A karate instructor told me to worry about moving with proper form, and let the speed come after. It’s true in taking tests too. There are a few of us out there who can take tests with no effort and do just fine. They’re rare. Most of us think of a test as [...]
School is back in session, and at ETP, our students are gearing up for the ISEE, SAT, and ACT. Training for all of these tests is similar - the first part is devoted to learning the best strategies to get one's best score. But now, with the countdown closing in, we’re moving on and having our students practice [...]
An article in Forbes Magazine recommends not taking the SAT in its first year. For one thing, they say, it’s hard to prepare for a test that hasn’t been given before, versus one that has been given for years. Second, the scores for the first test in March cannot be reported until after the May [...]
Sometimes your brain can get tied up with worry over whether you know a lot of background information about the subject of a question. Don’t let that happen. A test question we were recently working with had all sorts of complicated calculations about gravity. We couldn’t really work out what they were getting at right [...]
Each test has its own language. Of course, learning the basics of taking a standardized test will help you in other tests. For example, learning how to take the ISEE will help you learn how to take the SAT, or the ACT, or any of the Catholic high school exams. We know because it helped [...]
If you've ever studied linguistics you're likely aware of a theory that says human brains have a mechanism for picking up language. It’s called a “language acquisition device.” The idea is that the brain is naturally geared to acquire a language without a lot of formal instruction. By simply by being exposed to a language, [...]
When we were starting our test prep program, a school principal asked us why anyone would practice for a test that they can’t see beforehand anyway. I had just seen a documentary on a race called the Baja 1000, and so had a pretty good metaphor ready to go. The Baja 1000 course changes every [...]
