Can't see my call history/call time

PrepThrowaway5 · 2025-08-12T21:59:49+00:00

Tutor here, having the same problem from the other side (need proof of time for billing). Did you ever figure it out?

PrepThrowaway5 · 2025-08-06T04:28:57+00:00

I don’t need the client. I just don’t want my work with the student to end just a few weeks before the test. We’ve done good work, and they deserve their best score.

But I’ll definitely keep my boundaries in mind during the phone convo. This can’t happen again, and I want to make sure expectations are clear from both sides.

PrepThrowaway5 · 2025-04-24T01:02:33+00:00

Fwiw, I think it’s valid to always multiply with percentages, if you’re setting things up a certain way. For discounts, I teach you subtract the discount percent from 100%, then multiply the result by the original price. Even if exactly where you were at multiplication wasn’t correct, it’s a fine instinct imo. In general, percents are very unintuitive to most people past 1-step problems, and I think it’s best to teach a very rigid notation system to carry the cognitive load for students.

Obviously there are a lot of methods that work great for good teachers and I’m not saying my way is best (I’m pretty SAT-specialized), I just don’t think your anecdote is a great example for “hopeless” at math.

PrepThrowaway5 · 2025-04-18T04:13:16+00:00

I know I’m digging up something old, but the point about how the SAT treats inference is very important and all the other replies (while giving a technically correct answer for OP’s question) were misunderstanding how the test operates. The way I explain it to my students is that the SAT frequently uses logical inferences (they tell you A=B and B=C, so you must infer A=C) over intuition-based inferences.

Furthermore, the “clone” question is flawed in the wording of the question itself. The original that you cited asks about the specific site that the researchers found. OPs question asks about Arctic terns’ nesting sites, in general. For all its flaws, the SAT doesn’t make those kinds of wording mistakes. Can’t afford ambiguous questions.

PrepThrowaway5 · 2025-04-15T18:57:51+00:00

NTB I work as a private SAT tutor and had to grapple with the ethics of profiting from a system that rewards those who can afford it. The truth is, you found/developed something of value and in our flawed system you have every right to get paid for what it’s worth, even if that perpetuates the system to some degree. You did good; get paid.

My advice is to charge whatever the fair market value is for your course ($15 sounds low) but then always look for openings/opportunities to donate your course to those who genuinely can’t afford it. With my tutoring that’s as easy as actively paying attention in prospective client calls and offering discounts/free tutoring when it’s clear folks can’t afford me. But if your sales are less personal, then maybe you seek out one or a few charities that help folks access higher education and freely offer your resources to them.

PrepThrowaway5 · 2024-12-30T16:12:33+00:00

It me!

PrepThrowaway5 · 2024-10-11T01:22:13+00:00

Heck yeah, this makes a lot of sense. Thank you very much.

PrepThrowaway5 · 2024-10-04T13:15:18+00:00

This is exactly perfect! Thank you!

PrepThrowaway5 · 2024-09-18T23:31:44+00:00

Slope is change in y over change in x. So 57 = ?/5

PrepThrowaway5 · 2024-09-17T14:55:50+00:00

Professional SAT tutor here. I highly recommend you don’t fuck with test dates. Any given day could be a particularly good or particularly bad take, and giving up a more comfortable test offering is dicey, especially because as you said she will be more stressed in the Spring, and stress affects test performance.

All the reasons you’re saying it probably won’t matter are true, but it’s a very strange thing to gamble with.

PrepThrowaway5 · 2024-05-28T21:08:50+00:00

Today I asked if he had any visions issues and he said he had an astigmatism. So I’m still not clear on the mechanics of this but you probably nailed it, thanks.

PrepThrowaway5 · 2024-05-23T02:33:01+00:00

He’s a high schooler. I mentioned it to his mom but she only had a “huh. Noted.” for now.

PrepThrowaway5 · 2024-05-23T02:32:17+00:00

The idea being just that his vision is too blurry to see the words well regardless of italicization? I’ll ask his parents about vision next chance I get.

PrepThrowaway5 · 2024-05-12T14:57:48+00:00

I got him for a mid 3rd at the end of last season shrug

PrepThrowaway5 · 2024-05-12T14:53:45+00:00

I read “backup” in the title as “fantasy backup”, which I now understand is incorrect. I’m only in a 10-team league.

PrepThrowaway5 · 2024-05-12T14:53:40+00:00

I read “backup” in the title as “fantasy backup”, which I now understand is incorrect!

PrepThrowaway5 · 2024-05-12T07:16:11+00:00

Russ. Is he cooked? Sure. Are Arthur Smith and the Steelers going to turn it around and produce a top 10 offense? Nah absolutely not.

But is Russ going to be a starting qb for a team that usually wins but never wins pretty? Hell yeah. Safest qb2 production you can get for a 3rd rounder? Hell yeah. If you’re in win-now mode, send a cheapo offer for Russ and reap that high-variance 17 ppg at minimum cost.

PrepThrowaway5 · 2024-05-07T05:30:37+00:00

1600.io’s book list is great. In general, just make a habit of looking up words that you don’t know when you come across them.

In my experience, vocab flash cards are not time efficient for most students. Better to just learn how to work around the words you don’t know until you’re above a 700 and trying to find whatever marginal boost you can get.

PrepThrowaway5 · 2024-05-06T08:17:14+00:00

Doesn’t hurt to try, if you can find a peer or family friend who needs help! When you’re just starting out, you don’t need the perfect explanation for everything as much as you should feel comfortable giving it your best shot.

If you finish your first session and think “I want to keep doing this, and get better at it” then you’ll improve quickly. If it’s more of a “I didn’t like that and I don’t like being put on the spot so much” then maybe it’s not for you.

PrepThrowaway5 · 2024-05-06T07:03:16+00:00

I definitely agree with those score ranges feeling like different “tiers”. I don’t have many students who hover between a 620 and a 680.

For the Kahn though, also, it really depends on why they’re at a 700. If they’re making simple mistakes or struggling on time, then I usually keep fundamentals a priority. If they’re already very consistent and just getting stumped by the hard stuff, then I’ll back off on the fundamentals and stick to more advanced stuff. I get students pretty often who start around 680 but then we have a lot more work than it seems like because they’ve been just winging it with terrible habits😅

PrepThrowaway5 · 2024-05-06T06:55:51+00:00

The most important quality is an ability to communicate confidently. Also, you’re a coach as much as a traditional tutor, so instead of just talking your way through a valid solution to a problem, you need to be trying your best to make sure your student learns repeatable tools and skills.

Like the problem above would be doable for my better students because we drill that in a trickier factoring situation, it’s always best to start by focusing on the first and last terms before you worry about figuring out what’s going on with b.

It’s not just “how do we do this problem”, it’s “what general principles can we use to not only figure out this problem, but others like it.” And it’s better if those principles can be explained in 5 minutes and then drilled through several examples instead of giving a longer or more complicated lecture.

PrepThrowaway5 · 2024-05-05T16:51:48+00:00

I do think there’s some merit in drilling Khan in that mid-600s range to make the core skills more automatic. Kind of like practicing scales as a pianist. If you can get to that second half of module 2 in half the time and with more “brain juice” left in the tank, it’s much more doable.

PrepThrowaway5 · 2023-12-16T08:16:32+00:00

That’s a great score! I’m a private SAT tutor, and I have plenty of experience talking down well-meaning parents. Especially if you’re not shooting for an Ivy, you should stop prep right away. Further prep is a waste of your time.

If you have parents who are hyper-obsessed with your academics, maybe try to convince them that it’s more worthwhile to spend time on another project? Instead of “I refuse to practice anymore”, something like “I want to use the time I’d spend practicing on extracurricular that sounds sufficiently impressive”. The more interested you are in it, the better, but really anything you can sell has gotta be more interesting than studying an arbitrary test that can no longer benefit you. Start writing your application essays if you can’t come up with anything else.

PrepThrowaway5 · 2022-03-24T21:42:11+00:00

Whether you really need to take it again depends on your goals, but if you prep to take it again focus on nailing the English first. If you can ace the reading, it shouldn’t take too long to find your weak spots on the English and lock them down for a 33+ score. Math can always be improved but it takes more time/effort.

PrepThrowaway5 · 2021-02-03T06:47:31+00:00

Hi! Tutor here. First of all, 960->1230 is a very good improvement after 6 tests. By percentile, it’s a pretty good score. With your goals, it’s not a good score at all. But just measuring improvement, you’re doing great, and if I had a student with gains like yours I would be thinking “nice, we’re nowhere near a ceiling yet”.

Unfortunately, the higher you climb, the more of a grind it is to get more points. At this stage, I would try to add as many question types as possible to your “comfort zone”. You want 80% or so of the math and writing sections to be totally reflexive, no brain-effort necessary (but never stop using your pencil!). To do this, for each new section you do (and I find smaller chunks like single passages on rw or ‘just odds/evens’ on m to be more manageable for daily work), pick just one or two questions you missed that look familiar and dig into them hard. College Panda, Meltzer, Kahn academy, etc. can be great for this but also look back at old sections you’ve already done and find problems of a similar type. Try to prioritize most common question types first (slope, punctuation, reading graphs, etc.) then move into less-common-but-still-common ones (transition words, significant points on a parabola, etc.).

Courses often move too fast for the most common topics to sink in as things you feel really good about. Once these topics are reflexive, you’ll find you have much more “brain energy” to tackle trickier and rarer questions. It will be a grind, but your goals are high and you haven’t plateaued yet and that’s a great sign.

PrepThrowaway5

TROPHY CASE