Test Prep and Fundamental English Language Preparation

For high school students - personalized tutoring to help you ace the TOEFL as well as the English parts of the SAT, ACT, ISEE, and SSAT exams.

For elementary and middle school students - personalized tutoring that includes the basic English language skills: reading, writing, vocabulary, and grammar

SAT and ACT (English parts only)

Though both tests have different formats, they require the same English language skills to boost your SAT or ACT reading and writing scores. The most common misconception about these tests is that a straight-A student, by default, must get the highest score. In reality, when students write their school essays, they use the words and sentence structures they know, whereas on a test, a candidate must proofread and/or edit a text written by someone else. It is very important to have a rich vocabulary and to be able to analyze a passage critically.

TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language)

The candidate must show the following skills:

a) the ability to understand the given text and answer reading comprehension questions,

b) the ability to understand a conversation and/or a recorded story and answer listening comprehension questions,

c) the ability to communicate effectively in spoken English,

d) the ability to write in English in an academic context.

All these skills will require the knowledge of vocabulary, grammar, and appropriate pronunciation.

ISEE and SSAT (English parts only)

The similar parts of these tests are the following:

a) Reading (For this assignment, the candidate must show the ability not only to read the passage, but also the ability to analyze the text to answer the questions correctly),

b) Essay writing (Even though this assignment will not be graded, the candidate must show the ability to develop the suggested topic or prompt using good vocabulary, a variety of sentence types, correct grammar, and punctuation.)

c) Synonyms (For this assignment, the candidate must be able to match the words that might have multiple meanings.)

These tests are different in the following ways:

ISEE will test the candidate for sentence completions that require the analysis of the given sentence and an extensive vocabulary.

SSAT will test the candidate for the ability to find the same analogy between two words. To ace this assignment, the student must have a rich vocabulary and know a variety of meanings of each word.

Fundamental English Language Preparation

Elementary and very often middle school students experience problems reading, writing, and spelling. Unfortunately, school teachers do not have enough time to help students develop English language skills. Individual, personalized tutoring plays a significant role in helping students acquire confidence in academic English. During sessions, students learn to analyze the reading and to write good sentences, paragraphs, essays, and stories. Development of a rich vocabulary, substantial grammar, and spelling is an integral part of the class. The knowledge that elementary and middle school students acquire in class later allows them to master standardized tests and pass them with flying colors.