Advantage Testing 2022

Advantage Testing 2022

ADVANTAGE TESTING TUTORING AND TEST PREPARATION

Academic Tutoring • Application Counseling • AP SAT/ACT • SAT Subject Tests • LSAT • GMAT • MCAT • GRE • SSAT/ISEE Advantage Testing is widely regarded as America’s preeminent private tutorial and test preparation service. We specialize in academic tutoring from grade school through graduate school and in preparing students for standardized tests. We believe that sound long-term preparation enables students to develop the tools necessary for success. Whether mastering academic course materials or studying for standardized tests, our students develop the skills and motivation to maintain a rigorous, individually tailored approach to learning that ultimately instills education’s most enduring rewards: • self-confidence • academic growth • joy in learning • intellectual curiosity We adapt traditional methods of study and practice for the individual, teaching our students to study not just intensively, but effectively. We do not believe in “tricks” or short cuts. Instead, we teach the core content and strategies relevant to every subject, test, or assignment, an approach that is consistently and rigorously educational.

210 East 86th Street NewYork, NY 10028 (212) 744-8800

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Advantage Testing

Approach to learning

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Reputation

page 4 .............................................................................................

Academic Tutoring, AP, and other programs

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College counseling and application consulting

page 6 ..............................

SAT & ACT programs

page 7 ...........................................................................

Classroom experience

page 10 ......................................................................

Locations

page 11 .............................................................................................

About the Founder

page 12 ............................................................................

New York tutors

page 13 ..................................................................................

Student evaluations

page 22 ...........................................................................

Public service initiatives .................................................................... Media and Publicity Mayor’s Proclamation

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The New York Times

The Wall Street Journal New York Magazine

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Our approach to learning is • Long-term : Cognition involves phases of comprehension, application, and repetition that take time, both during and between teaching sessions. The benefits of such productive work, of course, become long-term as well. • Rigorous : Advantage Testing students work hard. We teach the efficiencies of skill, knowledge, and sound reasoning rather than short cuts or tricks. Assignments, memorization, drills, and practice tests are crucial components of our programs. • Comprehensive : For more than thirty years, we have continually refined and expanded our teaching materials and approaches. Our curricula and instruction reflect a depth and breadth born of experience and thorough analysis. • Practical : We design and implement concrete strategies with specific steps toward attainable goals. Practice itself is the backbone of our structured test preparation. • Creative : Tutors adapt their distinctive styles of teaching to each individual student, while the student in turn is encouraged to contribute to the process. Our tutors must be… • …able to motivate students of whatever background or ability to achieve their highest possible scores. • …experienced, dedicated teachers who have received uniformly outstanding reviews from their students inside and outside our program. • …energetic, informal, and approachable so as to be able to establish productive relationships with our students. • …top performers required to score in the 99.5 th percentile on any standardized test they teach for us. • …students themselves of the continuously evolving science of standardized test construction. Sensitivity Advantage Testing has experience achieving outstanding results with students of every ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural background. Our instructors are responsive not only to their students’ individual learning styles and academic needs, but also to their personal stories, unique self- identifications, and individual perspectives.

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Reputation Advantage Testing is recognized as an industry leader among tutoring organizations and the nation’s foremost expert on standardized test consultation and preparation. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg “ Advantage Testing’s commitment to excellence and social responsibility truly represents the very best our great City has to offer…Advantage Testing has fostered intellectual

growth and academic success amongst the future business, artistic, and civic leaders who will shape our City and our world. ”

The New York Times “…perhaps the City’s premier tutoring service.”

The New Yorker “The Institute for Advanced Study of tutoring services.”

The Wall Street Journal Arun Alagappan, Advantage Testing’s President and Founder, profiled as “Donor of the Day” for “helping to find the next generation of leaders who will bring diversity, new ideas, compassion, and a different kind of leadership to institutions.” The London Evening Standard “A pioneer in instituting the scrupulous standards that have elevated tutoring to the respected profession it has become in New York City.” New York Magazine Arun Alagappan featured in cover story “The Influentials: The people whose ideas, power, and sheer will are changing New York.” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg “For a quarter-century, Advantage Testing has been an outstanding advocate for equal opportunity in education… The task of preparing every student for college and a career is not over yet. We are headed in the right direction, however, and thanks to the dedicated professionals and friends of Advantage Testing, we can look forward to more New Yorkers becoming life-long learners.”

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Academic tutoring Nowadays, students enlist tutors for help with much more than just their standardized test preparation. Some students struggle in school and turn to tutors to help them both understand the fundamentals and improve academic performance. Some students seek tutoring to assist them with highly challenging classes that they might otherwise be reluctant to take. Others seek to explore subjects with greater rigor and in greater depth than they might in a classroom setting. When tutoring academic subjects, our tutors teach a systematic approach to learning that helps students develop the problem-solving and project-management skills required to absorb a semester or more of academic content. We have developed comprehensive proprietary materials to support our academic tutoring programs. Our students acquire a sense of confidence in tackling new challenges that remains with them throughout their academic and professional careers. Academic subjects tutored include: • Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Statistics, Precalculus, Calculus (differential, integral, multivariable), Advanced Mathematics • Academic Writing Skills, Vocabulary, Critical Reading, Grammar, Literature • Biology (molecular, ecological), Chemistry (inorganic, organic), Physics, Computer Science, Environmental Science • American History and Social Studies, World History, European History, Government, Politics • French, Spanish, Italian, German, Latin, Ancient Greek, Korean, Chinese Advanced Placement exams Our AP tutoring programs complement our academic instruction. Students begin by developing a strong foundation in the relevant academic course material and all tested concepts. Homework and practice tests ensure that students are able to demonstrate mastery of the subject as it is tested on the exam. Advanced Placement tutoring programs vary considerably in duration depending on the student’s goals and familiarity with the subject matter. Unique programs We are experts in developing responsive programs to address students’ unique needs and goals. We have deep experience working with individual students and small groups in homeschool environments, special programs, and other educational initiatives. We are also available to complement or supplement various school curricula on request. Our consultants work closely with individual families, classes, schools, and other academic communities to ensure we are providing the critical and timely support our students need in any learning environment.

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College Admissions Counseling Advantage Testing’s College Counseling program provides comprehensive individual review of the most critical components of the admissions process: • school research and selection (considering objective and subjective criteria) • academic and standardized testing plans • extracurricular advising • development of a Our counselors help students to identify academic, extracurricular, and personal achievements, explore areas of interest, and highlight key factors to emphasize in the application materials. These discussions frame the overarching narrative that will unify the student’s college application. In addition, through detailed discussion and individually tailored research, our counselors assist in determining schools that best suit the student. Finally, counselors can oversee the student's application development, either working directly with the student or in conjunction with one of our application consultants. Application consultation central theme for the college application The application essay often represents the greatest opportunity in the admissions process for candidates to express their unique assets. Advantage Testing offers a comprehensive application writing program that enables students to express themselves with confidence, character, and creativity. We support students throughout the writing process, from brainstorming the ideal topic, to outlining a logical and compelling narrative structure, to composing and revising multiple drafts. Our experienced instructors help students to find their voices and and tell their stories in a way that makes their application stand out. The application essay is a particularly effective means of instilling writing lessons because the student is so deeply invested in the impact of his or her prose. In learning to compose a carefully constructed, thoughtful essay, students gain an appreciation for the craft of writing personal narrative. Our ultimate goal is to help students develop a distinctive college essay that is true to their experiences and their unique voices while imparting enduring skills that will instill the student with confidence when tackling any writing assignment.

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SAT and ACT PROGRAMS Advantage Testing comprises a group of instructors who care deeply about education and who specialize in SAT and ACT test preparation. Our faculty consists primarily of high honors graduates of leading colleges and universities who hold graduate or professional degrees. In all our test preparation programs, tutors expose students to the core intellectual concepts they may encounter on the test. Together, tutor and student develop disciplined strategies for approaching each section. We emphasize learning the material thoroughly and thinking critically about every question. Weekly meetings, assignments, and practice tests help students develop a deeper knowledge of the critical topics and refne their problem-solving techniques.

Our systematic, educational approach to the SAT and ACT emphasizes critical reasoning, rules of grammar, writing structure, prose style, vocabulary building, and effcient methods for solving the math problems that recur on the quantitative sections of these tests. Our materials have been designed by logically deconstructing every offcial test released in the last 35 years. We do not believe in the effectiveness of “tricks.” Of course, we teach the approaches and strategies relevant to each test—when and how to guess, what order to follow in working through the questions, when to look at the answer choices, and so forth—but our academic approach is consistently rigorous and educational.

The precise length of our programs varies widely depending upon such factors as: • the test being tutored • the student’s performance on the diagnostic test and practice tests, and in related academic pursuits • when the student begins preparation • the student’s goals • the number of meetings the student has with the tutor each week • the date the student plans to take the offcial test

Each tutoring program is designed to address the particular needs of the student. Our highest priority is to convey a systematic approach to learning that will help our students achieve their best possible score on test day and will continue to empower them throughout their academic and professional endeavors.

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Reading Our Reading materials emphasize both the vocabulary a student must develop to grasp college-level material and the ability to read, digest, and extract essential information from a given text. Instructors help students recognize recurrent question types and differentiate right from wrong answers. Our students become more attuned to the signifcance of word choice and more adept at discerning an author’s meaning—skills that are useful in any college career. Moreover, we have developed a comprehensive series of vocabulary lists representing the words most frequently tested in context on the Reading sections of the SAT and ACT. Mastering the nuances of such words helps students improve their assessment of vocabulary-driven reading comprehension questions on both tests. Math Instructors emphasize the facts, concepts, and principles underlying Math questions. Our Math materials identify the mathematical terms and the more than 100 recurring math question types in Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, and miscellaneous topics that have appeared on the SAT and ACT. In addition to student exposure on practice tests, these terms and question types are exercised, with levels of diffculty commensurate to those on the offcial test, in our math worksheets, problem sets, and summary reviews. Writing/English The multiple-choice questions on the Writing & Language section of the SAT and the English section of the ACT test traditional grammatical and syntactical principles as well as idiomatic expression. Instructors train students to develop a critical eye for editing what they read and what they write. We teach the underlying concepts governing verb, pronoun, and noun agreement, verb tense, parallelism, proper syntax, logic and clarity of expression, etc. Students are often gratifed to recognize that the skills that help them improve their accuracy on the writing sections of standardized tests will also help them identify and correct errors in their own writing—on test Essay sections, in the college application essays they write, and in their schoolwork and written assignments.

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Essay On the both the ACT and new SAT, the Essay is unscored and optional. However, many selective colleges expect students to fulfll the Essay assignment. The ACT essay prompt presents multiple viewpoints on a given topic, and the student is tasked with developing his or her own viewpoint, addressing points raised in those provided. The SAT, on the other hand, presents a published article or speech with a distinct point of view and asks the student to discuss how the writer makes his or her case. In essence, the ACT essay asks students to construct an argument, while the SAT asks students to analyze an argument. In preparing for either essay component, students practice and refne the process of evaluating a given topic or essay and assembling a coherent and persuasive response in a limited period. ACT Science Reasoning

The Science Reasoning portion of the ACT is the one section of this test that does not overlap with the SAT. However, the critical reasoning abilities that students refne while preparing for this section apply to other standardized tests and to a wide range of academic undertakings. Instructors emphasize the skills of interpreting, analyzing, and evaluating. The ACT Science Test typically includes charts, graphs, diagrams, and passages that represent >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31

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