24th November 2010 9:00
By Blue Tutors
A tutor in the US has claimed that the SAT test is generally prepared for in the wrong way by the majority of students taking it, and that, with his help, there is a much easier way to success. His comments are said to anger many more traditional tutors, and tuition providers, because the suggestion is that actually learning, to gain an understanding of the material, will not necessarily help you improve your SAT grade.
The tutor’s name is Mike Barrett, and he’s been tutoring students for their SAT exam for more than a decade, both privately, and for tuition agencies. Mike’s contention is that students need to understand the flaws in the test, and shouldn’t treat it like a traditional academic exam. He says that he’s a strong believer in studying English and Maths through traditional methods, but that students should realise that this won’t necessarily help with the SAT exam.
These ideas are contradictory to the more traditional tutoring ideas of big firms like Kaplan and the Princeton Review, who teach ideas, rather than methods for passing exams. However, Barrett’s approach does appear to have gained a modicum of support from students, since he claims to be far too busy to meet the demand from students who want to be tutored by him, which is why he has recently created a video which explains his ideas. The video is said to be very popular because it allows students to view it at a time that suits them, rather than conform to a tutor’s schedule.