How to maximize your performance when taking the SAT or ACT! As you enter the final stretch of your SAT or ACT preparation, make sure to review what you should be doing the week before, the night before and the day of the final exam. Don’t let a forgotten admission ticket or a late photo… Read more »
Taking the GRE at home proves to be a stress-free experience Due to the shutdown of many test centers that offer the GRE, ETS began offering a GRE General Test at Home (“At Home GRE”) option in late Spring 2020. The test is identical in content, format and on-screen experience to the GRE General Test… Read more »
Ten GMAT study tips that can help you ace the test! The GMAT is a uniquely stressful test. For most people, taking the test follows months of preparation. I take the test every couple of years to remind myself of what my students experience on test day. Here are ten GMAT study tips compiled… Read more »
Meditation App Review Part One – Insight Timer App The benefits of meditation can’t be overstated. Studies show that regular meditation practice reduces stress, anxiety and other mental health issues such as phobias, depression and obsessive-compulsive behaviors. It promotes positive thinking, increases attention span and focus, reduces memory loss, fights addictions, improves sleep… Read more »
Dear parents, This is our tenth annual report, highlighting the results of the Marks Education Tutoring Division. We strive to give students and families the best possible personalized attention, and I am happy to report that our students continue to improve at several times the national average after tutoring. Here are the details: final score improvements, college admission results from Counseling,… Read more »
Advising the HS Class of 2019 In the second year of the redesigned SAT (and of our guide), some stability has returned to standardized testing. Counselors we surveyed had fewer doubts than last year, but questions remain. Khan Academy has set up an entirely free prep program for the SAT, which the College Board… Read more »
Part 1: Why, How, and When to Skip GRE Questions Skipping and Why It’s Important Skipping difficult and time-consuming questions is the single most important strategy on the GRE, and it’s the one that gives my students the most trouble. It’s important to skip, whether your target score is 155, 160, or a perfect… Read more »
Part 2: Identifying the Skippers As I discussed in Part 1 of this blog post, skipping is probably the single most important strategy you can use on the GRE. While it’s easy to recognize some questions as “skippers,” in other cases, it’s not easy to know when to skip. Here’s a guide to help… Read more »
An SAT Test Prep Tutor’s Advice Based on a Recent SAT The SAT test prep tutors at Marks Education take the SAT, ACT, GMAT, GRE, and LSAT on a regular basis. Here is the report on the Math section from Senior Tutor Anthony Celino, who took the October 2016 SAT and debriefed the test with our… Read more »
A Test Prep Tutor’s Advice Based on a Recent SAT The tutors at Marks Education take the SAT, ACT, GMAT, GRE, and LSAT on a regular basis. Here is a report on the Writing section from Senior Tutor Anthony Celino, who took the October 2016 SAT and debriefed the test with our team. (We… Read more »
An SAT Test Prep Tutor’s Advice Based on a Recent SAT As you prepare for the SAT Reading section the right way, you can raise your Evidence-Based Reading and Writing Score and even enjoy the section. Our test prep tutors have taken every new SAT available, and we have used these tips with our students, helping… Read more »
Our tutoring team enjoyed taking the second administration of the new SAT on May 7. Here were some of our most important observations: The test is the same difficulty as the four tests released by the College Board and the four tests developed by Marks Education, available to our students and soon to be released… Read more »
Update: Understand your scores on the new PSAT with our table showing how your redesigned PSAT scores correlate with ACT scores. This will help you choose whether to take the ACT or the new SAT. As most admissions professionals and many parents of high school students know, on the current SAT (to be administered for… Read more »
What Humanities and Social Science Majors Can Do to Ease the Process Interested in pursuing an MBA? Regardless of whether you pick the GMAT and GRE, you can take steps to make GMAT or GRE quantitative prep a relatively painless, and perhaps even fun, process. Yes, for many of my students, solving GRE and GMAT… Read more »
The SAT administered on June 6 had a misprint which gave students the incorrect amount of time on one of the last three sections.This affected either a 20-minute Reading section or a 20-minute Math section. The College Board’s response has been to say that it simply will not count these mistimed sections in scoring the… Read more »
The New SAT As parents, students, tutors and college counselors get closer and closer to the unveiling of the new SAT and PSAT over the next several months, we all have one main question in mind. What were they thinking? Why is the College Board creating this new test now, roiling the waters of college… Read more »
Taking the PSAT The PSAT is a very important diagnostic and assessment tool which predicts SAT scores, provides a great way to track your progress, and of course, can result in National Merit awards for the highest scorers. In addition, the PSAT can tell you whether you should take the SAT or ACT and what… Read more »
Since 2004, Nitin Sawhney has successfully used meditation and breathing exercises to help his students overcome test anxiety. All details in the story below are true. To protect privacy, the student’s name and biographical information have been changed. Mariana is a wonderfully warm, hard working student, with a sparkling curiosity about the world and a… Read more »
The New SAT! Probably the biggest question we’ve received in past days is how to prepare for this new SAT. For us, the answer is to focus on core skills in reading, math, and science. 1. Read! : Because the SAT will become more of a reading-based test, just doing crash courses on vocabulary won’t… Read more »
As you know, the College Board is attempting a true reinvention of the SAT. For all the news stories printed and broadcast on this topic, many are bombastic, few are comprehensive, and none provide adequate guidance to parents and students. Below, I outline the major changes. And on my next post, I suggest a simple a four-step… Read more »
Amidst all the hullabaloo about the recent SAT score inflation scandal at Claremont McKenna (here’s a Bloomberg article on the subject), a central point may be getting drowned out: Many colleges are out to game the rankings system, in one way or the other. Some do it in ways that are legitimate, while others do it… Read more »
Close your eyes and take a moment to visualize a scientist working in a lab. Chances are that you see a middle-aged white man wearing a lab coat and thick glasses. One problem for me is that these socially entrenched beliefs have such a pernicious effect upon girls’ self belief and test performance. So many of… Read more »
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