Monday, June 27, 2011

Why do we take this mind-numbingly boring exam (SAT) anyway??


When colleges and universities must make admissions decisions, the people making those decisions look primarily at a student’s GPA to determine whether the student would be a good fit academically for the school. But how can they know that two students from different schools with the same GPA actually perform equally well? Or that a student with a lower GPA perhaps would have done better if she had articipated in fewer extracurricular activities?

This is where an applicant’s supplementary materials, his essays, recommendations and standardized test scores, can speak for his ability. Because of this, colleges and universities often require the SAT or other standardized tests as an unbiased measure of a student’s academic ability and probable success in college.

First, the SAT offers a level playing field for applicants from different schools. As all students no doubt realize, comparing grades from two different classes can be like comparing apples and oranges. The subject, the class time, the teacher and course designation (such as an AP or honors class) can affect the difficulty of any class. Because of this, it’s not always accurate to compare students taking the same course at the same school but in different classes, and the inaccuracy only increase as students are compared from different schools, states and even countries. Therefore, the SAT and other standardized tests provide a means for schools to accurately compare students by controlling for these differences. While it’s not a perfect system, since good students often struggle with the SAT, it does give colleges a different measure by which to compare two students with the same GPA.

Second, the SAT gives a snapshot of a student’s college readiness in three major skill sets – math, reading and writing. While students will not necessarily focus on these in their studies, they each play a critical role in college and in life. Therefore, it behooves colleges to ensure that the math savant can write a good essay, and the budding historian can pass his required algebra course. Though SAT prep programs like Victory Step can aid a student in honing these skills for the test, a student’s entire academic career lays the foundations for each of these skills. While math, reading and writing are by no means the only skills necessary for success in college, they are strong indicators of whether a student can succeed in a university, given the rigorousness of its programs.

Finally, the SAT tests the critical thinking abilities necessary for all areas of study in college, from the liberal arts to astrophysics. Once accepted by Mensa and other high IQ societies as a qualifying exam, the SAT does indeed test a student’s ability to think through certain types of problems critically rather than simply regurgitating information. As any Victory Step graduate knows, the test keeps students on their feet by asking simple questions in a convoluted manner. They must think through every question to ensure that they are answering the correct question, not just the one their years of school have trained them to answer. Because of this, SAT results can portend success in any educational field, not just those directly tested.

Given this, it seems easy to see why colleges and universities turn to the SAT in making tough admissions decisions. It gives the admissions board another way of assessing students from widely varying backgrounds, and it demonstrates to some extent a student’s probability of success in college. While it is never the be-all and end-all factor in a college application, a good SAT score can bolster a student’s chances of acceptance into almost any university.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Self-study vs. Test Prep

Let’s face it, as a high school student, you’re busy. After a long day of school, you have club meetings, practices, countless homework assignments and exams. Then, your junior year hits and suddenly, on top of everything, you have SATs, ACTs, and AP tests coming at you like a speeding bullet. You want to make your college application competitive and you need to make sure that your test scores fully reflect your academic potential. This is when the big question comes up – should you self-study or take a prep course for your standardized tests?

If you are considering self-study, it is important to first evaluate yourself as a student. Are you disciplined enough to put in the time required to prepare for your exam, regardless of how tired or overloaded with homework or extracurricular activities you are? Can you teach yourself all of the test-taking techniques found in your practice books and successfully be able to apply them to various types of problems? Will you be able to work through all the questions and test-taking strategies without any outside help? Only if you answered “yes” to all three of these questions is self-study an option for you; but that does not mean that you will not still benefit from a test prep course.

Test prep courses provide a classroom environment in which the instructor is able to help students pinpoint their weaknesses and work through them by learning new strategies and approaches. While standardized tests are designed to evaluate a student’s knowledge, they are also a test of the ability to break complex problems into quick and simple solutions.

Test prep courses provide a structured way of learning to keep students focused on their goals and allow students to complete their prep in a set amount of time before the exam. By spreading the course over 4-6 weeks, the student is able to fully absorb new tips and tricks, and practice in a realistic test environment, decreasing anxiety and nervousness of the actual exam. Soon, the test that once seemed like a foreign language will become second nature.

Victory Step strives to create a productive and fun atmosphere for students to complete their test prep. With average class sizes of 8-10 students, instructors are able to work closely with students to help them maximize their scores and test-taking abilities. Instructors are creative and inspiring and keep students interested and motivated in their test prep. With numerous practice tests, students are constantly exposed to realistic testing scenarios and are able to monitor their own progress throughout the course.

It is important to remember that standardized tests require time and practice. Victory Step helps students more efficiently put their time and energy into achieving a score that reflects their full potential and ability.


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Saloni Kumar

SAT/ACT Test Prep

Victory Step

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

The Victory Step Advantage

At Victory Step, we believe that every student is unique with individual strengths and abilities. In our programs, through our instructors, curriculum, and strategies, we tap those strengths and build on them. At the same time, we identify and work on students' weaknesses to achieve maximum results. We reinforce fundamentals and bolster smart test-taking techniques and problem-solving skills in our students by using what we call the 'Victory Approach'- an intelligent approach towards learning. We do so by making our learning environment fun, stimulating, and rewarding. It is thus no surprise that we operate at a 96% customer satisfaction rate.

Cost:

Victory Step was built on the principle that quality education is something that every child deserves, and that high quality education should not come at exaggerated costs. Through innovative processes and cost-savings at Victory Step, we have been able to design and sustain high-quality programs that provide exceptional education to all students.

Program Features:

Our programs were designed with a vision to ensure student success. There are various features that help us stand out as a company that is dedicated to that purpose. Both our classroom programs as well as private tutoring programs start out with a world-class curriculum and teaching methodology. We offer scholarships and deep discounts to needy students, to make sure that we stand by our founding principles.

Results

Victory Step has been delivering consistent results since its inception. Our students have been scoring higher and better on their SAT and ACT tests, and with amazing improvements. Over 75% of our students that took the SAT in May ended up with higher than 150 point improvement, making us one of the most successful test prep companies in DFW.



Monday, June 13, 2011

The Multiple Track Mind

I was recently driving to teach a class at Victory Step when I realized something unsettling. I was cruising along the toll way at seventy miles an hour, winding around tight curves, squished in the middle lane between a Porsche, a Subaru and a Toyota, when it hit me: I realized I hadn’t been paying attention at all for the past few miles. I had no recollection as to how I had come to where I was. I knew I must have driven north past 635, but my mind had been on autopilot. I was so lost in thought that an alien space ship could have swooped down and shown its tractor beam down and abducted the car in front of me and I wouldn’t have noticed.

I’m not a reckless driver. Far from it, I follow the speed limit, obey traffic laws, and am courteous and respectful to my fellow drivers. But, unbeknownst to me, I had let my mind wander and I wasn’t even paying attention to what was going on.

I thought about it and realized this is actually kind of a common phenomenon. You are sitting somewhere, a restaurant, an airport, and you suddenly become aware of the present moment. Aware of how lost in thought you were up until that moment. I’ve asked my students before and most of them have admitted that there have been times when they have been reading a paragraph and they suddenly realize that they have absolutely no idea what they just read. Of course you actually read it, but you couldn’t tell someone for the life of you what actually happened.

This phenomenon is one we address at Victory Step when preparing our students for the SAT. Think how dangerous it is to read through a whole passage on a test that measures reading comprehension and not remember one lick of it. And it happens easily too, especially when you’re two and a half hours in and you’re reading a passage from Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations and you have no bloody idea what every fifth word means. You know there’s some guy named Pip, and he’s in London, and he is trying to kill some guy named Magwitch (or was it the other way around?). A wandering mind comes easily, and at a great cost to your score.

This concept is taught as the “Multiple track mind.” And when the tracks aren’t lined up, like what happened to me on the highway, youre not really paying attention. Now, we have to come clean. The notion of the “Multiple track mind” was not created by Victory Step. It is a concept that has been expressed in different time periods in different ways. It is thousands of years old. The Buddha’s teachings concerned mindfulness, consciously paying attention to one’s thoughts. That there is the mind, and then consciousness of the mind. Two Tracks. Freud defined the mind as a complex entity comprised of ego, super-ego, and id, disparate parts of the mind that sometimes do not line up.

A simple way to think of this is that there is the thinking mind – or the intellect, and then there is the simple mind of awareness. Your day to day thoughts originate from the thinking mind. The thinking brain processes information, thinks about things, weighs your options and then executes them. Much of your self-identity comes from the intellect. The simple mind is different – subtler. It is more about awareness. It is less conceptual and more intuitive. It doesn’t think but it is aware. It was awareness I was lacking on the highway. My intellect was running a mile a minute but it wasn’t attuned to the present moment. It is very BAD when this happens on the SAT.

Learning and understanding this concept will help you on the SAT. I oft repeat that the SAT is not solely a measure of intelligence. Only fifty percent of the difficulty on the SAT stems from actual knowledge. The other fifty percent stems from the grueling and painstaking nature of taking a four hour long test. The SAT tests knowledge alongside mental endurance and focus. So, it is beneficial for a student to become accustomed to the patterns of her own mind. In this way she can use her mind in a more efficient way, and minimize time wasted in a mind where the multiple tracks are not aligned. She will feel when she starts becoming sleepy, she will tell when her mind starts to wander, when she needs to refocus, or when she needs a mini-break. She catches herself not comprehending the passage after one paragraph, not five. We train our students to become more aware of what they are reading. We have them unite the two tracks of their mind by asking themselves questions as they read through the passage. “What is going on in this passage? What is the author trying to convey? What are the main themes?” In this way the intellect becomes united with the simple mind, the literal words with their cerebral significance.

You can also become more aware of your mind in every second of the day. Stop and ask yourself: what am I feeling right now? How are my thoughts making me feel? What is objectively going on right now? Stop and take stock of your mind and your body. Were you lost in thought or engaged in the present moment? As you become more aware of your mind, it becomes a more potent tool. You become more familiar with its dimensions, with its strengths and weaknesses.

Ultimately, we at Victory Step cannot teach you everything you need to know on the SAT. We can’t fit a decade of basic academic ability (readin’, writin’, and rithmetic’, which are coincidentally the only things the SAT tests) into a 6 week class. What we can do though is to teach you strategies to become more effective at applying your academic abilities to the stressful and ungainly format that is the 4 hour Scholastic Aptitude Test. You will need the two tracks of your mind to work together. Every minute wasted is precious points you can lose. Bringing greater awareness to the workings of your mind and practicing reading with focus is a great way to work your mind out. It’s like dead lifts for the intellect.


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Devan E.

SAT/ACT Instructor

Email: devane@victorysteponline.com

Victory Step


Thursday, June 9, 2011

The day of the exam - June 11th ACT


After weeks of preparation and months of stress, it all comes down to this Saturday morning. Just those few hours. It can be so easy to let the nervousness get rid of all the preparation and fill the mind with anxiety. For that reason, it is important to take the few days before the ACT exam slow and to keep the mind healthy and relaxed.

There is nothing more tempting than to try and soak up as much vocabulary and as many strategies as possible the night before the test. It makes me feel like I've accomplished something. Instead, this only helps to stress out the mind, making it difficult to recall information that was once safely stored away in the brain. Rather than stressing out the night before the ACT, it can be more beneficial to take a nice bath, watch a funny movie, and go to bed at a decent hour. I can say from unfortunate experience, there is no need to go to bed at an oddly early hour because then you’ll just end up laying in bed, and stress yourself out needlessly.

The ACT exam can be an enormous event. So much planning goes into it. So much thought, so much effort. Then, it can be over before you even realize it. The satisfaction that can come from a good ACT score is unbelievable. Every hour spent planning, every practice test taken, every vocabulary term memorized...it all seems to be worth it. Therefore, it is crucial not to let a little anxiety take this away.

The stress of the ACT exam for some can make it difficult to even take a bite of breakfast. Trust me, you will need all the energy you can get. A healthy breakfast keeps the mind working at a good pace and allows you to make it through all the sections with ease. Also, the ACT is almost like a workout for the brain, so it can be helpful to bring a snack for one of the breaks. Go easy on the water before and during the exam though, for obvious reasons.

Most importantly, you must bring along a little bit of confidence. It is the secret ingredient that takes the score up a considerable amount. Confidence is an important strategy that could really make the difference.

The ACT Day Checklist

1. Plenty of #2 pencils and erasers

2. Appropriate calculator with extra batteries

3. Photo ID/Admission ticket

4. Directions to testing site

5. Water bottle/snacks

6. A jacket (wear layers depending on the temperature of the room)

7. A watch

8. CONFIDENCE!

Victory Step realizes how stressful and dreadful taking a 4 hour long exam can be, and this is why we provide SAT and ACT Prep classes to help you relieve the stress. Visit our website today!

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

SAT Prep Summer Special - Only $349!


Victory Step is offering classroom instruction for the SAT and the ACT in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metropolitan Area! Classroom classes are held with your friends at our convenient office locations in Dallas and Irving. Victory Step's instructors are fun, energetic, and highly trained.

  • Rates as much as 70% lower than others in the industry
  • Average Class Size: 8 to 10 students
  • 4+ practice tests to build endurance and confidence
  • Innovative study material designed by experts provided to students
  • Need-based scholarships available for students
  • Score improvement guarantee
  • Taught by intelligent, fun, and caring instructors
  • Flexible programs- with repeat/make-up classes


Please click here for more details!

Monday, June 6, 2011

The Million Ways We Use Math

One of the most frequent complaints you hear from students of all ages – and just about everybody else – is that they hate math. Arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, AP calculus, Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries: At some point, we have all said we hate one or the other of them, if not all of them. However, it’s simply a subject in school, and after high school or maybe college, you can simply forget about it and never deal with it again. Right?

Wrong! While it may be your most difficult subject, it’s also one of the most useful tools you will ever possess, and one of a few things you simply can’t function without in life. Take it from an English major: Math is everywhere, in every profession and everything you do in life.

There are, of course, the usual examples of how math plays a major role in each person’s life. Without basic arithmetic skills, you simply cannot balance your checkbook or your bank accounts. And you can forget about finding the best deals on a clearance sale if you don’t understand percent change problems! Even fairly mundane tasks are impossible without a bit of math. Cooking and baking, for example, are equal parts math and chemistry, regardless of whether you eye the amount of olive oil in your dish or carefully measure out the cup of flour for your pound cake.

Even beyond those things, math is unavoidable, especially in your career, and not just in negotiating your salary.

Everyone knows that certain careers demand a great deal of skill in math. Architects, computer programmers and NASA scientists all obviously know their math backwards, forwards and inside out. Engineers, for example, require math to apply scientific principles, such as gravity and thermodynamics, to real world problems. The perfection of this application of theory to reality has brought forth such simple inventions as the incandescent light bulb, as well as the infinitely more complex electric car. Also, going back to those NASA scientists, the Apollo 11 space program put men on the moon with less computing power than in today’s average graphing calculator, simply because they understood the math and the numbers so well.

While impressive, these are all obvious career choices for the math-inclined, so how does math come up in other occupations?

For those more inclined towards the arts, the application of math may be less precise, but it remains equally important. A budding young artist must be able to judge proportions, a very math-based concept, in order to render an image that looks like its original. Further, even Pablo Picasso had to use math to make his own frames and stretch his own canvas. English teachers, too, require math in order to average grades for their students and to understand the different meters in poetry, from Emily Dickinson’s hymn meter to Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter.

Every conceivable career you could consider requires at least some application of math. Doctors use math to determine dosages of medications, while lawyers must figure out how much to seek in damages in a suit. Politicians rely on it to gauge public opinion and to set budgets on a massive scale, and bankers use math to judge the risk of investments. In a million little ways, each career requires some working knowledge of math, and the better you learn the math now, the easier it will be for you when your job requires it.


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Toni Whalen

SAT/ACT Instructor

Email: toniwhalen@victorysteponline.com

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Employment Opportunities with Victory Step!


Victory Step offers the most comprehensive test preparation in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metropolitan Area. We are an organization that prides itself for instilling knowledge, confidence, and endurance in each student we benefit. Join us, and take the next Victory Step of your career. Victory Step is currently accepting resumes to expand our pool of test preparation instructors.

Teaching test preparation is a fun and rewarding experience. As a Victory Step instructor, you will have the opportunity to help bright, high-achieving students achieve their dreams of entering first-choice universities and programs.