Follow my progress as i study and hire tutors

Test Preparation
1

<p>I noticied that several people in here have uncertainties and misunderstandings about tutors, so since i am taking the SAT in october and intend to experiment with at least two or more private tutors, I will keep a record that hopefully will help someone in concluding if tutors truly work and what type of tutors are the most efficient and reliable. </p>

<p>I took the FREE test that is available at the college board website this week and my scores were:</p>

<p>Math : 630
CR: 630
Writing : 710</p>

<p>Total : 1970 , with a possible error margin of + or - 20 points.</p>

<p>Everyday , I will take one complete section from the college board book and go over the questions that I got wrong in order to find out my weaknesses and attempt to learn the correct way I should have taken towarding solving the question or finding the answer. </p>

<p>In addition, I will try to read as much as possible and get acquainted with difficult vocabulary words daily</p>

<p>My tutoring section wil begin this thursday or friday; The tutor works independently ( He is not form any company like Kaplan or PR) and charges $40 per hour. As you can see, I particularly need assistance with the Math and CR sections. Thus, I will ask him to focus on those areas.</p>

<p>I will post how the section went and if I will continue with this tutor on Sunday. If i find he isn't competent enough, i will get tutors that charge more and try more experience ones, including those from Princeton Review. I hope at the end, you guys can conclude whether or not more affordable tutors can be as good as those "expensive" ones and if they can really help--note that i only have a month until the test date. I will also post more info about the tutors ( experience, methods, etc..) here at the end o each week.</p>

<ul>
<li>My schedule will be : 2 two hours sections twice a week</li>
</ul>

<p>How will it be possible to measure my progress?
I will take a full prep test every saturday ( If i manage to find enough tests) and post my scores and my essays ( if possible) until a week before the real sat , which i will take in october. </p>

<p>I hope that this can help someone to find the right tutor. Comments and questions are welcome, but expect the reply in 3-7 days.</p>

<p>P.S.: it would be nice if the admistrator put this thread in the featured or Important section since it will supposedly help students and parents.</p>

2

<p>"Everyday , I will take one complete section from the college board book and go over the questions that I got wrong".</p>

<p>That's a lot of work!</p>

<p>And you can do even more.</p>

<p>Math sections: play with each question and try to find as many alternative solutions as you can
(<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=91853%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=91853&lt;/a>, #7 is a good example),
the best one being
1. the shortest (duh)
2. the simplest (double duh)
3. the least mistakes conducive
4. SAT (ETS) idiosyncrasies based.</p>

<p>CR, Writing (applies to math as well):
1. identify the key words in each question (criteria: if you miss them, you'll answer wrong)
2. analyze the choices: why the correct one beats the second best; how you could spot the wrong ones quicker; whether there is a possible trap.
3. Determine why some questions took you much longer then average.</p>

<p>If you stick to your plan, your score will increase, no doubt about it.</p>

<p>The "problem" with this plan?
Your experiment on the benefits of tutoring is not clean.
As it was stated on this forum many-many times, intensive self-prep will give a definite hike to your score.
What part of that increase will you contribute to tutoring?</p>

<p>One more thing: please be civil to your tutor. Don't imply you are giving a trial period; when "firing", give some plausible excuses (dumped all your tutoring money on iTunes, schedule is too full, SAT related nightmares, etc.).</p>

<p>Would be very interesting if your tutors had their own thread where they would candidly phrase their weekly thoughts on frazzling encounters with frasifrasi.</p>

3

<p>This was just an interesting idea I had. I will try to sum up after i take the SAT to testify how a tutor helped. By the way i am aiming for a 2200,i know this sounds like a lot , but i know that i will do whatever it takes, even if i don't get a satisfactory score in ovtober, i will try in november. regarding the matter of firing a tutor--if that is needed, I would assume that plainly saying that you didn't like the service would be enough, but i guess that would be unecessaringly hinderful for him/her.</p>

4

<p>wow you should tape this and make a documentary:</p>

<p>"Tutor Me"</p>

5

<p>That would be very interesting. Perhaps, It could be a 20/20 special...lol
It it were, i would certainly watch.</p>

6

<p>I could make the documentary humorous by demonstrating different ways of firing tutors. By the way, my friend told me a funny story last week. He hired one of those college students that claim to be SAT tutors. Upon the tutor's arrival at his home, My friend quickly noticed that the tutor was very inexperienced and had trouble solving some problems from the college board book that my friend asked the tutor to assist him with. After 20 minutes, the tutor was truly frustrated with himself and uncomfortable since he was unable to help my friend with the math problems, what he was supposed to. As some more time passed, the tutor asked my friend where the bathroom was, for he needed to use it. Apparently the tutor never returned. My friend says, he used the excuse to leave the house and never contacted him again.
True story</p>

7

<p>

would be interesting to see a report.</p>