3. Background
University of Michigan Bachelors
University of Wisconsin Masters of
Science in Counseling
Licensed Guidance Counselor Pre K-12
12 Year Full Time Private SAT Tutor and
Founder of Prepped & Polished
Frequently quoted in US News
Test Prep Expert for Answers.com
Big Brother of Year Finalist 2010
Three X Boston Marathon Runner
4. Why SAT Strategy Secrets?
Our student in Natick MA, initial PSAT 1440
Did 16 hours of tutoring and 16 hours of HW
Got a 1900 on her December SAT
460 point increase!
Score increases open new doors for colleges,
scholarships, merit aid, and beyond
5. SAT Strategy Secrets
Learn the predictable SAT format
Become an early riser
Get through sentences quickly
On reading, answer general q’s last
Skip around on the math fill-in section
On sentence improvements, identify the specific error
Most overlooked math strategy
Key insider tip for test day
Let’s review what we will cover
6. SAT Strategy Secrets
Let’s review what we will cover
Learn the predictable SAT format
Become an early riser
Get through sentences quickly
On reading, answer general q’s last
Skip around on the math fill-in section
On sentence improvements, identify the specific error
Most overlooked math strategy
Key insider tip for test day
7. Learn the predictable SAT format
Section 1 and 10 are always the same section
Section 8, 9, and 10 are always short sections
Section 2-7 are always the long sections
Experimental section
Know the nuances within each section and
learn how to pace for each section
8. SAT Strategy Secrets
Let’s review what we will cover
Learn the predictable SAT format
Become an early riser
Get through sentences quickly
On reading, answer general q's last
Skip around on the math fill-in section
On sentence improvements, identify the specific error
Most overlooked math strategy
Key insider tip for test day
Become an early riser
9. Become an early riser
Consistency builds confidence
Mimic the test day environment
Wake early at least two months from test date
Early to rise? Early to bed!
10. SAT Strategy Secrets
Let’s review what we will cover
Learn the predictable SAT format
Become an early riser
Get through sentences quickly
On reading, answer general q’s last
Skip around on the math fill-in section
On sentence improvements, identify the specific error
Most overlooked math strategy
Key insider tip for test day
Get through sentences quickly
11. Get through sentences quickly
Don’t spend too much time on sentence comp
q’s
19 scomp < 48 reading q’s
Avoid the worst case scenario!
12. SAT Strategy Secrets
Let’s review what we will cover
Learn the predictable SAT format
Become an early riser
Get through sentences quickly
On reading, answer general qs last
Skip around on the math fill-in section
On sentence improvements, identify the specific error
Most overlooked math strategy
Key insider tip for test day
On reading, answer general qs last
13. On reading,
answer general q’s last
All SAT passages are arranged in chronological
order
Answer specific q’s as you read
The correct answer choice best summarizes the
ENTIRE passage
14. SAT Strategy Secrets
Let’s review what we will cover
Learn the predictable SAT format
Become an early riser
Get through sentences quickly
On reading, answer general q’s last
Skip around on the math fill-in section
On sentence improvements, identify the specific error
Most overlooked math strategy
Key insider tip for test day
Skip around on the math fill-in section
15. Skip around on the math
fill-in section
Take care of the easy and medium q’s first
Do the first 5 or 6 multiple choice q’s
Scan #7 and #8, the last 2 multiple choice q’s.
If you get stumped on the last two q’s, go
right to fill-ins.
Go back to the last two multiple choice q’s
with a fresh set of eyes
16. SAT Strategy Secrets
Let’s review what we will cover
Learn the predictable SAT format
Become an early riser
Get through sentences quickly
On reading, answer general q’s last
Skip around on the math fill-in section
On sentence improvements, identify the specific error
Most overlooked math strategy
Key insider tip for test day
On sentence improvements, identify the specific error
17. On sentence improvements, identify
the specific error
Have a gameplan while tackling sentence
errors
Mastery of cardiopulmonary resuscitation
techniques are mandatory for firefighters and
police officers as well as rescue squad
volunteers. (No error)
Keep in mind!
No Error (E) comes up just as frequently as
the other answer choices!
18. SAT Strategy Secrets
Let’s review what we will cover
Learn the predictable SAT format
Become an early riser
Get through sentences quickly
On reading, answer general q’s last
Skip around on the math fill-in section
On sentence improvements, identify the specific error
Most overlooked math strategy
Key insider tip for test day
Most overlooked math strategy
19. Most overlooked Math Strategy
Beware!
10 careless mistakes can cost you between
100 and 150 points!
What to look out for?
Key math vocabulary that you want to pay
attention to
20. Most overlooked Math Strategy
Try this one!
If
a = 2 x 4 x 6 x 8 x 10 x 12
and
b = 4 x 8 x 12,
what is the remainder when a is divided by
b?
A) 0 B) 2 C) 4 D) 10 E) 120
21. SAT Strategy Secrets
Let’s review what we will cover
Learn the predictable SAT Format
Become an early riser
Get through sentences quickly
On reading, answer general qs last
Skip around on the Math Fill In section
On Sentence improvements, identify the specific error
Most overlooked math strategy
Key insider tip for test dayKey insider tip for test day
22. Treat the test like
a marathon
What I learned from the 2012 Boston Marathon
Treat the test like you’re running a marathon, not
a sprint
Train but don’t over train, hydrate, pace, finish
strong
23. Questions?
We want to hear from you!
Go to
www.SATStrategySecrets.com
and share your thoughts in the comment box. We
will respond personally to all your inquiries.
While you’re there, check out our latest courses by
clicking on the Courses link at the bottom of the
page.
Notas do Editor
Welcome to the Webinar today, great to see you.
Where is everyone from? Put it in the chat box
Welcome to SAT Strategy Secrets.
Ask the poll question when are you taking your sat? and wait for response
“I'm actively involved with Big Brother Big Sister, and was honored to be chosen as a Big Brother of the Year Finalist in 2010. Getting the chance to become a mentor for young people has been an extremely gratifying experience for me. “
“I'm also an avid runner. I've trained for the Boston Marathon three times, and a little later I'll share with you guys how the lessons I've learned about marathon training apply to SAT preparation.”
Let me take a moment to tell you about one of our recent students here at Prepped & Polished. She's a junior in high school from Natick, MA. She came to us with overall PSAT scores of 1440, looking to boost her scores. In eight tutoring sessions, we taught her the SAT Strategy Secrets methodology, and when she took the December SAT, she achieved an overall score of 1900. That's an impressive 460 point jump. We'll return to this example later, when we hear from the student herself about her experience. But before moving on, I'd just like to remind everyone of the improvement she was able to achieve. 460 points. A score increase like this opens doors to more colleges, scholarships and merit aid. Ultimately, since getting into the right college can be a springboard for success later in life, a high score on the SAT can put you in the drivers seat.
Now we'll review what we'll cover in today's webinar. First...
First let’s talk about the SAT format and why you want to master it
I ran a ten mile run last October called the Apple Harvest Ramble in Berlin, MA
Wasn’t prepared for the hills
Result, got injured
Injury affected half marathon training
And carried into marathon
Don’t make the same mistake on the SAT
Know the format, know what to expect, better results
Show them the SAT Format on the Board!
You want to train yourself to become an early riser…
Achieving any ambitious goal requires a strong sense of confidence in yourself. A surefire way to build self-confidence on the SAT is not only to take full practice tests, but to mimic the test-taking environment as accurately as you can, so that there are no surprises come test day.
Since the SAT is administered on Saturday mornings, an important part of your SAT test prep should be to develop the habit of waking up early on the weekends, starting two months out from your test day and do your SAT HW!
And because you want to feel well-rested on test day, waking up early means going to bed early as well, OR, early to rise, early to bed.
One key tip I have for the critical reading section is this …
Sentence completion questions always come at the beginning of SAT Critical Reading sections, and while these questions can certainly be challenging, make sure to keep a healthy perspective of big picture of the Critical Reading sections. Don't spend too much time on sentence completion questions, because you've got many more problems to complete in this section, and the number of passage questions far outweigh that of sentence completions. In fact, while there are 19 sentence completion questions throughout the three Critical Reading sections on the SAT, there are 48 reading passage questions. That's two-and-a-half times more passage questions than sentence completions.
On Real Time Board Show them the CR section w 5 sc, 2 short passages, and 1 long, why would you spend more than 5 minutes on sc?? Spend 3 minutes on scomp, 4 minutes on short passages, 18 minuts for 15qs
Another critical reading tip I have is to always answer specific questions before you get to the general. …
All SAT Passages are arranged in chronological order, use that to your advantage
So you want answer the specific qs as you read, and then once finished the passage go back and tackle the general ones
Let’s to the board: Go to realtime board and show them a set of questions and highlight which ones are general and which specific
Remember: for general qs the correct answer best summarizes the entire passage. Some choices may be partly true and partly false so watch out for those or too narrow in scope
Remember, there one section on the SAT with 8 Multiple Choice and then 10 fill in response questions.
Let’s go to the Real Time Board, I’m going to show you how the section is organized
Remember on the fill ins: NO GUESSING PENALTY so Answer ALL qs
Remember on the long grammar section, you will have 11 sentence improvement, 18 sentence errors, and then 6 paragraph improvements.
Let’s talk about the sentence errors.
What you DON’T want to do is read the sentence and circle an answer for a part of the sentence that sounds funny to you.
What you DO want to do is aggressively seek out grammatical problems in the sentence. And then not only circle the correct answer, but have a VALID REPLACEMENT for the incorrect grammar.
Let’s look at this slide ….
ASK STUDENT: Try it, what did you get
Most come up with E, but Mastery is singular so Subject Verb Agreement must match with the verb “IS” , most people think the prepositional phrase “of resuscitation techniques = subject but it only DESCRIBES the subject.
Now we’re going to cover what I think is the most overlooked math strategy
BUT FIRST….
I want to show you the # most overlooked math strategy
AVOID CARELESS MISTAKES
And carefully underline or circle key words, the key math vocab in the question. Some questions have a lot of key math vocab in it and if you miss one of these vocab words, you will answer the question incorrectly.
So look out for the following: integer, consecutive even integers, perimeter vs area, or prime..
Try it out first: what did you get
Let’s try this problem on the board:
Here’s a key insider tip for test day
The whole test prep process is really similar to training for a marathon.
You won’t get a top score or finish a 26.2 mile race in just one day. You need to TRAIN for it
Now on marathon day you need to run a smart race, you need to hydrate well, you need to pace yourself wisely
When you take the SAT, if you get STUCK on problem number 2, don’t spend two minutes trying to figure it out.
The questions are NOT designed for you to spend more than one minute per question, so if it takes you more than a minute (unless its one of the last ones) then you are probably going about the problem the wrong way. Let me put it this way, kids who spend three minutes on a problem, usually end up getting it wrong, so move through the questions fluidly, if you get STUMPED, CIRCLE the problem, move on, and then go back to the circled problems w a fresh set of eyes.
Also, make sure you are well hydrated for the test. Good breakfast, and snacks, water
Last FINISH STRONG, don’t get lazy at section 10, get PUMPED, section 10 counts too, grab a power bar for that second break to give you the energy you need to FINISH strong
Questions? Reach out to us!
I’ll send an email tomorrow with the link to the REPLAY
Thanks for joining and see you soon!
