So our second session looked like this:

The first thing I do after a student completes a test is gather a list of which specific questions they got wrong:

  RW: 4, 20, 21  /  3, 7, 10, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 25

M: 11  /  8, 12, 13, 14, 16, 20, 21, 22

We agreed that we should start with the verbal skills, given this particular student's goals and also given these results. First, we addressed the three errors in module 1. By the time we had worked through verbal module 2, we had the following summary list and related strategy points:

RW module 2: 3, 7, 10, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 25

• If texts are in 3 parts, break up and understand the meaning of the parts!

• Prioritize learning new vocabulary words by (1) writing them down, (2) writing down definitions, (3) creating your own sentences.

• On vocab questions: (1) highlight key words, (2) predict your own answer, (3) POE.

• We fixed the 2 ‘extra vs. necessary’ punctuation questions.

• Cut out the prepositional phrases to correctly ID the noun / the subject.

The question numbers bolded above involve the skills that we should work on FIRST because they are EASIEST TO ADDRESS. In this case, that meant vocabulary and grammar questions. The non-bolded question numbers involve harder skills to address, ones that we'll get to after we've seen significant improvement on the easier skills. In this case, the harder questions mostly involved reading comprehension with charts and transitions.

Compare my identification of very specific skills tied to particular question types to the College Board's score report, which only vaguely refers to knowledge areas.

Because we still had time and energy, we used the final third of the session to look over the math, resulting in this analysis of module 2:

  M module 2: 8, 12, 13, 14, 16, 20, 21, 22

• How many solutions = put the equations on two lines! See what they do.

• Use paper! Sometimes it's easier than DESMOS.

• Feel free to MARK AND MOVE on 2 or 3 questions!

The two non-bolded questions were unlike most of what the College Board has put forth as practice questions. When one encounters something truly alien-looking on the Math test, it's wise to mark it, put down any letter as a placeholder, and move on. (If there's time to come back, great; if not, also great!) In this case, while taking the test, the student had gotten stuck trying to work these two difficult problems and then had to rush on the last three. In retrospect, skipping those two problems at first would have left plenty of time to calmly and correctly answer the last three questions.

Since we were planning to meet just two days later, we ended the session by formulating thoughts about what we would do that session:

Next time: we will do the Vocab lesson and begin all of the SE lessons. We'll also start all the DESMOS lessons.

I am referring above to Powerpoint lessons that I've created; they incorporate official College Board practice questions not on the practice tests, combined with my 'tips and tricks' for how to manage them. For this particular student, the following lessons seemed to be high priority:

• Words in Context

• Standard English (Boundaries 1 & 2)

• Standard English (Form, Sense, and Structure)

• DESMOS tutorial (2 lessons)

Finally, after getting offline,  I gathered screenshots of all of our work and emailed them to both the student and the parent, so that we’re all on the same page about what’s been done and what’s planned.

The above description is for literally one single student at one single moment. For every student, there will be a somewhat different pathway. That's the beauty of working one-on-one with an experienced tutor like me, since test preparation (at least when it's done well) is very far from a mechanical set of one-size-fits-all guidelines. Your son or daughter is not a cake to be baked! They are a person with individual quirks, strengths, weaknesses, and ways of learning.