The SAT essay is – for good reason – always one of my students’ hugest concerns. I say “for good reason” on a number of grounds. In the first place, students sit down to the SAT writing section after years of high school English classes that have instilled in them the process and practice of writing a meticulously organized exposition – one that takes multiple drafts, demands countless hours of editing, and occasionally requires a sleepless night or two. Suddenly they are faced with a 25-minute window in which their first instinct is to squeeze that whole working-and-reworking process into a significantly shorter period of time. Of course, this isn’t humanly possible – nor will it be expected of you. In the second place, the essay is the only section of the SAT that is scored – let’s admit it – subjectively. Read the full Article
Gaining admissions into some private middle schools and high schools is surprisingly similar to that aspect of the college process. Grades, extra-curriculars, and teacher recommendations all count. Since curricula and educational and assessment standards can vary widely from school to school, admissions personnel can compare students from varying backgrounds with respect to the “core subjects” using the standardized test scores. The most popular of these exams are The Secondary School Admission Test (SSAT), The Independent School Entrance Exam (ISEE), and The High School Placement Test (HSPT). Read the full Article
The question I inevitably get asked regarding GMAT is: “What is a good GMAT score?” The short answer is that a good score is the best score that you, personally, are capable of achieving – something you’ll definitely have a better sense of once you’ve sat down with a few practice tests.
The longer and equally frustrating answer is that whether a score is “good” or “bad” is pretty indeterminate. Read the full Article
Okay, so it’s summer – and many of you have just scrubbed off the last of the school year in the shower. We know all you want right now is to be out in the park with friends – we want that too! But we also know that October is right around the corner, and for many of you, that means the next SAT. And we know that the verbal sections of the SAT (particularly the reading comprehension, simply because the answers are necessarily more equivocal) are often the most difficult to study for in a short period of time. So to ensure you don’t find yourself at the beginning of the next school year, juggling all your new classes while simultaneously cramming for the SAT, we’ve compiled a few suggestions for the summer, so that you can begin studying with plenty of time to spare. If you can set aside just two or three hours a week to study, you’ll be well ahead of the game. Here are our top suggestions: Read the full Article
Broadly, there are a few questions you’ll have to ask yourself when your test scores come in: Am I satisfied with the time and energy I’ve put into preparing for this exam? Given the constraints of my life, did I prepare as well as I could have? Is there room for improvement here? Am I capable (again, do I have the time and energy) of working for that improvement? To make it easy on you, here are 12 things to consider: Read the full Article
Just about every senior-year student I’ve worked with has had friends who have taken the SAT as if it were a monthly ritual to be resignedly endured, until he or she was finally able to crawl painstakingly to the mailbox for the very last time to check his or her scores, too exhausted to celebrate the outcome. Those same students most likely had friends who took the test the first time, left the test location and went directly to the public pool (the weather’s always gorgeous when there’s a test to be taken), and were never seen at a test administration site again. Most likely you’ve known students, too, at both ends of the SAT “numbers spectrum.” So where do you fit it? Read the full Article
You’re taking AP classes, running on the cross-country team, performing in your high school play, and volunteering at the local senior center. You’re right on track to apply to college, but you’re also burned out! Why take the time to study for a standardized test you don’t even need for college admission?
There are a few good reasons to take the PSAT: Read the full Article
March 1, 2011
A taxpayer who represented herself in a Tax Court disagreement with the IRS has prevailed in a surprising new decision. (Singleton-Clarke, TC Summary Opinion 2009-182) The Court allowed the taxpayer to deduct almost $15,000 of tuition incurred to attain a master’s degree in business administration (MBA). NOTE: The new case may open the door to deductions in [...]
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February 26, 2011
I should begin here by differentiating between these two questions (and it’s a really important differentiation!): How many times you can take the GMAT, and how many times you should take the GMAT. To answer the former (let’s get the objective answers out of the way first), here’s what your limitations are:
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February 16, 2011
In effect, both the SAT and the ACT have been structured to better evaluate your knowledge of the foundations of a high-school education. Ironically, both standardized tests measure one thing: how well you perform on a standardized test. But the ACT, which is regarded as a “curriculum-based test,” while the SAT tends to function as an aptitude test rather than a straightforward assessment of your knowledge.
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