<p>I am trying to help my son find a tutor. I don't want to go through TPR or Kaplan unless I have no other choice, and we could never afford their private tutors. It would have to be one of their classes, a combination of live and online. My son's learning style indicates he would most benefit from a private tutor. I have looked on craigslist but just because someone says they can tutor for the SAT doesn't mean they know all the tricks and the types of questions, etc. </p>
<p>I have googled and can only come up with institutional tutors who charge a fortune. We live in a small city, so this won't be as easy as it would be in NYC or Chicago. But is there a resource for finding private SAT tutors? If not, does anyone think it's a good idea to give a tutor a book, say TPR Cracking the SAT, and have them just tutor him out of the book? I'd do it myself but he doesn't take me seriously. And he's working hard on his own but I think he would just derive greater benefit from a tutoring environment.</p>
<p>Skip the 3rd party test prep books. If there’s one thing you buy for your son’s test prep, it should be the College Board’s own SAT “Blue Book.” You’ll see it mentioned all over the place here. It contains tips and practice for the specific sections of the test, as well as 10 full-length, real practice tests, 4 of which were previously administered. Other test books’ tests tend to be too hard or too easy, these are the only ones actually made by the College Board. Here’s my recommendation: take the first test in the Blue Book (the first 4 were previously administered) in one sitting and with normal time. Score it, go over the ones you got wrong as well as the harder ones you got right (it’s best to circle the one’s you’re unsure of during the test and to go over them whether you got them wrong or right). Based on your results, you should know which section is the hardest and which is the easiest for you. Go over the easiest section first. Read over the Blue Book section on it and do some of the (let’s say math) sections from the other 6 tests (tests 5-10), first untimed and then timed. Once you feel you have that down, move on to the 2nd easiest and then hardest section. Then take the second test in the blue book in one sitting. Again, score it and go over ones you got wrong and hard questions. You should see a huge improvement from the first test; familiarizing yourself with the types of questions and the test format are the two quickest and easiest ways to up your score. Save the last two tests for when it gets closer to your test date (these are helpful to combat nervousness as they make you feel more prepared going into the test. preparing for 4 months straight but then doing no prep for the 2 months directly before the exam, for example, would make you nervous going into the exam). About 4-6 weeks before you take the SAT, take the 3rd test, going over it as before. Take the 4th and final test about 2-4 weeks before the SAT. You can also take one of the other 6 tests if you didn’t do any of the sections from it, but these are not quite as authentic as the first four.</p>
<p>If your son needs vocab help, Direct Hits is by far the best vocab book/list, but make sure not to focus on this too much as it’s not a very time-efficient way to increase your score. Focus on familiarizing yourself with the test format and questions first.</p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>