Introduction:
Contact: Quinnmb@gmail.com
Video Lesson Samples
Hi and welcome to my website. My name is Quinn Miller-Bedell and my passion is education. After graduating from Stanford I have worked as a professional tutor for several companies for two and a half years. My previous employers include, Braintext.com, C2 education, and Ben Anagnos tutoring. I am now a self employed tutor focusing mainly on the SAT math, verbal, and writing sections.
In the course of my career as a tutor I have compiled a library of what I feel are the best educational resources. I have read through nearly every SAT tutoring book out there and have handpicked the best lessons from each to form an all star line-up of SAT material. I have even made an SAT video lesson series which you can see some samples of below.
Just as each SAT book has its strengths and weaknesses, so does every SAT student. It is my practice to tailor my SAT curriculum around the needs of each individual student. My aim always is to maximize the student's ratio of points gained on the SAT to time spent studying, and I have a different technique for each of the three SAT sections which I will outline below
Math:
Math is usually the section in which students can make the easiest point gains on the SATs. My approach on the math section is to focus on specific concepts that students are unclear about and really concentrate on them until the student is able to reliably answer SAT questions that test the concept. If the student learns even just a few concepts, this can easily translate to 50 points on the SAT math section.
Another common problem area that I work on with students is reading the question fully and really understanding what the question asks for. Often students are in such a hurry to finish the problems that they fail to fully analyze the question. This is really a heartbreaking habit because many times the student knows how to do the problem and correctly executes the math, but omits a final step and ends up with the wrong answer. What could have been another 10 points on the SAT math section has now actually brought their score down. I find that working with students to practice reading through the question fully is one of the most rewarding exercises that I do.
Writing:
The SAT writing section is another place where there are some easier point gains to be made. On the multiple choice side of things there are only three types of questions a student will see: Improving Sentences (25), Sentence Error Identification (18), and Improving Paragraphs (6). Both improving sentences and sentence error I.D. question draw on only 16 main grammatical concepts. The most important of these is subject-verb agreement (harder than you think). If the student can master just a few of these then he or she will be sure to score higher on the writing section.
On the essay side of the writing section some practice is necessary as well. The general rule to writing an SAT essay is to keep it simple and somewhat formulaic. Students only have 25 minutes to read and analyze a prompt and then respond to it in essay form. When you are taking the test this is the fastest 25 minutes of your life. For most students that I have taught a 4 paragraph essay is best.
The essay should have a clear introductory paragraph that takes a definitive stance on the question raised by the prompt. The most important sentence of the essay is the thesis which should clearly state the reason why the student took their position. After that I advise that students reference in the introductory paragraph, the two examples that they will develop in their body paragraphs. The examples should be from literature, current events, anything learned in school, or from personal experience and are meant to support the reasoning in the thesis. The last paragraph should be a conclusion in which the student sums up their argument and explains the relevance of it.
Critical Reading:
The critical reading section of the SATs is the hardest place to make quick point gains by studying. Of all the sections on the SATs, critical reading is the section least dependent on specific concepts that can be mastered. It is more of a comprehensive test of vocabulary and reading comprehension.
That being said there are some tips and tricks that students can master to improve their scores. For instance on the vocabulary questions there are several keywords, usually conjunctions, that show the logical relationship between the sentence and the missing word. There are five logical relations: support, opposites, strengthen, weaken, cause and effect. So the word 'although' in a sentence indicates that there should be two opposite words or ideas in the sentence.
Conclusion:
As you can see I have put a lot of time and thought into maximizing students potential scores on the SATs. I have worked with hundreds of students from all kinds of academic backgrounds. I can provide a specific curriculum to match any SAT student's level in any of the SAT I sections. My rates are reasonable and I will travel to tutor at students homes. I hope you have enjoyed my brief summary of the SATs and good luck in your academic endeavors.
