Hey everyone,
I have a friend that got an 870 on last year’s PSAT (450 EBRW, 420 M) and 860 on the SAT this year (460 EBRW, 400 M). I offered to help her study for the next SAT, which she’ll be taking in May. I don’t know if this matters, but just for reference, I got a 1380 on the SAT (690 on both sections) and scores of a similar range on the old SAT and ACT.
I was wondering if anyone has opinions on what the best course of action is. So far, my plan is to make a target score, have her take a practice test and analyze which skills she has and which she doesn’t, teach her the info she does not know, teach appropriate strategy for target score (ex. target will not be tippy top, so she should avoid trying to read through all the questions), and do practice tests and analyze results throughout. Does this sound good? Please let me know if you have anything to add.
Thank you!
She has very few skills. She needs basic grammar and math–these are the easiest, fastest portions to make big gains–and should be consistently studying vocab, starting immediately, even though any R gains from vocab will be slow to achieve. If you can get the basic math and grammar principles into her head ASAP you can get her 200-400 points very, very quickly. Good luck, @greenteen17 !
I would highly recommend doing “micro-bursts” (this is what my tutor called them)! Take one subsection (such as one essay from the EBRW section), figure out how much time she would have for that subsection, and have her do that mini timed section. Scoring these individually is easy and gives you both a good jump-off point for what you need to focus on. It might be hard to distill an entire practice test into an efficient teaching plan all at once.
For math, have her keep a record of problems that she finds particularly difficult, and come back to them for review together several times before the test. This is a really useful tool for you as a tutor, because it will uncover any obvious gaps in her math knowledge that you can help her overcome - for example, maybe most of the ones she writes down involve data sets, and you can primarily focus on those as an area of improvement.
@marvin100 @catbird1 Thank you for taking the time to answer me! I will definitely make use of your suggestions.
@marvin100, what do you like to use for vocabulary?
@BingeWatcher - Quizlet (I have my owns sets. I’ve shared them with some students here, in fact.)