SAT/ACT Prep: How to Select a Great Tutor

 We explored in a different post the tradeoffs between the various approaches to preparing for standardized tests. If you have decided to use a 1-on-1 tutor, read on. In this post I will provide my perspective on how to go about selecting a tutor. As you’ll see, this requires some work from all parties involved: parents, tutors, and most importantly the student. 

Requirements:

 These are absolute minimums for an SAT/ACT tutor:

• Knows the test inside out, as evidenced by command of all sections on it or those that will be taught, and having taken it and can provide evidence thereof
• Is willing to provide a free consultation for a what I call a compatibility test (see below)
• Is willing to provide a background check
• Is willing to provide references to previous students
• Is open and transparent about payment policy, rescheduling lessons, expectations and follow-ups from both sides during tutoring including contact by email or messaging and target date for taking the test

The parent should be able to check these offline or during the first meeting. 

Compatibility Test:

I would recommend that the first session include an exercise to help make sure the tutor’s style is compatible with the student’s learning approach. Towards that end, here is what I would suggest:

• Student should select a set of questions from the commonly available practice tests or a previous SAT QAS test (covered in a previous post) However, please don’t select random non-SAT questions

• Student should pick a handful of questions that s/he struggle with the most or where given answer just doesn’t make sense

• Student should present these questions to the tutor in first session, and have tutor go over them

• For Reading and writing sections, the tutor needs to explain not just why the correct answer is the best one, but also why the wrong ones don’t work. Unfortunately many tutors do not grasp the importance of this point. For students to truly understand how these sections work, they need to understand specifically why a wrong answer they may have picked is wrong. The SAT and ACT are taken by millions of people around the world every year. There is always one non-ambiguous correct answer and every other answer can be discounted. 

• For math sections, it is important that the tutor explain not just the answer, but the question behind the question. In other words, what is the concept being tested? What are the types of questions that can show up around this concept? The best tutors will be able to provide pointers to how this concept has been tested on previous tests and the different ways in which it can show up

 The objective of this exercise is first and foremost to understand the tutor’s teaching style, not to test their knowledge. Please let the tutor know ahead of time that you’ll be bringing along some questions so they allow time for this. 

Takeaways:

Selecting a good tutor requires some research and prep. Be sure to do your homework, and interview the tutor using some of the suggestions above to help you pick someone that will get help you achieve your potential. In the next post, we explore how to maximize tutoring benefits. Best wishes!