Alexander Miguel, TS#9

 Last Wednesday, I met with Khushi for two hours to do reading and grammar practice with her for her upcoming SAT exam. We did two timed fifty-minute exams: one with reading comprehension with four different passages and another with grammar practices which also contained four passages. For the reading comprehension, I encouraged Khushi to engage with top-down reading. 

The strategy I shared, which I in turn was taught when I needed to take the SAT, was to read the first and last paragraphs first, then read only the first and last sentences of each body paragraph. Khushi was telling me that her main problem was reading too slow, and not understanding certain key vocabulary within the questions themselves. This is why I encouraged her not to read everything, and to skip over words that she understand completely. 

For the grammar section, I was able to incorporate some of the strategies we learned from the TEFL course. For instance, whenever the word "but" appears, it is always used to contrast something, so the clause after it will have the opposite meaning as the clause before it. Likewise, I warned Khushi to be aware of semicolons, since there need to be complete sentences on either side of them. 

Even with my help, Khushi scored about 75%. She told me that my help was able to improve her score from solitary practice, though admittedly I lost focus towards the end. We met from 3:00-5:00, and both of us felt tired during the practice tests. It also didn't help that some of background conversations of the space we were in were distracting. Nevertheless, these factors shouldn't be present when Khushi takes the real test. Overall, I think Khushi is well-prepared to take her SAT, and additional sessions will further help.

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