Hope your May is going well. I can’t believe the school year around here just has 3 days left. One thing we’ve got to experience around here this year has been EOC tests or End of Content tests. These have been for Algebra 2,  American History, English 2 and Biology. The unique thing about these tests have been the fact they have been online. Many of our students have never took an online test. Today I’ve included some suggestions on how to help your students, if they have any of these types of tests, either now or in the future.

Also as promised we have some discounts for May. From now till May 31st, you can save $20 on our book / videos and / or $100 off our online tutor guide. Details can be found at the following url – http://www.cleverapple.com/special.html

Tips for taking computerized tests –

Figure out how the tests are setup – one of the most important things you want to do is figure out how the tests are setup. Are they timed, can you take notes, can you move back and forth between the pages (example you answer question 50 and then go back to question 2). Figuring out everything you can about the test, before your students take them can help you get them better prepared.

Be advised as well, the test may fail. Of the tests I mentioned before, my daughter got to take three of them. During testing all of them failed. They were timed, and online. Apparently the state wasn’t prepared for how many people were taking them, so for each test they took a half hour in the morning and then finished them after lunch.

What if they’re timed –  many of the students we have tutored freak out when you mention a timed tests. If you think about it thoug, almost every test you’ve ever taken has been timed. If it’s an hour class period then they usually have an hour to take the tests. Just mentioning this simple fact can help to relieve some of the tension. You should already be timing them on some of the exercises you’re giving them. If they haven’t taken a timed test yet, they will someday. Getting them used to the clock element can help prepare them for tests they will be taking later on.

Taking practice tests – you can find practice tests for almost any test your student may be taking online. For example I found this “End of Content” sample test for TN. You can check it out here –

http://www.tn.gov/education/assessment/doc/EOC_EngII_PT.pdf

Just do a search for the exact name of the test your student will be taking. The test I found wasn’t a computer test, but you can easily use the questions and make your own. See the section below.

Making your own tests –

Here are just some of the tools you can use to create your own tests. Many of them offer free trials.

http://www.examprofessor.com/

Cost – Varies – the $12/month option should work well.

Create a Quiz – http://www.pc-shareware.com/quiz.htm

An old program that still works, just not as flashy as some of the other options. Cost – $34.95

http://www.aditsoftware.com/order/

Cost $69.00

Hope you have a wonderful day.

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Five Tips to Deal with Test Anxiety

by The-Apple on April 25, 2013

in How To Tutor

The booklets of questions used in 2007 (Nation... The booklets of questions used in 2007 (National Center Test for University Admissions) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Finals are coming up. I figured we would talk some about how you can help your students overcome testing anxiety. My daughter has a whole lot of test anxiety. We’ve tried many different things, here is what we’ve found works the best for her and other students.

- Know the questions - by now you should know the types of questions your students do well on and what they do poorly on. There are many different places you can go online for example test questions and guidance on how to do better at the questions they are having difficulty with.

- After you’ve figured out what type of questions they’re having trouble with, make sure they know the content, and then work on making it available to them in a format they were having trouble with. Let’s say for example they have trouble with essay questions, they have an American History final coming up. Find out how the teacher had asked previous essay questions and work on creating new questions from the new content.

- Give them confidence. I think half the battle is getting your students to believe they can do well on tests. Find out what they need to make on the final to make the grade they want to in the class. My daughter had a History final coming up, but she could score a 60 on it and still make an A for the class. Letting her know this helped to relieve a ton of her anxiety.

- Have several practice tests before the actual event. You can keep these tests for future students.

- After action reviews - it’s what we called it when I was in the Army after an exercise. After the testing make sure you have at least one tutor session with your student. If they get a copy of the test and their answers back make sure you go over it with them. Highlight what they missed and help them figure out how they can do better on the next test.

- Give them a reason to learn. With high school students it’s hard sometimes for them to look at the big picture. I try to remind them they will see most of the subjects again if they go to college. If they learn it well now, then they won’t have to relearn it again in the future.

Hopefully this helps you a bit. I know these times can be stressful for tutors as well, just keep reminding you that summer vacation is coming soon.

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Problem Solving Tips

April 11, 2013

I think we skipped spring and went straight to summer. Winter is having a hard time letting go to our west. We didn’t have any questions you wanted answered, so I picked one out. I think we’ll move to our summer newsletter schedule a little early since we are swamped with work in our other [...]

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Using Screen Captures

April 5, 2013

Good Friday to you TGIF and all that, we hope you had a wonderful week. Today we’re going to talk about creating your video. Step 1 – first you need to have whatever your article was about in a readable text file. I always use word and just make the words / numbers bigger, so [...]

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Getting More from your Blog Posts

April 4, 2013

A happy April to you, I think this week we may even hit a 60 degree temp, which is good news considering it definitely hasn’t felt like spring around here. We also wanted to apologize for the lack of blog posts. We’ve been knee deep in a project for another client, and hey those pay [...]

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How to Put Keywords in your Title

March 29, 2013

Today we’re going to talk about finding good keywords for your blog post. Go to the Google Keyword tool – https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordToo  You want to think as broad as possible to begin. So type in something like “Your city / tutor” Click on the box that says show only related terms and click search. I used [...]

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Writing a Blog Post to get More Traffic

March 28, 2013

We hope you and your family have a wonderful Easter weekend. Blogging and Writing a Blog Post that will get you traffic  – One of the main reasons you have your blog is to get some traffic. We’ll talk some about getting some keywords on Friday. You’ll want to get specific traffic (someone is searching [...]

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Create a Media Plan for your Business

March 26, 2013

Today we’re going to talk about how to create a media plan for your blog. One of the hardest things to do, if you have a blog, is figuring out what you want to write about. Having a media plan will do a couple of things for you. It will relieve you from a whole [...]

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Using the NCAA tournament to get more business.

March 22, 2013

Welcome to the Friday promote your tutor business blog. If you’re like me, maybe you’re watching the NCAA tournament. This got me to thinking about some ways you may be able to incorporate the tournament into helping build your business. It works for colleges but it could work for you as well (even if you [...]

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Why you should keep posting to your blog

March 21, 2013

I don’t know about you but I need some spring. The calendar says spring, this week we had the equinox that happened, but the forecast today doesn’t get above 30 and for the next seven days it doesn’t get above 50. We did have one good day last weekend, it was 70, of course the [...]

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