ACCOMMODATIONS FOR STUDENTS TAKING THE ISEE Educators are fully aware that many very capable students struggle taking standardized tests because they have learning or physical challenges. This is why accommodations are offered to students who "are unable to take the ISEE under standard conditions" These challenges must be documented and upon approval, a student may be eligible to receive [...]
Whether you understand the meaning of a test question or not may depend on whether you’re the one who wrote the test, or are the one who’s taking it. As experienced teachers, we've seen this first hand. We would write questions for tests that seemed perfectly fair. The material had been covered in class, [...]
The first thing to know about the reading comprehension section of any test is that it is not a test of how well you read. It's a test of how well you take a reading test. What this means for test takers is that to do well on this test section, [...]
The SSAT and ISEE test dates are here! In preparing for your exam, there is nothing better than continued, ongoing practice to make testing language second nature. But if you’re gearing up to test in the coming days and haven’t had a chance to formally prepare, there are three pointers that by keeping them in mind can [...]
"My child is a great student. He works hard and earns excellent grades. He just doesn't test well." How many of us have made that same observation about our own child? As teachers and test-prep tutors, this phenomenon of good students struggling at test time seems to be more the norm than the exception. What [...]
While most of us are focused on enjoying our summer vacation, independent school parents are thinking about getting their child ready for the independent school entrance exams ISEE and SSAT. In our experience as independent school educators, we’ve come up with a test preparation plan that will work, without piling on unnecessary homework, wasting [...]
The best test prep is stress free prep. When I played the saxophone, I had fun. But I didn't love it so much that I wanted to practice 8 hours a day. And I was OK with that. I liked goofing around and being able to play what I wanted to. But no one [...]
Test makers love proportions. We work with standardized tests for public schools, ISEE, SSAT, ACT, SAT, SAT subjects, and more. In every case, the test makers are very interested in proportions. A few years back we were working with a student on her standardized math test for public school. The test didn’t count as part [...]
Having just spent ten days road tripping the beautiful country of Ireland, we learned first hand just how informative it is to break the habits we've learned driving in the U.S.. The first challenge is adjusting to a driver's seat on the right side of the car. The next is to drive on the left [...]
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 [...]
