NBA Finals vs High School Finals - Similarities and Differences in Preparation

LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, or Manu Ginobili are all NBA champions. These same 6 professional athletes are going to be competing for a championship in the NBA finals in 2013. Dwayne Wade spoke a great quote at his press conference after a game 7 victory over the Indiana Pacers which resonated with me: "We have champions in our locker room. You know you don't become a champion by luck."

You don't become a champion by luck. It's so true on many levels, in any field. You can not reach the top of your field, or become a champion, by pure luck. It takes hard work, dedication, and determination. Dwayne is playing through injury, night after night. Ray Allen takes 1000 extra jump shots every practice, for the past 15 years. Tim Duncan has been perfecting his craft for 17 seasons and has won 4 NBA titles. All of these players have one thing in common beyond natural talent: hard work, love for the game, and dedication to greatness.

Our students need to approach their finals like it were the NBA finals. Now, the difference between school finals, and NBA finals, is that everyone makes it to the school finals. Maybe if it were more of a competition, students would try harder to make it there, but regardless, all students must take their finals.

In order to succeed on a final exam, it is just like succeeding in the NBA finals - it takes hard work and dedication. Instead of 1000 repetitive jump shots like Ray Allen, do 100 chemistry problems of varied problem types. Instead of playing through injury - study through sickness, friend and family obligations, and other distractions. Do you think Ray Allen loves to take 1000 jump shots after each practice? He will be the first to say that no, he does it because he has love for the game. Students need to practice their chemistry, algebra, and calculus problems not because they love homework, but they love themselves, and they want to become the best they can be. Do you think Dwayne Wade wants to play through his nagging knee, painful injury night-after-night? He does it for the love of the game. 

Stay focused. Work hard. If our students understood that studying for finals is just like competing for an NBA championship, maybe they would try harder, take it more seriously, and have more long term success.

If you need help preparing for your finals like a champion, please visit us at www.triedandtruetutoring.com

Summer Camp or SAT Exam Prep

If you have a high school student, you know that college admissions are becoming ever more competitive.  Colleges look at a number of factors when considering students, but high school grades and SAT or ACT score remain the most important of those factors.  

Quality SAT Exam Prep and ACT Prep Tutoring require students' time and energy, but so often students are prepping when they should be focusing that time and energy on their high school classes.  As important as SAT and ACT scores are for college admissions, high school grades are still more important.  This is why more and more parents and students are opting for SAT Exam Prep and ACT Prep Tutoring over the summer.

Our students typically spend 15 to 30 hours meeting one-on-one with a tutor, 20 to 40 hours doing homework focused on specific SAT and ACT problem types, and 9 to 18 hours taking complete SAT or ACT practice tests.  This means that the typical student will spend 40 to 90 hours on SAT Exam Prep or ACT Prep Tutoring.  This doesn't include the time spent when they actually take the test, and most students take SATs and ACTs 2 to 3 times. 

Juniors and Seniors in high school already have a lot on their plates.  Adding in these SAT Exam Prep hours and ACT Prep Tutoring hours can be overwhelming, and in my 10-plus years of preparing students for the SAT and ACT, I have seen some students crack.  This is why I always push students to prep over the summer.

Of course, no one wants to give up their summer.  Summer is a time for fun, but, when managed wisely, students can prep for the ACT or SAT at a comfortable pace, leaving plenty of time for fun. Starting early is the key.

Students should expect to spend about 3-months on SAT Exam Prep or ACT Prep Tutoring.  Students usually meet with a tutor once a week.  Each meeting last one-and-a-half hours.  After each meeting students can expect about 2-hours worth of homework.  After every three meetings, students take a complete practice test.  Most weeks students will spend fewer than 4-hours preparing for the SAT or ACT.

The first SAT is usually given the first week of October.  The first ACT is usually given the first week of September.  If students get started in July, they should be able to meet weekly with a tutor, and still enjoy much of their summer vacation.

SAT Exam Prep is not exactly summer camp.  There are no pools, no trips to the beach, and no arts and crafts.  But, SAT Exam Prep during the summer might make your student's school year a lot easier.

Visit us a www.triedandtruetutoring.com for info about our SAT Exam Prep and ACT Prep Tutoring packages.

Mothers, Teachers, or Private Tutoring Services, this Mother's Day thank the person with the biggest impact on your education

Mother's Day is just around the corner and that means that finals are soon approaching.  We will spend one day showing our mothers our appreciation by buying them flowers, taking them out to restaurants, and sending them cards.  Then they will spend weeks pushing their kids through finals, finding private tutoring services, and making sure that those final projects get in on time, only to then have to come up with a plan for the summer.

This got me thinking about just how important mothers are when it comes to education.  School teachers and private tutoring services instructors are all important to students' education, but mothers give us role models that teach us how to learn.  In a 2010 article from England's "The Telegraph," the connection between mothers and success in school was made.  


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8012011/Mothers-are-strongest-role-models-for-childrens-education-report-claims.html


In that article Prof. Ian Walker says, "It seems the mother-daughter relationship is now the transmission mechanism for social mobility. It used to be said that the father was the breadwinner and that would dictate household education decisions. If the father was richer you could afford to stay on at school rather than go out to earn a living. That is clearly no longer the case."

Walker's study found that the longer mothers stayed in school, the longer their sons and daughters would stay in school.  Mothers with graduate degrees would most likely have children who would go on to earn graduate degrees.  Interestingly, the educational level of fathers did not seem to have nearly as much of an impact.

This Mother's Day you can thank your mother for one more thing, education.  Mothers, you can be proud.  What better gift can you give your children than education.

The team here at Tried & True Tutoring wants to thank all the mothers out there who inspire their children to seek education.  Happy Mother's Day!

The ACT Part 2

Yesterday, I explained a few general ways that the ACT and SAT differ.  Today I would like to go into some more specifics about the ACT.


The ACT test prep focuses on 5 key areas:

1. English
The ACT test prep for the English section focuses on grammar rules.  Most people do not speak grammatically correctly.  The ACT takes advantage of this.  It gives students sentences that sound correct, but that might actually be incorrect.  
The ACT test prep teaches students to make choices based on grammar rules, not based on the way sentences "sound."

2. Math
The ACT test prep for the Math section focuses on Basic Math, Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry, and Trigonometry.
The ACT test prep also focuses on tricks that students can use to take advantage of the multiple choice nature of the test.  Because the ACT is multiple choice there are many clever techniques, which wouldn't work on a regular math test, but which do work wonders on the ACT.

3. Reading
The ACT test prep for the Reading section teaches students to identify specific question types and methods for breaking down long, complicated reading passages.
The ACT presents students with 4 page-long passages.  The first passage focuses on prose.  The second passage focuses on social science. The third passage focuses on humanities.  The fourth passage focuses on natural science. Each of these passages has ten questions.
The ACT test prep teaches students that there are three types of questions:  general questions, specific questions with line numbers, and specific questions without line numbers.  The ACT test prep teaches students to look at the questions first, and then scan the passage for answers to those questions.  Students then break down the passages into shorter, more manageable pieces.

4. Science
The ACT test prep teaches students that the Science section is really a chart reading section.  There are 40-questions in the ACT Science section.  Out of those 40-questions only 3 require actual science knowledge.  Because these questions might focus on topics from Earth Science, Biology, Chemistry, or Physics the ACT test prep does not focus on specific knowledge.
The ACT science section presents students with charts, graphs, and questions on those charts and graphs.  The ACT test prep teaches students to eliminate unnecessary information and focus on key terms to answer questions based on those charts and graphs.

5. Writing
The ACT test prep teaches students to write in an essay format that has been proven to score highly on the ACT.
The ACT prompts students on a topic.  Students are then given 30-minutes to write an opinion essay on that topic.  These topic usually focus on issues of interest for high school students.  The ACT test prep teaches students that there is a standard essay format which tend to score highly on this section. 

ACT vs SAT Part 1

The SAT has been a standard in college admissions for many years, but recently, more and more students are choosing to take the ACT exam, and as a result, ACT Prep Tutoring has become increasingly competitive.

The predecessor to the ACT was created in 1959 by a University of Iowa Professor who was more interested in students' practical knowledge than in their cognitive reasoning.  Over the years the ACT test prep has become more and more popular first in the midwest and now nationwide.  Since 2007 the ACT has been accepted at all U.S. Colleges and Universities.

At Tried & True Tutoring students frequently ask us, "should I take both the ACT and SAT?" The simple answer is, "sure, it doesn't hurt to take both, but you don't have to take both."

We don't recommend preparing for both tests at the same time.  We like to keep ACT Prep Tutoring and SAT Prep Tutoring separate.  There are some significant differences between the two tests and preparing for them both at the same time can be counterproductive.

We recommend that students take a practice SAT and a practice ACT.  We will then score the two tests to determine which one is the best fit.

Many students prefer the ACT and choose to focus on ACT Prep Tutoring.  They like the ACT because its questions seem more straightforward.  Many students think the ACT is easier.  I can promise that it is not.  In fact, the ACT may be harder in many ways.  The SAT supposedly tests reasoning skills.  As a result of that, it is more susceptible to tricks.  ACT Prep Tutoring is different.  It focuses on a wide variety of knowledge based concepts.

I'll fill you in on some of the specifcs of ACT Prep Tutoring tomorrow...

For more information about our ACT Preparation program please visit http://triedandtruetutoring.com/inner.php?page=SAT-amp-ACT-Preparation-Overview. 

Three Secrets to the SAT Essay

At Tried & True Tutoring we work with hundreds of SAT students every year, and one of the things that most consistently confuses students is the essay.  The SAT essay was introduced in 2005, and, for the most part, it remains a mystery to most.  The SAT is a test based on standardization.  It is a test that is supposed to fairly assess the reasoning skills of high school students from varied ethnic and cultural backgrounds all across the United States.  How then, can the SAT fairly assess and standardize an essay assignment?  The answer is surprising.

Because the SAT Essay must be standardized, the College Board (the Company that designs and administers the SAT) has had to come up with some "creative" grading practices.  The essay is scored by two graders.  Each of these graders awards the essay a score from 1 to 6 (1 being the lowest, 6 being the highest). These two scores are added together to create a total score between 2 and 12. Because these graders are required to grade hundreds of papers per day, they each have no more than two to three minutes to look at any one paper. This is a far cry from the way your Honors English teacher might go through a paper.  A grader will read your paper once, and, based on his or her initial reaction, will give it a score.

Graders are judged, by the College Board, on how consistent their scoring is with that of other graders. As a result, their goal is not to judge the true merit of the paper, but to determine what the paper looks like.  In other words, if you write a paper that looks like a 12, you will probably get a twelve.

Here are three things you should focus on when trying to make your paper look like a 12.

1. The Longer the Better

Papers that score 12 are almost always a full two pages long.  There is nothing that will make your paper look more like a 12 than using all of the space that the College Board gives you.  

I would love to say that articulately arguing and proving your point is the most important thing.  I would love to say that, but I can't.  It's just not true.

If you want to score a 12 use two full pages.  If you write two full pages of nonsense, you might not score a 12, but if you write one page of genius, you definitely won't score a 12.

2. Use the best examples you can come up with . . .EVEN IF THEY AREN'T REAL!

When you write your paper, you will most likely want to write a standard four or five paragraph essay. You will create a thesis (an opinion), and you will choose two or three examples to back up that thesis.

You want to pick examples that conclusively prove your thesis, and it doesn't matter if those examples are true!

The College Board wants to make sure that graders can quickly grade your paper, and this means that they don't have time to verify whether your examples are true or not.  In fact, the graders are instructed by the College Board not to grade based on the accuracy of your examples.  Because the SAT is standardized, the College Board must treat every student exactly the same.  This means that if it wanted to check an example one student used, it would have to check every example that every student uses.  This would be impossible.

So, pick examples that really back-up your thesis.  Don't worry about whether or not they are true.

3. Begin your essay with a direct response to the question.

Over the years, your English teachers have most likely taught you to begin your essays with "Interest Catching Devices," evocative questions, or meaningful quotes.  Don't bother on the SAT essay.  Answer the question asked directly in the first line.  

If the question asks, "Should men take more responsibility for their role in sexual harassment," answer, "Men should take more responsibility. . . ." or "No, men should not take more responsibility. . . ."

SAT Graders do not like essays that straddle the fence.  They like essays that present a clear opinion on the issue, so pick one side, and stick to it! 

By opening with a thesis (an opinion statement) you make it clear to the reader that you have formed a solid opinion.

While these techniques work wonders on the SAT, don't try them with your English teacher at school.  For more tips and tricks on the SAT, visit our site www.triedandtruetutoring.com, and stay tuned for more blogs and videos that will give you the inside track on SAT success!

How Teachers Can Integrate Technology Into Their Classrooms

The importance of technology is obvious to anyone living in this day and age - children, parents, and grandparents are even starting to use mobile technology such as mobile phones, tablets, and laptops as they become more familiar with it. Even if technology is foreign to an individual, the user-friendly software allows even the most novice user to experience the benefits of these devices. So why haven't teachers and schools incorporated technology in the classroom?

The answer is, they are trying, but it is a slow, arduous process. The educational system in America is so regulated, so antiquated, and so massive, that educational reform can take months, years, even decades. This is why Tried & True Tutoring exists - to privatize education so that we provide swift and effective reform. We do not have time to wait for the government to reform our educational system which has been stagnant for over 50 years - it is time that we as parents, guardians, and students take matters into our own hands to make sure we are educated for the jobs of today.

Employers are seeking out those who can do:

Web Design
Web Programming
Web Development
App Development
Graphic Design
SEO Marketers
Social Media Experts
Accountants / Book Keepers

Employers are seeking out those who can use the following softwares:

Quick Books
Microsoft Excel
Final Cut Pro
Power Point
Prezi
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Publisher
Dreamweaver
and more.

Now the question is: are ANY of these classes or programs taught in your public elementary schools? Middle schools? How about High Schools? The answer is d) none of the above.

Tried & True Tutoring is reforming education, focusing on skills that will prepare your student for the jobs of tomorrow. If your student is not getting what they need from school, failing school, falling behind, or just searching for an alternative, talk to a Tried & True Tutoring teacher today. We will develop a program and curriculum that is customized your student's needs. Visit www.triedandtruetutoring.com for more information.