Offered since 1982, Taming the SAT has helped more than 109,000 high school students prepare for this crucial entrance examination. The focus is on test-taking strategies -- strategies that help students maximize their scores on the SAT and PSAT.
What your son or daughter will learn
About the test as a whole- Using sound test-taking methods: pacing, searching out the easier questions, thinking like the test-makers...
- Making intelligent guesses—an essential skill for SAT success
- Understanding the structure of the new test
- Applying the basics, such as reading all the answer choices and crossing out incorrect choices
- Unlocking the meaning of unfamiliar words
- Systematically arriving at the answers to sentence completion questions
- Coping with complications that may arise, such as not knowing the meaning of words or finding that too many answer choices seem to work
- Attacking passage-based reading questions, which now make up more than 70% of the critical reading
- Dealing with questions on paired reading passages, including questions that relate to both of the passages
- Answering particular types of critical reading questions: vocabulary-in-context and negative-instance questions
- Taming the new writing section questions: sentence error, sentence improvement, paragraph improvement and the essay
- Solving complex, difficult problems by considering easier analogous problems
- Using methods that speed up—sometimes eliminate—time-consuming calculations
- Spotting occasions when a calculator can help and when it can’t—when it may even slow you down or mislead you
- Tackling arithmetic and algebra questions with nonroutine strategies that save precious time or allow students to arrive at answers to problems they can’t otherwise solve
- Attacking SAT geometry problems, quite different from those encountered in high school classes
- Entering answers properly to grid-in questions—ensuring that the scoring machine doesn’t count a right answer as wrong
What your son or daughter will bring home
A complete set of top-quality, university-developed materials, available only to participants in Taming the SAT workshops:
- Two booklets, Verbal Exercises and Math Exercises. They add up to more than 100 practice questions that students tackle as they participate in the workshop.
- A Study Guide book. It summarizes all the key points made in the workshop and provides additional material for study. Allows students to review what they’ve learned after the workshop and makes it unnecessary to take notes during the workshop.
- A Practice Tests book. It contains two complete practice
tests, with detailed explanations of the answers to each question. Also
includes suggestions for making best use of the tests and guidelines
for practicing our strategies.
Introducing the New Writing Workshop
In addition to our Basic workshop we now offer a new Writing workshop. This workshop is conceived with the same principles of instructional design, and by the same group of experienced educators that have kept Taming the SAT the quality choice for 23 years.
The one day, 6 hour workshop explores all aspects of SAT-I writing section. But the training does not end at the end of the workshop day. Students have access to a secure area of Taming the SAT website, and at their leisure may write two additional, timed essays. All essays are scored and annotated by two professional graders.
During the course of the day students learn strategies for taming all parts of the Writing section.
- Sentence error questions
- Sentence improvement questions
- Paragraph improvement questions
- The 25-minute student produced Essay
Students will practice all these topics and more.
For most students producing a timed essay is very stressful. We offer a variety of proven coping strategies.
- Practicing with essay prompts. What to do in those critical minutes before writing. Brainstorming and planning the essay.
- Constructing strong, relevant paragraphs that support a viewpoint
- Methods for anticipating the Essay assignment and preparing in advance
- Strategies based on the scoring guidelines used by the College Board
- Spotting potential traps and avoiding common errors.
What your son or daughter will bring home
- A Writing Exercise booklet. These are exercises practiced during the workshop day.
- A Writing Study Guide book. A source book that summarizes the points made in the workshop plus much more. The book has sections on SAT Essay Writing, pertinent Grammar and Usage Review, Critical Thinking, and extensive, useful reference material.
- A password to more practice. At the end of the workshop day students produce a 25-minute handwritten essay. This essay is scored and annotated by two professional graders, and mailed back with, in a timely fashion.
- Also students, within a 12 month period, will compose two additional, timed essay on our secure website. These essays will also be graded, and annotated by our graders.
What people say about Taming the SAT
A high school administrator:
"I feel the workshop was of great value to our students. Our students generally expressed an enthusiasm about the techniques acquired on taking the SAT. I noticed a visible difference in attitude and confidence in how our students responded after taking the exam.
"After sitting through two workshops and reviewing our students' test results, I am pleased to report an increase in SAT scores. Several students had score gains between 240 and 290 points."
Joan Stewart
Assistant Principal, Instruction
Esperanza High School
Workshop graduates:
"The program, Taming the SAT, is a great opportunity for anyone to raise their test scores. It is an excellent course that helps improve your math and verbal scores. It helped me improve my score 280 points to get a 1370."
"Through special strategies, hints and lesson, I believe that the SAT course greatly helped me to achieve my highest possible SAT score. The Taming the SAT course also helped me to prepare for the time limitations and stresses of taking the SAT."
"The SAT class teaches you to think abstractly, which is essentially what the SAT is testing. The time-saving techniques allow you to get an answer in seconds, usually without even having to do the problem. The strategies are well isolated and reinforced, and as a result, my score improved to a high of 1550."
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