{"id":6844,"date":"2016-05-24t13:39:25","date_gmt":"2016-05-24t20:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/?p=6844"},"modified":"2016-05-24t13:39:25","modified_gmt":"2016-05-24t20:39:25","slug":"new-sat-tips-tutors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/new-sat-tips-tutors\/","title":{"rendered":"new sat tips for tutors"},"content":{"rendered":"

the new sat is finally here, so tutors take note. there’s a new exam format you and your students need to keep up with. there are a number of shoulds<\/em> and shouldn’ts<\/em> for tutoring the exam in its new form. w’ell start with the “shouldnt’s” in this post, so you can break any outdated tutoring habits associated with the the former version of the exam.<\/p>\n

sat tutors shouldn’t focus on skills that have been removed in the new sat<\/h2>\n

the exam has changed considerably with the new updates, and some key skill\/content areas from the old test are no longer important. sentence correction and sentence completions, seen in reading and writing on the old sat, are gone from the exam entirely. and the math section now has little or no focus on statistics.<\/p>\n

so don’t\u00a0focus on these\u00a0skills in your sat tutoring sessions. sentence-level work and obsolete math will waste your students’\u00a0time and will not leave them properly prepared for the current version of the sat.<\/p>\n

sat tutors shouldn’t\u00a0assume that their students will be doing an essay<\/h2>\n

the sat essay used to be required. the new\u00a0sat essay is optional, and separately scored from the rest of the test.<\/p>\n

so don’t assume that your students will do the essay. if the schools they’re applying to don’t require an essay– and most schools don’t– your students are\u00a0unlikely to bother with this now-optional writing task.\u00a0do not assemble\u00a0a bunch of essay materials for your students unless you’re sure they’re going to choose the writing option.<\/p>\n

sat tutors shouldn’t use materials for the old exam<\/h2>\n

the new sat is distinctly different from the old test. if you \u00a0use prep materials for the old sat to help your students, you are preparing for the wrong<\/em> test, a test that no longer exists.<\/p>\n

if your students spend much time studying the content and of the old sat, they will be confused on exam day. they may even be less prepared for the test than they would have been if they hadn’t seen any sat materials at all.<\/p>\n

what you\u00a0should<\/em> do<\/h2>\n

so we’ve just covered what you should\u00a0not<\/em> do as a tutor. each of these\u00a0shouldnt’s<\/em> has a flip side: if you shouldn’t focus on certain skills, you should focus on others. if you shouldn’t gather some up some types of prep materials,t here are pother prep materials you should seek out. in fact, i’d say the should<\/em>s really outnumber the shouldnt’s<\/em> for tutoring the new sat.<\/p>\n

now that we’ve gotten the “don’t do this” part out of the way, lets be more positive. let’s talk about the many things that sat tutors can and should do to ensure that their students realize their goals on new sat test day, and realize their dreams afterwards.<\/p>\n

sat tutors should teach the new skills on the new sat<\/h2>\n

true to its name, the new sat doesn’t just update\u00a0old content… it introduces\u00a0new<\/em> dimensions to the exam. graph<\/a> and chart-based<\/a> questions<\/a>\u00a0are huge on the new version of the exam, and appear in every sat section.<\/p>\n

so make sure your students are prepared for the very visual nature of the new sat. have a lot of new\u00a0sat-like infographics on hand, and be aware that some students find graphic reading comprehension particularly challenging.<\/p>\n

also know that in new sat math, trigonometry is now\u00a0part of the exam– so be ready\u00a0to help your students with some introductory trig. if your main focus of tutoring has always been the sat, you yourself might be a little rusty with trig. these official sat math videos, offered through khan academy, can help both you and your students brush up on new sat-level trig skills:<\/p>\n