At the beginning of class, Crystal wrote down all of the strategies/tips she should keep in mind for each section of the test. We talked about strategies for the essay, the reading passages, the writing section, and the sentence completions. Next, Crystal and I worked through two long reading passages. Crystal missed more questions than I would like. I think she needs to get back into the rhythm of things. She must remember to eliminate strong answer choices, and she must actively engage in the text. When possible, she should try to answer the questions in her own words first. At the end of class, we worked through several sentence improvements and she did a great job. Her grammar skills are strong. She must remember to stay focused and active during the test on Saturday.

We explored more challenging problems from several SAT Practice Tests. Since the latter problems in each Math subtest are the more difficult, we concentrated on them and worked our way through several challenging problems.

At student's request, I helped her with a college math homework assignment consisting mostly of trigonometry problems. We devoted some time near the end of the session to SAT math problems.

Crystal was a no-show today.

We competed Section 9 of Practice Test 3. We reviewed all but two of the problems on which Crystal had questions and we'll get those two next time.

Crystal and I reviewed an essay that she wrote for homework. She had great examples, but she must continue to explain how her examples prove her thesis. That should be her goal throughout the essay: to prove her thesis with strong examples. She should also aim to bring in more specific details when possible. She should always mention dates and context; she should not assume that her reader knows what she is writing about. We also reviewed some long reading passages. Crystal sometimes has a hard time grasping the main idea of more complicated passages. For homework, I'd like her to try reading the whole passage, answering questions as she reads. We will see if this helps her get more questions right and understand the passage better.

We wen back over Section 5 of Practice Test 3 and cleared up issues that Crystal had on the test she took last session. We started Section 9 on the same test.

We finished going over problems that Crystal had on her last practice test and then started Section 5 of Practice Test Three.

Crystal was very focused today and did some great work. We worked through an English section together; Crystal wrote down some important idioms and reminders about comparisons and parallelism. She has great instincts when it comes to grammar and answered the majority of the questions correctly. We also worked through some sentence completions. Crystal was able to fill-in the blanks with her own words and she was able to determine the relationship between two blanks. For homework, Crystal will finish a reading section, work on vocabulary, and write a timed essay.

We worked through two problems left over from our last session. Then Crystal took another 20-minute math sub-test and we went over the problems she answered incorrectly.