<p>For SAT tutoring</p>
<p>This is for the math section only. Can all of you that have tutored give me suggestions on how to approach this? I got a 780 so thats out of the way, now making a schedule of study thats the hard part.</p>
<p>Congratulations! I haven't tutored for SAT specifically, but I have tutored several high school math students, so maybe you can use my advice.</p>
<p>It all depends on the student. In my experience, especially for standardized tests, there are two types of students that need tutoring. The first type is the student who has been a poor math student for several years and doesn't really know the concepts, whether it be algebra or equations or as far back as fractions. They get along in school through memorization and "this is exactly what I do when I see this problem" type of thing. For them, I would focus on the concepts part hard, and usually the skill for SAT comes with time. Remember, you are not helping them if you just give them some new "memorization" (I use that loosely) method for approaching SAT math. Much better to teach them the concepts and ease them into solving SAT-style problems. These are the more difficult ones to teach. (How do you explain factoring and what you are actually doing, rather than "just think of two numbers that add to this and multiply to this"?) </p>
<p>The other type of student understands the concepts but has been in regular, simple math classes for years. They do not have skill in "problem solving". Of course, the SAT math section is far from problem solving, but it has an element of trickery and uniqueness that is not usually found in textbook math. These students are easier to teach. You simply have to bridge the gap between their understanding of concepts and their application of them on the SAT - here the theoretical approach is not the best; shortcuts are timesavers. Some of the easier Mathcounts problems are good for developing these skills.</p>
<p>Hey thanks for the prompt reply</p>
<p>I was hoping that the first student won't be one that I have to start from scratch on but I am well equipped if that is the case</p>
<p>I have always been a strong math student, so I hope I am able to get through to the student.</p>
<p>I have virtually every SAT book published, except Kaplan (my rule of thumb) so from experience I think I will go with Barron's Sat Math Workbook because it has nice chapters and lessons. I also want to add some Gruber's here and there because it was excellent for math.</p>
<p>What do you think?</p>
<p>I'm not a tutor but I really think the blue book is the best resource. There's a fair amount of free prep stuff on the College Board website too.</p>
<p>I was definitely the 2nd type of student rb9109 mentioned. The Gruber book helped me a lot with different strategies I could use. My score went from a 540 to a 690. I then did better on the ACT and got a 33 math. Basically, I felt I needed to understand the language of the problems and not the concepts needed behind them.</p>