Is your teenager having a hard time on tests like the SAT or ACT because of weakness in math?
Your teenager can turn this challenge into an opportunity for success – not just on the SAT, but for life!
Consider Jonah, a former student of ours at Much Smarter
He was in 11th grade and math had been difficult for him since 6th grade.
When we gave him a sample of SAT math questions, he got only 10% of them correct.
He seemed to have difficulty focusing on a math problem. If we gave him a 5-step problem to do, he would lose track of what he was working on by step 3.
He wanted to submit a strong SAT score with his college applications, but his longstanding weakness in math seemed to represent an unmovable obstacle. And his weakness in this one area made it highly unlikely that he could get what he wanted from the SAT.
But that's only the beginning of the story.
Because Jonah was about to overcome years of math difficulty with a new approach.
He would learn to approach SAT / ACT math as a game -- a game of skill.
Early in his training, Jonah's mom told us that he was dedicated to practicing a game that he loved: tennis. On days when there was no school, he would practice tennis from morning to night to sharpen his skills.
So we asked him, "what would happen if you practiced math the way you practice tennis?" And he replied instantly, "I'd be a math monster!"
So he learned to apply his outstanding practice skills to his new game: SAT Math.
And while Jonah did not quite become a math monster during our time with him, he did very well on SAT Math, and on the SAT as a whole, he earned a 93rd percentile score (better than 93% of the students taking the SAT nationwide).
That accomplishment helped him gain admission -- early decision -- to one of the leading universities of the land.
In our next and final part of this 5-part article, we'll discuss how Jonah's accomplishment, while very helpful, was actually the smallest part of what Jonah gained by mastering his SAT math game.
