Below is a great article by MIT admissions, stating why they are reinstating their requirement of the SAT or ACT for the graduating class of 2023. I have seen time and time again the value of these tests in determining who is REALLY prepared for college, and I have no doubt in their validity and value. MIT’s decision just reaffirms what I have believed, and believe more strongly than ever; these tests are very important in determining who is, and who isn’t ready for college.
High School
High school level educational information
Finally, a Summer SAT!
I have long wished that there was an SAT during the summer, and finally (thanks to a global pandemic) my prayers have been answered! No, the SAT didn’t add a new summer test (the August 29, 2020 date is unchanged), but the Sarasota County School’s delayed opening means that the SAT will occur during summer vacation.
A Rare Opportunity
Having the chance to study for the SAT without having to attend school all day is perhaps a once in a lifetime opportunity, so take advantage of this opportunity to study harder than you ever could before. See our 21 day SAT practice schedule and get started with your tutoring immediately.
Challenges to Overcome
Hibernating Brain Syndrome
Although not a real medical diagnosis, I think it accurately describes what has happened to most students. So, although students can study more than ever for this SAT, they probably haven’t done much academic work since March. Their brains may be empty and they certainly aren’t used to 4 straight hours of use (excluding video games). So, it is time to start using that brain every day! The best way to do that is to start doing a practice test every day.
Hibernating Kid Syndrome
Not only have most kids not been using their brains, but they have been staying up late, waking up really late and perhaps never leaving their room (other than when the router needs to be reset). So, it is time to start getting back on a school schedule. SAT registration closes at 8 AM, so you have to be on site and ready to check-in by 8 AM! When was the last time your child had a healthy breakfast, a shower and was wearing something other than pajamas by 8 AM? If they can pull off that amazing feat, they need to be mentally ready to take the test. Nobody has done that since March!!
Suggestions for Success
Fix the Alarm Clock
Start waking up 30 minutes earlier every day until you are waking up early enough to be ready to take the 8 AM test. Hopefully, the entire week leading up to the test the student will be on an optimal testing sleep schedule.
Get to Bed on Time
If a student is going to be ready to take an 8 AM test, they need to start getting to bed by 10 PM. Make sure their phones shut off automatically at 9 PM. This will allow them to do some last minute, pre-sleep practice to transform their brain into a 24/7 math problem solving machine.
21 Day SAT Practice Test & Tutoring Schedule
The entire test has four sections and lasts 3 hours. When was the last time your child studied for 3 straight hours. I have devised a 21 day SAT practice schedule to help them build up to at least doing the 80 minutes of math.
Fresh Air and Exercise
With the COVID quarantine, most people have spent too much time indoors and may have stopped exercising. Studies have shown that enjoying the outdoors and exercising have countless benefits including improved learning, reduced stress and improved mental functioning and focus.
Study Buddy
They say “Misery loves company,” so find a study buddy. Usually one or many of your friends will be taking the test on the same day. Why not do some studying together? Complete your practice tests separately and then check your answers together. You will definitely learn something unexpected and you might have some fun in the process. There’s nothing that can compare to having a highly skilled tutor to help you, but working with a trusted friend can help you both stay on schedule and they say the best way to learn something is to explain it to someone else. Give it a try…
Really Rusty? Narrow Your Focus
Almost every serious student takes the SAT more than once and usually improves on the second test. If you haven’t used your brain for six months, it might be unrealistic to expect a great score on all four sections. If your brain just isn’t at full strength yet, perhaps you should focus on getting a really good math score this test and then focus on the English portion of the test next time. This might mean that you barely study the English sections and give minimal effort on the English sections (1 & 2) on test day. Don’t wear your brain out on something you haven’t studied. Stay fresh for the math sections (3 & 4).
COVID-19 Math Tutoring
Transformative Tutoring remains open to help students through this unusual time. Without regular school work, this could be a great opportunity to begin preparing for the SAT or ACT (which are usually taken for practice in the spring of your junior year and then again in the fall of your senior year). We offer private one on one tutoring in person or via FaceTime or Zoom. Check our schedule to make an appointment.
March 17, 2020 – All K-12 schools in FL will remain closed until April 15th. All state FSA testing has been canceled for 2019-2020. All university campuses are closed through the end of the semester and students will do online learning. Schools may be asked to extend the school year to June 30. For seniors trying to qualify for Bright Futures it is not yet clear what accommodations are being made. Read more from the FL Department of Education here.
March 16, 2020 – Presently, the College Board has not changed the AP testing dates. The College Board offers late testing each year and it is likely that the late testing days will become the test days. Read the latest here.
March 16, 2020 – The College Board has announced that the May 2020 SAT has been completely canceled. Keep up to date with the latest SAT news here.
March 15, 2020 – ACT has postponed the April 4th test to June 13th. Read more here.
The Best AP Calculus Resources
Succeeding in AP Calculus takes work! If you are going to put in the work, make sure you are working smarter, not harder. Here are the best resources that I have found to help you be efficient and get great practice quickly. Of course, if you need tutoring in Osprey or via FaceTime/Computer, just schedule a tutoring session and we will be happy to help.
Studying for a AP Calculus Chapter Test
The files listed below are great for studying for a chapter test. They have all of the released problems from 1969 through 2012 categorized by topic. The saint who did this work will forever have my appreciation. First, open the “Table of Contents” file and look for the topic(s) that are on your chapter test. This will tell you what page numbers will contain relevant questions. Then, use the “Pages” file(s) to find the actual questions. For example, suppose your chapter test is on “Area Between Curves”, the Table of Contents says that ” Area Between Curves” can be found on pages 242-245, so open the “Pages 208-313” file and scroll to page 242 (page numbers are handwritten at the bottom of each page). Note that next to each question the year is written in pen, so the first “Area Between Curves” question is question #1 from the 1993 BC exam. Using the question number and year, then you can look up the correct answer.
- Table of Contents
- Pages 1-113
- Pages 114-207
- Pages 208-313
- Answers (Sorted by year and number, not by category)
For the 2020 exams, when school campuses were closed due to the Coronavirus, AP had a great series of “Live Lessons” on YouTube. They are available here: AB and BC. AP also released a series of practice problems coordinated with these live lessons. The practice problems are organized by topic and are available here: AB and BC. Because the 2020 test had only free response (FRQ) questions, there are not any multiple choice (MC) questions in this set of practice problems. Furthermore, because the 2020 test was open note and taken at home, it was designed specifically to minimize cheating and the problem style is highly concentrated on abstract functions and data in tables and graphs. As a result, these questions are not completely representative of what would normally appear on a chapter or final test, but they are still a great repository of AP style questions.
Studying for the AP Calculus Final Exam
The best way to study for the final exam or a mid-year mid-term is to do AP calculus questions in no particular order. The old sample exams are a great way to do this. The following items are great resources for studying for a final or mid-term.
AP Calculus Multiple Choice Questions 1969 – 1998
This is a great collection of older multiple choice problems for the AP Calculus AB or BC practice exams. Many of these questions (unaltered) appear in prep books and many of these questions seem to appear in later released tests as well. Although this is a great collection, it does not have the benefit of being quickly searched and sorted the way the spreadsheet does. Luckily, someone took the time to categorize the questions in this document. It isn’t very flashy, but it gets the job done! Of course, if you only have questions and no answers that is not help, so here is a document that includes all of the answers and solutions. It is a large file, so you might want to download one of these smaller files instead: AB and BC Answer Key (without solutions) or the BC Answer Key and Solutions.
Additional AP Calculus Practice Exams with Answers
Just looking for some AP Calculus practice problems in a random order? Here are several practice exams or sets of sample questions that have been released by the College Board in recent years:
- 2019 Questions and Solutions (Excerpt from the 2019 AP Course Guide)
- 2016 Questions and Solutions
- 2012 Questions and Solutions
- 2008 Questions and Answers
- 2004 Exam 1 Questions and Solutions
- 2004 Exam 2 Questions and Solutions
- 2003 Questions and Answers
Categorized AP Calculus Multiple Choice Questions
The categorized list of multiple choice AP Calculus problems from 1998 – 2012 for both AB and BC Calculus is by far the most organized resource that I have found. This spreadsheet is amazing because it lists 400 multiple choice questions by learning outcome, test date, question number and most importantly of all, links to every question with the answer and solution. These questions are all questions that have been released by the College Board, so you won’t find questions for every year because the College Board does not release questions every year, but the 400 questions in this spreadsheet will keep you pretty busy! Here are a few recommendations on how to best use this spreadsheet:
- Sort the spreadsheet by “Learning Outcome” that will help all of the questions on the same topic listed together and will put them in the approximate order that you will study them throughout the year. The spreadsheet is currently sorted by “Learning Outcome.”
- As needed, filter the spreadsheet by “Key Idea”. Even though the spreadsheet is sorted by “Learning Outcome”, sometimes a question includes multiple “Key Ideas” (and “Learning Outcomes”), so filtering can help find additional questions. Here is a picture showing how you might do that so you only see questions on “concavity”:
- Once you have the questions organized, click on the link to the PDF file that includes question. This PDF also includes the solution at the bottom of the page, so you can quickly check your answer and perhaps learn additional techniques for solving the question.
- If you get the question correct and it was easy for you, great, just close the PDF. However, if you struggled at all, you can click the Download icon and save the difficult questions onto your computer so that you can then re-do every challenging question over and over again until they become easy. Once a question becomes easy, move the PDF to your “Not Hard Anymore” folder. This will also allow you to have a nice set of difficult questions to review as you prepare for the final AP exam. You might create a folder structure that looks like this:
- Add a column or two to the spreadsheet so you can make your own notes about each question. Perhaps you want to rate each question by difficulty or categorize them by what chapter you were studying.
Categorized AP Calculus Free Response Questions (FRQs)
Just like the invaluable categorized spreadsheet of multiple choice questions mentioned above, this spreadsheet is just as incredible, but it contains the AP Calculus Free Response Questions (FRQs) from 1998 to 2017. These questions are released by the College Board each year, so there are nearly 1,000 questions here!
Calculus Free Response Justifications
Answers to the AP Calculus FRQs are supposed to be short and sweet. Less is more when it comes to these answers. This is a comprehensive guideline for the best way to justify your answers. Memorize the wording in these answers and use them exactly as stated and whoever grades your test will love you.
More Free Official SAT Sample Tests
The College Board has recently released two more free sample tests on their website. Now there are 10 free practices tests available online!
We have all of the math sections available on this page.
The topic of Standard Deviation is starting to appear on the test more and more. It does not appear often, but it was not on any of the original 8 practice tests. Because most students have not taken statistics, this is a way to help those that have as well as help many students learn something new. If you do not know what Standard Deviation is, think of it as a measure of variability in data. If a stock price changes by a tiny bit here and there then it has a small standard deviation, but if a stock price changes frequently and has wild ups and downs then it has a large standard deviation. Alternatively, you could think of standard deviation as a way of measuring how thrilling a roller coaster is; a kiddie coaster has a small standard deviation while a full size roller coaster has a large standard deviation.
As always, a student’s success is determined by their long-term understanding of math and the work they have put in during their entire education, so we recommend studying hard every day in school and then doing dedicated test prep of 10-15 minutes per day (don’t miss any days!!) over an 8-10 week span to do your best on the SAT. With 10 free practice tests, that is enough to keep you practicing for about 45 days!
Our New Storefront for 2019!
We had a wonderful 2018-2019 school year and we are excited to make a difference in the community again this year. We had so many success stories and helped transform so many students last year! We know 2019-2020 will be even more amazing for our families! We recognize that the success of our students not only changed their lives, but changed the dynamics of their families. We received many reports of improved relationships and reduced stress and we are hoping to build on that success in the years to come. If your family is having math problems, come see us and experience the transformation.
Saving the Planet with Calculus
Students in the “Preparing for Success in Calculus” class are going to find out!
It has been a great week! We have been exploring several difficult and interesting problems to bring meaning to the main concepts of Calculus. Make sure to make your reservations early for next year!
Top 10 Questions To Do Together
In my years of teaching and tutoring, I have helped hundreds of students. Some had small problems they needed help with while others were basically starting from scratch. At Transformative Tutoring, we believe that every parent should spend a little time doing math with their child. Sure, your child gets a grade at the end of each year and perhaps has to pass an EOC exam, but what does that all mean?
Understanding Grades and SAT or ACT Scores
The best way to understand what that letter grade or SAT/ACT score means is to spend a little time actually having your child do some math with you. You might be surprised to find out that your teenager, who got just a B in Algebra 2, Precalculus or Calculus, is still adding and subtracting by counting on their fingers. (I would estimate that over 20% of high school students that have completed Algebra 2 still count on their fingers when not allowed to use a calculator.)
Students Are Growing Up in a Cashless, Digital World
Today’s children, in fact all of us, live in a digital age. Most middle class children rarely use coins and bills the way we did when we grew up. We had to know that four quarters made a dollar, but today’s children cannot buy anything with a quarter, so they don’t really care about quarters. Today’s children might have digital currency such as gift cards, debit cards, prepaid cards or iTunes credits, but they rarely handle cash. As a result, they use math for about 45 minutes a day about 180 days a year, exclusively in math class.
Compounding the problem for this digital generation is that calculators can do all their dirty work. In fact, you don’t even have to have a calculator anymore, just ask your smartphone something like, “Hey Siri, what’s 315 divided by 3.875?” As soon as most children find these error-free paths of least resistance they (ab)use them and shut their brains off entirely to the world of math. Before you know it, math doesn’t make any sense to them and they become incapable of thinking mathematically.
Beware of the Tools for Avoiding Math Homework
When a struggling math student hits high school there is often no easy way out and their struggles worsen. Did you know that every answer to every math textbook problem is available online? Most high school kids do! Now, they can breeze through their homework using sites like Slader, which has used crowd-sourcing to categorize every problem and answer, often with full solutions so students can “show their work.” Textbook publishers have tried to stay one step ahead by creating online homework assignments where the problems insert randomized numbers so that no two students get exactly the same question. However, in the great arms race to avoid doing math homework, once again there was a counter-attack in the form of an app called PhotoMath. Simply take a picture of any math problem and it will solve it for you, no thinking required! I have even heard reports of students using this app in their classroom to cheat on tests!
The SAT has a No Calculator Section
Eventually, the day of reckoning for all college bound students arrives, and that is the day of the SAT or ACT. These tests require students to know what they are doing and to actually understand and apply the math skills, formulas, strategies and concepts that they have, or haven’t, been using all of these years. Sadly, the arrival of that first SAT or ACT score is often the first day that a parent actually becomes aware of the magnitude of their child’s struggles with math. Now, they have a big problem on their hands, not much time to fix it and a jam packed schedule. Yes, there were B’s (many teachers require a student to be completely incompetent AND disrespectful to get a C grade these days, so a B should be considered a serious warning sign, especially if your child is well liked by their teachers) along the way that tried to serve as warning signs. Yes, there were some below average PSAT, PSAT 8/9, or EOC scores that tried to be the harbinger of the peril ahead, but these signs often were not obvious enough to raise enough concern to cause someone to take action.
Spend 5 Minutes Doing Math Together
So, today, and for the next few days, I beg you to sit down and spend a few minutes doing these problems with your child and without a calculator (20 of the 58 SAT math questions do not allow a calculator, while all 60 of the ACT math questions do allow a calculator) and see with your own eyes if your child needs help with arithmetic, Algebra 1, Geometry or Algebra 2.
Bright Futures SAT and ACT Score Requirements
The Bright Futures Scholarship is funded by the FL Lottery. It pays for tuition and educational fees, but it does NOT pay for room and board, so it does NOT cover all costs. In fact, room and board are more expensive than tuition for FL residents, so please understand Bright Futures does NOT make college free, it just covers tuition and some fees. To get a truly full ride, students must become National Merit Scholars by scoring exceptionally high on their 11th grade PSAT, and then they are awarded the Benacquisto Scholarship. My son’s Benacquisto Scholarship, along with a scholarship from USF, will actually pay him around $50,000 by the time he graduates, so becoming a National Merit Scholar can be very rewarding if you stay in Florida.
In order to earn the 75% tuition Bright Futures Scholarship, students now need a score of 1210 (81st percentile) and 1340 (93rd percentile) for a full tuition scholarship. ACT composite score requirements are 25 (78th percentile) and 29 (90th percentile). Super scoring is permitted.
Need to boost your SAT or ACT math score to qualify for Bright Futures? Schedule a tutoring session today. We have helped many students qualify, perhaps we can help you too!
Thank you so much Kennon! I could not have done it [earned the Bright Futures Scholarship] without your help and support!
O. D.
Other Requirements for Bright Futures Scholarships
There are other requirements for the scholarship as well, such as GPA (3.0 and 3.5) and volunteer hours (75 or 100). This FL government website has all of the most recent eligibility details. Once in college, students must continue to meet GPA requirements each year as well.
Earning a Bright Futures Scholarship is Not Easy
Please read the information on our SAT Frequently Asked Questions page regarding how difficult it can be to earn a Bright Futures Scholarship.
[My daughter]’s SAT math score went up 100 points! Thank you so much!
L. B., September 2019
SAT or ACT?
For the past few months, my daughter has been working with Kennon on ACT Math prep and she has already seen an improvement in her score. He does a great job with explaining all types of math problems and equations and knows how to motivate his students to achieve their goals. He is very passionate about teaching his students and watching them learn and progress. Transformative Tutoring has been a great experience!
A. C.
The SAT and ACT are radically different tests when it comes to the math section. In this post, we will attempt to outline the key differences and hopefully help you select the test that might be best for you. Before registering for one test or the other, check with your favorite school(s) to be sure they accept whichever test you plan to take.
Watch my fast-paced, funny and in-depth YouTube videos for SAT Prep!
Assess Your SAT & ACT Skills First
Invest one minute watching your child do this worksheet without a calculator. If they struggle some (more than 2 minutes, more than 1 mistake), the ACT is probably a much better choice for them. If they passed the 10 question quick quiz, have them do a an official ACT practice test and then an official SAT practice test to see which they are more comfortable with. Do the ACT test first because it does not list any formulas, whereas SAT tests do include formulas, so you should get an unbiased assessment of how many geometry formulas they still remember.
Learn more about the details of the SAT by watching this YouTube video
Side by Side Comparison
| SAT | ACT | |
| Bright Futures – 75% Scholarship | 1200 (81st %) | Composite: 25 (82nd %) |
| Bright Futures – Full Scholarship | 1340 (93rd %) | Composite: 29 (92nd %) |
| Questions | 22 questions each module (there are 2) | 60 questions |
| Time Allowed | 35 minutes per module | 60 minutes |
| Type of Questions | 48 multiple choice 10 short answer (4 choices per question) | 60 multiple choice (20 easy, 20 medium, and 20 advanced) (5 choices per question) |
| Difficulty | A couple of the questions are harder. Generally, all of the wording confuses many students, but tutoring and practice pay off. | The questions are shorter and often require only one step and a simple formula. |
| Summary | Think deep thoughts, understand the concepts and be a good problem solver. | It’s a race against time. Lots of easy questions that must be answered quickly. |
| Formulas | Many are provided. | Must be memorized. |
| Geometry | 15% or so | Nearly 50% |
| Probability | 2% | 10% |
| Trig. | 2% (1 question) | 7% (5 questions) |
| FOIL, Parabolas | 15% (single biggest topic) | 5% |
| Algebra | 50% or more | 20% or less |
| Topics | Heavy on: Parabolas FOIL & Factoring General Algebra & Lines Systems of Equations Light on: Trig (1 question) Far fewer topics to learn. | Heavy on: Geometry Moderate on: Trigonometry Lots of single questions on a wide variety of topics: Logarithms Matrices Probability Statistics Permutations Sequences & Series |
| Separate Science Score/Section | No | Yes (mainly reading complicated graphs) |