The Bigger Opportunity

Transform SAT/ACT Struggles into Lifelong Success

If your teenager is struggling with the SAT or ACT: take heart!

Your teenager can transform their struggles with the SAT or ACT into success -- not just on the SAT or ACT, but success for life.

For the past 20 years, parents have approached us at Much Smarter to help their teenagers achieve higher SAT / ACT scores.  And we've given them that -- consistently.

But we've also given them something much, much more valuable than a higher score.  

We've used the challenge of the SAT / ACT to help teenagers develop successful habits of thinking, feeling, and learning-- habits that they can use for a lifetime. 

The Parent's Dilemma

You've been successful, and you might find it frustrating to see your teenager struggling with the SAT or ACT.  

You may not be sure how to help.  

Worse -- at times they might even seem unwilling to hear what you have to teach them about success. 

But there is a consistently effective path to success and it emerges right out of your teen's struggles with the SAT / ACT. 

First, let's identify where your teen might be struggling. 

Understanding the Struggles

We've found that there are four different types of difficulties students have with the SAT or ACT.:

1. Good student, bad test - taker:  The student does well in class, but tests poorly.  Their scores on standardized tests look nothing like their excellent grades.
2. Test anxiety: They are OK in practice, but fall apart when it comes to performance on an actual SAT or ACT
3. Weakness in one subject area: They are weak in one subject area -- math or reading -- but that one subject area is enough to prevent them from getting what they want from the SAT or ACT.
4. Not yet successful in school: They have not yet succeeded in school and are looking to the SAT or ACT to help them get a new start.

Chances are, if your teenager is struggling with the SAT or ACT, then they are struggling in one of those four ways.  

Each situation is somewhat different, but there is a common approach that works in all four!

What the SAT and ACT Really Are

Here's the key for finding the opportunity in the struggle.

Encourage your teenager to approach the SAT and ACT for what they really are:  games of skill!

Your teenager probably already has a "game" that they play actively:  sports, dance, gymnastics, music or performing arts.  They may have already experienced success in one of those games.

Each of these games has certain fundamentals to master.. 

Certain keys to success.

Each of them benefits from consistent practice over time. 

And the same can be said about the SAT or ACT -- they have certain fundamentals to master, certain keys to success.  And they benefit from consistent practice over time.

Once your teenager fully embraces the SAT or ACT as a game of skill, they will find that they can relate to it, understand it, and master it.  

So the surest path to turning struggle into opportunity is to re-frame the SAT or ACT as a game and master it. 

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Building Successful Habits

Now we begin to get into the lifelong benefits of approaching the SAT or ACT as a game. 

What a game provides most of all is CHALLENGE. 

And as a successful adult, you know that we need challenges to become successful.   Just as we get stronger when we lift weights, we become successful by facing and overcoming challenges.  

Approached in the right way, the SAT or ACT offers your teenager a training opportunity that will enable them to build successful habits of thinking, feeling and learning.  

Successful habits lead them to:

• Think bigger about their own potential.
• Perform with poise and self-confidence
• Master any learning challenge they face.

Successful habits enable them to unlock their full potential. 

And there is no surer path to lifelong success, 

And that is The Bigger Opportunity  that your teenager can embrace in training for the SAT or ACT.  

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