yale ’15, has tutored full-time in New York City and Los Angeles since 2015. His students range from 7-33, and he is always delighted to make connections with new families. He’s a standardized test pro, and his students have emerged victorious from the ISEE, SSAT, SHSAT, ACT, SAT, AP exams, as well as increased in-class test scores with his help and guidance. Every one of his standardized test students, whether they’re applying to high school or college, has gotten into at least one of their top three schools.

When students work with Nathaniel to apply to high school or college, he helps them craft essays that are authentic, powerful, and effective. He teaches them how to level up from formal academic writing and tell their story in a personal, persuasive way. It is his favorite subject to tutor, and he derives great joy from seeing the work his students create.

Nathaniel has also tutored all levels of math, science, history, and English from elementary to high school: students often stick with him for years. His training in executive functioning has also helped his students with learning disabilities, including ADHD and dyslexia. He is fluent in Spanish and also speaks French, Italian, and some German. As a performer he has traveled to over 50 countries, and he has lived abroad in Ireland, the UK, Italy, Germany, and South America.

Alexander Friedman has enjoyed tutoring math, science, and other technical topics since he was a teenager at Stuyvesant High School. He is the CEO of Brooklyn Math Tutors in Brooklyn, NY, and helps families throughout the New York City area. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Northeastern University, worked as a Researcher at Carnegie Mellon, and did a brief stint as a technology consultant before leaving the corporate and academic worlds to tutor full time.

Having worked with kids, adults, and everyone in between, he came to see that math-phobia, uncertainty, and boredom – not a lack of innate talent – keeps most students from succeeding.

What is Top Tutor Podcast?

Private educators share insider information from the world of elite tutoring to help students get the best results both academically… and in life.

Hello and welcome to the Top Tutor podcast, where we share insider information from the

world of elite tutoring to help your students get the best results both academically and

in life.

I'm your host, Nathaniel Dalquist, the owner and head tutor at Grove Prep.

I've been a tutor since I graduated from Yale in 2015 and focus primarily on standardized

test prep and college admissions.

Joining me is my co-host, Alexander Friedman.

Alex worked as a software engineer and a university researcher before founding Brooklyn Math Tutors

in New York City in 2008.

Hi, Alex.

Hello.

What are we going to talk about today, good sir?

Well, one of the questions we often get is how do we prepare our kids for the SAT?

And this is a very, very standard process that everyone goes through.

So in today's episode, Nathaniel is going to take us through the entire process so that

you have all the information without having to call a tutoring agency and pay them for

this because it's pretty standard.

So let's get to it.

Amazing.

Okay.

So I want everybody to know that the reason why I wanted to make this episode is because

I had this exact conversation with a family asking me about tutoring last week.

And I thought, I want to have this conversation with everybody who wants to have it, so let's

record it.

And so this is basically the verbatim script that I use when I'm onboarding my own personal

clients and helping them figure out what they want to do.

Okay.

So here we go.

Buckle up everybody because there's a lot of information coming at you real fast.

Here we go.

So the very first thing that you want to do is determine if your student wants to take

the SAT or the ACT and we have a whole other podcast about that.

So I'm not going to go into huge detail about that, but basically the only method I've found

that's really super duper reliable is taking both tests.

You take one practice test of each one in its full length sitting down timed and you

do it and you see which test your student likes better.

And there are four sections to each test, but they're timed a little bit differently.

The sections are in different orders, so you really need to have some hands-on experience

with a practice test to see which one might work.

Now some schools or test prep agencies offer like a sort of half and half and you basically

go in for like an afternoon for a three or four hour window and take sort of half an

SAT and half an ACT.

That's fine with me.

That's totally fine.

But I really believe that if you want the full data, you should take the full test because

they're both different.

It's like a huge time commitment, but that's if I had a perfect world, all of my students

would do that first.

I think it's important to take the entire test because you will get tired at the end

of these tests because they're quite long.

So taking half of it may not give you like the full picture and also taking the whole

test is practice in taking the test and as we know for these tests, the more practice

you have, the better.

So it's not really a waste of time.

A hundred percent.

Yes.

Thank you for that.

Yeah.

So basically you want to time everything out properly and we're going to talk a lot about

timing today because that's really important.

So we're going to talk more about when to take the test in a second.

But the first thing I want you to do is I want you to make sure that you know what accommodations

your student needs.

If your student gets time and a half or double time or gets to take the test on different

days or, you know, has any other extra accommodations that they are allowed to have, you really

need to know what those are in advance because that's going to affect how and when you take

the test because some testing centers will not have that accommodation available on certain

dates.

So it's really important that you know that and it's important that you contact wherever

you're going to take the test and make sure that they have those accommodations ready

for you because if your student should get those accommodations, they should have them

like give them what they need to succeed on the test.

So that's super important.

And I talk about this with all my New York City parents.

That type of thing can even affect which state you take the test in.

You can take it in any state, but sometimes my New York City parents find out that because

they waited too long, the only test prep or the only like practice test centers or the

only actual testing centers that offer the test are in like West New Jersey and they

have to drive to New Jersey or they have to drive to Connecticut.

So please spare yourself that car trip and just look super far in advance and make sure

all of that is set up.

Now your school probably offers either the SAT and or the ACT at some point during the

year.

That is totally fine for your student to take the test through the school and that can count

as their first one, their second one, whatever.

The only thing I want you to check if your kid is taking the ACT is if the school offers

the ACT with writing, which is a little bit different.

The ACT with writing has an extra section on the end.

That's the essay and for students applying to Ivy Leagues or other really high end schools,

they usually do like to see the ACT with writing and most schools don't offer the ACT with

writing.

They just do the regular one.

So you need to check on that and ask your test proctors or your administrators at the

school, which one is going to happen so that you get the correct one.

Because I would hate for a student to take the ACT and then have a school say, what about

the writing section?

And you're like, well, oh, well, okay.

Now let's talk about timing first before we get into the test strategies themselves.

I always encourage parents to work backwards.

So what I want you to do is figure out what time of year is going to be best for your

student.

The final opportunity for a student to take the SAT or ACT to get into college is October

of their senior year.

So there is usually a test SAT or ACT in September and October kind of depends, but usually they

have them there.

So that's the last chance I usually recommend that juniors take it in the spring of junior

year, like around April, but as I told these parents on the phone last week, you have to

make sure that your student doesn't have the school musical or a really important sports

game of some kind, like around that time.

Because what I found is that my students prep for all of February and all of March and then

April comes around and they've got games that they have to go to.

And so they're much more focused on their extracurriculars and they're really fun, honestly, probably

more fun than taking a test activities that they're doing and they get distracted and

their head's not really in the game and then that mental preparation is super duper important.

So here's the other thing, if you are thinking that your student can study over the summer

and take the test in June, I wish you luck.

I do.

I have tutored students to take the test in August or in June.

I have to tell you that it's kind of 50-50 on that one.

Like half of the students I have actually do study and do a good job and the other half

are like, dude, I got summer brain.

I'm not really listening to this.

So before you say, oh, well, they can just take it over the summer.

Just keep in mind that it can be much more effective to have your student take it during

the year, even though they've got other stuff going on because they will be in school mode

as opposed to in summer mode.

And I just, I've never seen grade scores during the summer, alas, but those sessions are usually

much more open.

So the lowest times of year for people to take it are summer and December.

So like there's, there's usually a test sometime in the summer and there's usually tests like

in the winter or like early in the year, like January, February, there might be one.

And those, you can usually get a slot for those because most people don't take it then

they take it either in the spring or in the fall because juniors are taking in the spring

and seniors are taking in the fall.

So just keep in mind that there is some seasonality to when the test prep centers will be full

and when the actual testing centers will be full.

After you figure out what time of year is going to work for you, please register for

that test as far in advance as you can, because I have parents who think that three months

before the test is enough time and because they're in New York city, everybody wants

to take the test and nobody wants to drive to Connecticut or New Jersey to take the test.

And so they wind up not being able to get the time that they wanted or the slot that

they wanted because it's already full, even three months in advance.

So decide as soon as you can and sign up for one or two tests in advance.

I do recommend signing a student up for two tests just so that you have the slot.

I don't think it's greedy to do that in advance.

You can always cancel it if you need to and it's like there's a fee, but it's not terrible

and I would rather you have the opportunity to take the test twice, then take it once,

get a score you're not happy with and then be like, oh shoot, when am I going to take

this test again?

Maybe it's four months from then.

You know, if you take it in April and your student's not going to want to take it again

until August or September, it's like, Oh, so that can be tough.

Okay.

Now let's talk about the actual study period itself.

If you are thinking of hiring a tutor, that's great.

If you're thinking of hiring a test prep company or buying a big fat yellow SAT book or red

ACT book from Barnes and Noble or the bookstore or whatever, then having your kid work through

it, great.

If you're a student doesn't need any prep at all, great.

Doesn't matter.

But if you are going to work with somebody, I do recommend that in order to maximize your

investment there, that you plan on about 10 to 14 hours with a good tutor.

And I got those numbers when I crunched my numbers last year and saw my, the average

of where my students did best on the test.

So students who only had about a month of prep or four to six weeks of prep, unfortunately

did not see their scores go up that much because they honestly, like they weren't that committed

to it and they didn't have enough time to practice.

Whereas my students who did 10 to 14 hours really saw their scores go up.

And I usually recommend 10 hours before the first test and then two to four hours in between

the first test and the second test, possibly more.

I've had students do more.

It's just kind of whatever they're prepared for and ready to do and whatever you can afford

because there's plenty of prep that can be done.

Now, to be clear, this is hours of tutoring, not hours of actual work because like one

hour of tutoring is one week and then between those hours, the student should be, if they

actually want to see results, be planning a lot of like SAT or ACT training time.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

So I tell my students that it's going to be one hour a week with me and between one to

four hours of homework a week.

So we all get into this structuring a little bit later, but I usually start them a little

bit lighter and have them do one section at a time from week to week because it takes

them longer to work through it.

They have to think a little bit more if they haven't seen it before, it's like unfamiliar.

Then we move up to two sections a week and then the week or two before the test, I make

them take the full practice test if they can handle it, which sometimes they don't want

to do that, but I'm like, look, if you were preparing to be in the Olympics, you would

replicate the conditions as well as you possibly could.

So I think that's really important.

Is there any benefit to meeting a tutor more than once a week or is like once a week the

sweet spot?

Ah, what a great question.

So I have done both.

Most of my students are once a week.

Some of my students are twice a week.

I've never run out of material.

It's not like there's a place where we just don't have anything else to talk about unless

they're getting, you know, perfect scores on everything.

And then I'm like, well, you don't need me anymore.

Enjoy your life, little birdie.

Fly away.

Um, but I, I have found that it's sort of whatever works for the family.

If you have a shorter timeframe, if the test is six weeks away and you haven't started

test prep, I would recommend twice a week because that tutor is going to need to go

over a lot of material, a lot of semi-colons, a lot of colons, a lot of commas, a lot of

trig, a lot of eighth grade math that your student has forgotten.

And it takes some time just to do the basics again.

So I really would recommend twice a week if you have sort of a condensed schedule.

So if you're two weeks out, if you're six weeks out, then probably try it twice a week.

But if you're eight weeks out, once a week should be fine.

Okay.

So when you're planning your 10 to 14 weeks with the tutor or the test prep class or whatever,

I would recommend that you do your best to make sure there won't be any long breaks during

that time.

So many schools have spring break.

That's one or even two weeks.

Some schools have a February break, which can be long.

It just depends on the school district you're in.

And people have various breaks or holidays all the time.

So if you're going to be on vacation in some lovely place for two weeks right before the

test, that's going to be a little bit of a struggle for the student.

Like the tutor is probably going to be fine.

They can tutor you remotely from wherever it's their job.

But the student is trying to enjoy their island vacation.

We should all be so lucky to take nice island vacations.

Students trying to enjoy their vacation or their time with their family or whatever.

And then has this SAT, ACT floating over their head.

Not so fun.

So I just want everybody to be aware of that.

It's okay to like go on spring break and then come back and take the test.

But I really do recommend the student take some time to get their focus back together

and get their head in the game so that they're kind of like game in a mental state of readiness

before they take the test as opposed to getting off a plane or out of a car after a 10 hour

drive and wanting to just fall onto their bed.

So that's very important.

I call it island brain.

I'm like, no island brain on the SAT, please.

I've worked too hard to like be dreaming of like nice drinks by the pool.

So what I want to add to this is that consistency is one of the most important aspects of any

tutoring, whether it's test prep, college essay editing, a subject in school, no matter

what it is, consistency is really important.

So if a student is missing lessons or they're not doing the homework or they're not engaged

with their lessons, they don't want to be there.

If you, the parent have forced them to do this thing and you're paying for it because

you want them to do well, but their heart is not in it or they don't want to do it,

you're not going to see the results that you want.

And of course everybody has days where they're like, I would really rather not be here.

Of course, every student I've ever had feels that way.

I feel that way sometimes of course, but it's really important that it's the student's choice

to do it and that they want to do well because if you're going to shell out all this cash

for a tutor or a test prep program or a big book and want you to get your money's worth

out of it.

And unfortunately that's on the student.

That's not your choice.

So that's pretty important.

I also want to mention that I do see diminishing returns in tutoring after 14 weeks.

So 14 weeks is three and a half months and it's not about the tutor.

It's not about like the test.

I mean, usually by 14 weeks, you've really gone over everything.

That should be plenty of time.

Some students want more practice, which is totally fine.

I did have a student who tutored for like 16, 20 weeks, but this girl, I mean, she brought

me a complete graded test every single week and she probably went through 20 practice

SATs.

That's how much that we're at an exaggeration.

It's not.

I was like, you're going to be okay.

It's going to be all right.

But it usually after 14 weeks, the student's motivation levels really start to sink and

they just get tired.

They get burned out and they don't really want to do it anymore.

So that's usually when I start to see the diminishing returns.

Now is there a limit to how much people can improve that basically people hit that limit

after about 14 weeks?

Yeah, that's about right.

So the data that I have seen would, it sort of says that scores can go up before the first

test quite a lot.

They don't usually go up that much between the first and the second test because a lot

of the content knowledge has already been learned.

So you know, you get the practice test and everybody panics like, oh no, oh no, this

is not good.

And then they study for the first test and they see a significant improvement.

Then they go to the second test and they see still some improvement because you know, there's

nothing like getting the actual experience to teach you what's going on.

But usually, usually there's a little bit less improvement between the first and the

second test.

I have used this kind of what we call a points captured system, which is basically, I'll

try to explain it.

It's a little cerebral, so forgive me if this doesn't make a ton of sense, but basically

if you've got an ACT out of 36 and you score a 24, that means you have 12 points between

your score and a perfect score.

What I always try to get students to do is cross the 50% mark.

So if you've got 12 points between your score and the highest score, I really want you to

try and get six points back so that instead of a 24, you'd have a 30.

And I do think that's possible.

Usually to be honest, my students do a little bit better than that.

It's really, really hard to quantify this.

And unfortunately they're like, you might ask a tutor or a test prep company, this is

the question we always get, which is how much will the scores go up?

And I'm like, I don't know, does your kid do their homework?

Like it's, it's, it's usually the tutor can be great, but if the student isn't engaged,

it's not going to go up as much as you want to see.

So that question unfortunately is really hard to answer.

And of course, of course everybody wants to be like, how much is my score going to go

up?

Am I going to get in the low thirties?

Am I going to get in the mid thirties on the ACT or am I going to get, you know, a 1600

or a 2400 or whatever on the SAT?

Like depends, depends on the kid, depends on the test, depends on how they feel that

day and you know what distractions there are in the room.

So unfortunately that question is kind of unanswerable, but I hope that parents take

it with the spirit, which with which it's intended.

When I say I can't really answer that because it's going to be based on how well your kid

engages with me in lessons and how much homework they do.

So some parents have like, Hey, I want to get my kid to this score.

Like does that affect how they approach it?

Like, let's say, Hey, I want like, we're looking to get like a 34.

Like what do you do in that case?

What a great question.

So as I said, there's, there are no guarantees, but here's the thing.

There's only one strategy that I've ever found for sort of trying to play the test and like

get to a certain score.

And the only thing that works for that is that the ACT math section has the 10 hardest

questions at the end.

They're actually not usually all that hard, but the ACT math section is the only section

on either test that goes from easy to hard, more or less.

It's like easy, easy, medium at the beginning, then medium, all three in the middle, and

then usually medium hard towards the end.

And so that is the only section where I'm like, I want you to get all of the first 30

correct.

You can definitely do this.

They're all easier medium.

I want you to get as many from 30 to 50 correct as you possibly can.

And I really want you to work on those and then do your very best for the last 10.

That's the only section that works on because the other sections are mixed in difficulty.

So if you're like, we really want a 34, I'm like, great, every student needs to know the

same things to do well on this test.

They need to know all the same grammar rules.

They need to have all the same strategies for the reading section or the science section,

and they have to have the math skills to do it.

So I train students to master any type of question that's thrown at them as opposed

to being like, we're going to aim for a 34.

Well, no, we're aiming to get them all right.

And we hope that you get a 34.

It just kind of depends on the test.

But yeah, another question I get sometimes is, do I need to take both?

Do I need to take the SAT and the ACT?

And the answer is flat no.

Absolutely not.

Pick one.

You're going to be fine.

Schools do not require both.

It used to be that schools preferred one test over the other.

Now they're pretty much equal.

So I wouldn't worry about that too much.

Just pick the one that your student feels the most comfortable with, and that should

be good.

Now, speaking of should I take both tests, there's also the option to take neither test

and go test optional and just apply to schools without those scores.

And that has been incredibly effective through COVID.

I have tutored so many students who have applied test optional to their top choice schools

and gotten in.

No problem.

We love to see it.

However, one of the things that have started to creep into those school's websites are

these little notices that say test optional is going away.

So you heard it here first, because I don't think it's going to get reported on for another

six months or a year or so.

But it looks like in about 2024, most schools are going to require the test for admission

again.

So just please be aware that that's happening now.

You can check every school's website.

So some schools are like test optional is us forever.

We're just going to, we're going to keep it optional.

You can qualify for scholarships if you want to turn in great scores.

It will help your chances of admission if you turn in great scores, but it's going to

be optional.

And some schools will stay that way forever.

Other schools are going to say, nope, you have to have it and you just have to check

which schools those are on their websites.

But I just want to let everyone know because in my, in the hours every day that I spend

on these college's websites, that's what I found so many hours of my goodness.

Okay.

So when you are searching for a test prep class or a tutor or whatever, I do want you

to keep some things in mind.

So when you're looking for these things, I want you to find a tutor who has access to

practice sections.

So both the SAT and the ACT have published several full length free practice tests on

the internet.

There are certainly three ACT ones currently that the ACT did go through and scrub the

internet about three months ago and got rid of a bunch of those free tests.

So like just be aware, but the SAT has posted like 10 on their website.

So there are plenty of free full length practice tests out there.

If you're looking to buy a book, I fully recommend books that have as many practice tests as

possible.

Now here is my caveat with test prep books.

I just had this issue with a student today, which is that bless these test prep companies

and these test prep books, but they're not always super accurate.

So they are attempting to emulate the test.

They are, they do not make the test.

So if you're going to buy a test prep book, I really recommend that you buy the one from

the ACT that the ACT has published or the one that the college board has published for

the SAT because they make the test.

They know exactly what's on it.

They're not trying to guess to make some money.

I mean, I've made, I've written my own materials as well.

Like I've taken my guesses and you know, tried to use that to help students, but that's just

from my brain.

I don't write the tests.

So please make sure there are like real legitimate practice tests when you buy those books.

Now if you're looking for a class, it sort of depends on what you're looking for.

So some classes do a lot of one-on-one personalized attention for students.

That's pretty rare in my experience.

Most affordable SAT, ACT prep classes usually have between 15 and 30 or 60 students in them.

And every single one is going to be different.

It depends on which area you're in or if it's online and it just depends on what works for

you.

So do your, do your research, have a chat with the teacher or whomever, and just make

sure that that is going to be something that works for you.

If you are going to look for a specific tutor or an individual, which is what I do, I really

recommend that you like take the time to talk to them first.

And Alex and I also have podcasts on how to hire your own tutors and how to interview

them.

So if you are going to interview this person yourself, you want to make sure that you engage

with them well, that your kid is going to get along with them really well, obviously

that they know their stuff.

But that's, that's what tutoring companies are actually really good at is that they have

vetted those tutors for you and believe that they either have a proven track record of

success or they are very, very charismatic and get along really well with kids.

That's why those tutoring companies hired them most of the time.

That's one of the big benefits for going through a tutoring company.

Is there much of a benefit to these large test prep classes?

So I have taught them in the past and the thing for me about those test prep classes

is that it is even more dependent on the motivation level of the student.

So any kid who really wants to do well is going to find a way to do well.

They're going to do the homework.

They're going to ask questions in class.

They're going to be good students just like they are in the regular classroom.

But the students who are just stuck in there and they have to do homework and their parents

said, you're just going to take this class.

They they don't, their scores don't really go up that much.

I've graded their homework.

It's like not that great.

And what they really need is the personalized attention of somebody who can be like, all

right, today we are going to go back over systems of equations and I'm going to explain

it in a way just for you.

That works perfectly for you and the kids who are who are really good students can kind

of get their education wherever like they're usually pretty good at it.

But the students who struggle or who are scoring, you know, in the teens on the ACT or, you

know, getting four to 500 or like on the SAT on each section, they're the ones who really,

really benefit from individualized one on one instruction because that way the tutor

can get at exactly what they don't know and sort of confront them about it.

Honestly, be like, okay, here's the thing.

We're going to learn it now.

And that has always been my approach with with students like that because they're like,

oh, okay, I get it.

And I actually think it's a much better use of time because you're going to get a better

result in fewer hours.

You're going to get it more quickly because you're being helped individually as opposed

to sort of en masse.

How effective is self study?

What if let's say, you know, you don't want to go to an SAT prep class and you don't have

access to a tutor for whatever reason?

Like can you do well just with self study?

Okay.

What a great question.

So I have found I self studied for the SAT and the ACT because I took both of them twice

when I was in high school.

That's, that's the type of overachiever I am.

I know it was dumb.

I don't know why I did that.

I just wanted to, to be honest.

So for self study, here are the things you absolutely can get from self study.

You can totally get an idea of where your score range will be.

You can time yourself.

You can take the questions.

You can get familiar with the structure of the test, which order each section is in,

how long each section is, how many questions, et cetera.

That's actually really important and is a huge part of what I teach students is exactly

what to expect on each section.

It's the same every time.

You just have to really know your stuff.

And so that aspect of self study is really helpful.

What's tough for self study is when you find questions that you've missed that have some

nuance to them.

So especially some of the reading questions that are like, what's the main purpose of

this passage?

Or it can be inferred from this paragraph that like, those are really hard to teach

yourself how to do.

It's really tough.

The math, maybe you could be like, Oh, I need to review like circle graphs or parallel lines

or whatever.

Okay.

They have a section in the book for that where you can go do that.

But I did not learn grammatical rules or how to answer questions about reading from a book.

I learned them from someone very directly teaching them to me.

I didn't know the difference between who and whom until somebody taught me a trick for

it, which is just that whom goes with him, her, and them.

They all end with M. So that's an easy, well, not all of them, but you see what I mean.

So him and them and whom those go together.

And then who is he, she, they, Oh, that's interesting.

I had very much the same experience.

I self studied for the SAT because tutoring wasn't a big thing.

My parents certainly weren't going to pay for it.

And I got, I think I got a perfect score in the math, but I definitely did not get a perfect

score on the verbal section, probably for these exact reasons, because there, there

isn't like a clear cut.

I mean, there are clear cut rules, but you can't infer them by taking the test.

Like with Matthew, like, okay, I made this mistake.

Here's why with the grammar, with like reading comprehension, with vocabulary, like you are

not likely to figure it all out on your own.

Right.

And there are little things that the SAT will do.

Like for example, they consider parentheses, comma brackets, and dash brackets to serve

the same purpose, which is true.

Those are the rules of English.

But if you don't know that, you might be looking at these three answer choices, which all look

exactly the same, except one's parentheses, one is comma brackets, and one is dash brackets.

And you'd be like, which of these is correct?

And the answer is it's the fourth one.

It's the other one because those are all the same according to this test.

So it's very important to know those tiny little distinctions.

And that's something that somebody with a lot of experience on the test is going to

be able to teach you really quickly.

Oh yes.

And now let's go into how I structure the curriculum of say like a 10 to 14 week tutoring

bout if you will.

So the first thing I have my students do is take a full practice test of whichever test

they prefer, or both.

Sometimes I help them decide which one is better, but I need a full practice test so

I can look at the diagnostic and see what's going on.

And here's what I always find when a student misses many, many, many questions at the end

of a section, they ran out of time.

So what that immediately tells me is, okay, this student got through 50 out of the 60

math questions and then guessed for the rest of them.

Even if it's not C all the way down, I can tell if they started guessing towards the

end because they just get more wrong.

So that's one of the first things that's really important is for me to figure out where they

ran out of time and which parts of each section they might have struggled in.

I have found that itemized breakdowns from like practice test companies or whatever are

kind of useful.

Like if a student just doesn't know like trig identities, which do happen on the ACT, okay,

great.

Then I know that I can teach that to them.

But if it's like algebra concepts, I'm like, okay, well, what is it about algebra concepts

that they don't know?

Do they not know how to distribute?

Do they not know how to use exponents?

Like what do I need to teach them?

So sometimes those little breakdowns are useful and sometimes they're not.

After I look at the practice test and look at the results and talk to the parent, it's

usually about four to six weeks of content knowledge.

So that is grammar rules, the specific style of questioning on each test, the exact ways

to tackle each question strategies.

And of course, digging out the eighth grade and ninth grade math that everybody has forgotten

and teaching them the 11th and 12th grade math that they never learned.

So that's always a big part of it.

And that's usually four to six weeks.

That's filling in the holes of content knowledge and also training the test strategies and

also just giving them some practice with the types of questions and getting them familiar

with each section.

So for homework, I give about one practice section a week, then sometimes two, if the

student is really cruising along or not missing very many, or they came in with a high score

already, sometimes two is fine.

But usually it's one, just because it takes the whole hour to go over just that one section.

Then after that, we work on speed.

So once I know that the student has attained the content knowledge that they need, they

know how to use a semicolon, they know how to find a parallel line slope, great.

Then I give them about two timed practice sections a week for about two to four weeks.

And the reason that's really helpful is because every single one of my students without fail

comes to me after the first timed practice section and is like, oh no, I barely made

it.

And I have them do a really specific thing where I say, okay, time the section.

If you run out of time before you get to the end, draw a line on the section so that we

know where your timer stopped and then keep timing it to the end.

So we figure out how much more time you needed to finish it because I still want them to

practice getting the questions right.

But I also want them to see how much time they need to make up essentially and how much

faster they have to go.

So that's what we do for the speed test runs.

And then it's full tests for two to three weeks before the actual test itself.

I'm like, here are all four sections, have at it and see how they do.

And I do ask them to take those in one sitting.

So it goes from, you know, a little bit of homework, maybe a couple of nights a week

to a lot of homework on a Saturday or a weekend or whatever.

And sometimes they break them up into do two sections on one day and two sections on another

day.

That's fine with me.

I do want them to take at least one practice test front to back in one sitting with one

snack break if they can, um, just because I want them to get the game conditions as

it were.

But if that's what they have to do, that's totally fine.

Do you teach any kind of like test taking strategies?

Like for example, uh, when I did the math section, I would go through, but there was

some question that it wasn't immediately obvious.

I would like skip it and go do a bunch of ones that were obvious and then come back

to the more challenging ones.

I know there's lots of strategies like which do you suggest students employ?

Oh, a hundred percent.

If and only if you make sure you also skip the bubble on the answer sheet because my

worst nightmare is a student filling in the wrong bubbles all the way down and getting,

uh, getting the wrong answer side would be heartbroken.

It has happened.

It makes me very sad.

Yes.

There are strategies like that.

I teach a lot of elimination strategies.

So how do we just know these answers are wrong?

Or what are our tried and true best methods for finding math answers, which honestly,

a lot of times is plugging in numbers, but you have to know which ones to plug in, right?

If you're looking for percent change in the area of a square, then start with side lengths

of 10 and then do whatever operation they want you to do to them.

And then you're going to get a really easy answer on, on like how much did the area increase?

It's much easier if you know what numbers to use in advance.

And I have found that that makes things go much faster.

And it's also really easy because you know exactly what strategy to use every single

time.

Cause there's always a question about dilating squares on the test always.

And then after the full practice test, then they take the test.

Yay.

And sometimes I will say, all right, you've worked so hard.

Take a break for a week.

Come back to me after you get the scores and we'll see where we want to go.

And some students are like, thank you.

Goodbye.

And other students are like, no, I know I want to take it again.

Let's meet again next week.

I'll do another practice section and then we'll recap the test.

I'm like, oh, you are driven and we'll succeed in this life.

All right.

Here we go.

So it just depends on the temperament of the students.

Sometimes that break is really important.

And sometimes I tell them, I will not see you next week.

Goodbye.

Go take a break.

You need, you need to relax.

And the parents are like, thank you.

We need to take them out for ice cream or something because they've been working so

hard.

So after the first real test, we, the scores usually come back within a couple of weeks.

Obviously if they've done super duper well, we all celebrate.

And then I like wave a tearful goodbye and I say, see you for college essays and like

a couple of months, like have a great end of your semester or whatever.

And otherwise I go through the test with them and I'm like, okay, so how was it?

How did it go?

Did you run out of time on math again?

Like how did you feel?

Was there like someone who smelled really bad like at the front of the class?

Like were you distracted?

Was there an earthquake?

Any of those types of things I've had that happen.

Yep.

I had a friend take the MCAT and there was an earthquake while she took the MCAT.

And so she, but she still did really well.

She did super well.

She got a note from the MCAT set to her schools that was like, Hey, this student took the

MCAT during an earthquake.

She still got in.

No problem.

So funny.

So yeah.

So after we look over the results for each section, then what we do is we concentrate

on the very lowest sections for super scoring.

Now super scoring is where a college will say, Oh yeah, we'll take the highest point

value, the highest grade you got on each section, no matter how many times you took the test

and average those to get your super score, which is your very best score.

So you know, the ACT has four sections out of 36.

So if you got a 32 on English and then you got like a 25 on math, then maybe what we'll

do is we won't work on English so much.

We'll work more on math because if you get a 32 on math, even if your English score is

lower, you got a 30 on English that time, you get to keep your highest scores.

So then your score has just gone way up because you get to keep your 32 from English.

You get to keep your 32 from math and then you can average all of them together.

So some schools do the super score.

Some do not.

The Ivy leagues usually don't accept super scores.

They say you have to submit one test to us cause they want to see how you do all at once,

but many other schools will accept super scores.

So it just kind of depends on the school and you do have to kind of look into that.

All right.

Uh, any questions for me, Alex, before I kind of summarize this, um, my questions go back

to like how parents should plan college admissions based on like the points captured.

Like let's say you take it the first time and you get like a 24, right?

Like, it's like how far that score goes up really makes a big difference as to like where

you may be able to apply to.

So what do you, I know this is a little bit out of the scope of specifically how to study

for the SAT or ICT, but like, what would you recommend people do?

What a great question.

So the test scores are important for college admissions, no doubt about it.

However, there are much more important parts of the college application than just the scores.

So this test is very important.

It's worth preparing for, and it can qualify you for scholarships if nothing else at certain

schools.

So that's, that's a big one, but the college admissions process takes into account the

essays that you write, which are ultra important and interview.

If you get one, your grades, your extracurriculars, your recommendation letters and your test

scores.

And so I've had students who didn't really like the scores that they got or for the,

where those scores weren't necessarily competitive for some of the higher level schools, but

they wrote an amazing essay and had great grades and went to a really great school and

they just didn't submit the scores and then applied.

And that was this year.

So we'll see what happens.

We're going to see what happens.

My fingers and toes are crossed for them.

They worked really hard.

So that alters the situation a little bit.

The test scores are not make or break applications.

That's what some admissions officers have told me.

Everybody has a different opinion on this though, so it's a little bit hard to answer.

But the general rule is get the highest score you can get the highest score you can and

send it along.

Like if you're scoring over 30 on the ACT, you're doing great.

If you're scoring over like 1400, well four, maybe a little higher than that, maybe like

1450, 1500 on the SAT, you're doing great.

Just like keep doing what you're doing.

But if your score is in like the teens or each of your SAT sections is like in the 500s,

I really think it would be worth looking into having someone help to get those up because

it's not as hard as you might think because the tests are always the same.

I mean, that's why they're standardized tests because everybody is supposed to be able to

take them.

And so some people debate the utility of taking SAT or ACT classes or tutoring or whatever.

It's my job and I have seen every student that I work with, their scores go up.

So it's like, it's like in my experience, it's totally worth it.

And there is a big change and, but it depends on the family.

It depends on what everybody's individual situation is and what's right for them.

So yeah, amazing.

So here's my summary.

Everybody, I hope you were taking really careful notes because there will be a test, a standardized

test.

Did that just give, did that re-dramatize everyone?

I hope not.

Did it take you right back to that ill-fitting desk in high school?

Oh my.

With somebody sniffing next to you, I still have like memories of like taking one of those

tests and someone near me had a call to her like doing like every, every like 30 seconds

that drove me nuts.

I still remember 20 years later.

Oh man.

You got the sneezy kid and the sniffly kid.

They're everywhere.

So here's our summary.

So sophomore year is not too early to start thinking about taking this test.

So when, when your student is a sophomore or an early junior, that's the time to kind

of look ahead and say, okay, when is it going to work for our family for us to take this

test?

When is our kid going to be super focused and when will it work financially for us or

whatever?

When's going to be the best time?

I do recommend students take it in the spring of junior year.

That's the sweet spot.

If they can get a slot, that's a really great time to take it.

Schools usually offered around then as well.

And the reason for that is because they've had more math in class.

So little bonus thing there is one of the benefits of taking it at the end of junior

year is that the student has had another semester of math, which I think is really useful and

English and reading as well, but it's really the math that is helped the most by that,

I think.

So you got to plan in advance.

You got to register really far in advance.

Make sure the accommodations you need are all taken care of, VV important, got to have

it.

Then you want to look into whatever test prep program or none or very intensive, whichever

is right for you, and then make sure that that's going to coincide with a good time

for your student to focus, time for them to get into it.

Not too long, but also not cramming right before so that they have some time for things

to sink in and really practice and then execute and then do it like just have, you know, got

to show up, got to be consistent, got to make it happen.

Then take the test once, see what happens, see how you feel.

Maybe take it again.

You can take it a third time if you want to.

I usually recommend my students shoot for twice.

After the second test, a score increases are negligible.

I have found just because you already know everything.

You're just trying to super score at that point, usually.

So that is sort of my recommendation for everybody.

So I really, I really hope this has been helpful for everybody because it took me many, many

years to collate all of this information.

This is years and years and years of me teaching these blessed test prep students.

I love them.

I wish they would do their homework consistently as a tutor.

That's my prerogative to wish my students do their homework anyway.

All right, everyone.

Thank you so much for joining us.

If you have any questions about what we talked about today, we would love to hear them.

There's an email address in the show notes.

If there's anything you'd like for us to discuss on the podcast, please send those ideas to

us as well as we want to provide information that you'll find useful.

That is after all the whole point.

Thank you all so much and we'll see you next time.