January 27th, 2015
Connor has been coming Study Hut for help in Spanish, PreCalculus, Chemistry, and English. When he decided that he wanted to take the ACT, Study Hut was the obvious choice for his ACT preparation tutoring. He came in to Study Hut to take a free diagnostic ACT practice to see what his score would be. He scored a 21.
He worked on his English and reading skills with his tutor Laura. They reviewed tricky grammar rules that Connor had not seen in a long time. Laura also taught Connor strategies for critical reading. These strategies help with time management, which is crucial on the ACT. They also prevent students from falling into any tricky trap answers. Connor was not confident in his critical reading abilities. Laura made sure that they ran through every passage and question scenario that appears on the ACT until Connor felt comfortable and confident.
Jason and Connor worked on boosting Connor’s math and science scores. Math was easy for Connor but he had forgotten many of the formulas that are essential to scoring well on the test. Together they solved various problems using key formulas. By actually working with the equations and using them in problems, Connor was able to learn them much more easily than if he had just tried to memorize them. Jason and Connor also went over the different kinds of graphs Connor would need to be able to interpret on the test. The science portion of the test relies more on a student’s ability to read carefully rather than their actual science knowledge. Thanks to all the prep he did with Study Hut, Connor took the real ACT and scored a 29!!
Tags: ACT tutoring, one-on-one ACT tutoring, south bay ACT
Posted in ACT, high school |
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January 26th, 2015
The beginning of a new semester is the perfect time to change any poor study habits that you slipped into last semester. A few minor changes can make all your study sessions more efficient, so you can spend less time studying and more time on other things. One of the key factors to making sure that you stay focused on your work is having a great environment.
You should start with a space that is free from distractions. This can mean different things for different people. It could be a room at home that is quiet, a library, or a coffee shop. If you cannot keep focused on work when you are working with your friends, then going with them to the library is not a good fit. Keep your space clear from anything that you do not need to complete your work like magazines, your cell phone, or anything that you could zone out and play around with.
You should also make sure that your workspace has everything you need to get the job done. Extra pencils, a calculator, and plenty of scratch paper are great things to keep around. If you have a home set of textbooks that you do not bring to school you should keep them at your workspace as well. Make sure that you have enough light to do your work. If you work somewhere too dim, you will get sleepy. Alternatively, if your light is way too bright you will quickly get a headache.
Tags: study skills, studying
Posted in focusing, General, study skills |
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January 26th, 2015
Joey started coming in to Study Hut because he was really struggling in his Spanish 3 class. All semester he had not been getting the grades that he wanted on tests and large assignments. He worked hard in class and did all of his homework, but he still did not seem to really understand the material. As much as he practiced it just did not stick.
Joey worked on Spanish 3 with his tutor Ana. The concepts became easier and he began to fully grasp the material thanks to the practice he was getting outside of the classroom. They worked on pronunciations, how to write using multiple different tenses, and how to make sure his grammar was perfect. Joey was really worried about his final because so much of the semester had not made sense. He put a lot of effort and work into studying and preparing for it. The final was an oral recitation with a lot of difficult future tense and new vocabulary. He and Ana spent a lot of time making sure that he was pronouncing all of his verbs correctly and that all of his irregulars were conjugated the right way. They also paid close attention to making sure that Joey remembered to follow the accents when he was giving the words emphasis.
Joey ended up getting a 95% on his final. He was incredibly proud of himself, and Ana was proud of him, too!
Tags: foreign language, one-on-one tutoring, Spanish
Posted in high school, Self esteem, South Bay, Spanish |
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January 25th, 2015
Grace started coming to Study Hut because she was struggling in her math class. The way her teacher taught the was confusing, and she did not help the class try and keep up. There was very little time to learn all the new concepts that were being taught before the test. The homework did not help either because the instructions were vague and there were very few problems covering each topic that had been covered in class.
Grace began coming to Study Hut twice a week to work on math close to the end of the semester. She worked with her tutors Jason and Charlsey on the homework that had been assigned that night as well as the classwork she did not understand. Her tutors made sure to go through each California Common Core Standard with her. On the math learning targets that she did not do well on, the tutors made sure to review and teach her the topic. Then they did numerous practice problems together, until Grace felt comfortable doing the work on her own on higher level of difficulty problems.
She was worried because she thought that she would not have enough time to bring her grade up before the end of the semester. She made sure to bring in her study guide each week that she had a big test. With all of her hard work, Grace was able to raise her low D all the way to a B before the end of her semester!
Tags: Common core, Math tutoring, one-on-one tutoring, South Bay tutoring
Posted in local tutoring, middle school |
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January 20th, 2015
Many times, students do not consider doing preparation and tutoring for standardized tests.However, prep is important in improving a student’s overall score.
Our student Grace is a shining example. Before she started her ACT test prep with her tutor, Jason, Grace scored a 28 overall on the ACT. She received a 25 in English, 28 in Math, 34 in Reading, and 25 in Science. Jason and Grace worked through all of the Study Hut ACT materials. These include a menagerie of strategies to help you improve your score on the ACT. From ways to avoid falling into trap answers, to key words to be on the look out for in questions, as well as time management tricks, everything is covered in our one-on-one ACT tutoring. Jason gave Grace practice sections in all the areas where her score could be improved. Afterward, they would go through her answers together and go over what she missed, and how she could improve on her next run through. They did more practice sections in the areas that she was weaker in. Alongside practice ACTs, Grace also took custom quizzes with the concepts that she was consistently weakest in. Being familiar with the content also boosted Grace’s confidence in taking the test, which is a huge factor for any student’s success. After finishing all of her prep, Grace took the ACT again. She raised her English score 9 points to a 34, her Math score 3 points to a 31, her Reading 2 points to a PERFECT 36 and her Science by 1 to a 26, bringing her overall score up 4 points to a 32!
Tags: ACT, ACT prep, ACT tutoring, one-on-one tutoring
Posted in ACT, high school, SAT vs ACT, Senior Year |
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January 17th, 2015
Keeping up with homeschool can be difficult. There is no regularly scheduled class that you have to attend every day, your teacher is just a strange, faceless online entity, and the classes are rarely as interactive as ones in a traditional school environment. All these factors, combined with the fact that most students find it very difficult to teach themself new material, make it very easy to fall behind. At first, it can seem like a harmless thing to do. “Oh, I’ll just make up that day tomorrow.” But soon one day behind becomes two, then three, and suddenly you are fifteen class days behind and the end of the semester is just two weeks away. It is important to remain diligent in keeping up with your homeschool classes. There are a few things that you can do to make sure that this happens.
Try to have the work completed by the day that is assigned, or the date it is scheduled to be done. If you know that you will not have any time to log in to your online class on a certain day or week, get it done beforehand and be ahead instead of waiting until after and struggling to play catch up. Schedule a regularly recurring appointment with a tutor twice a week if you cannot motivate yourself to keep up in classes, or if the material is challenging to teach to yourself. Our one-on-one tutors will make sure to keep you on track, and make all the material easy to understand.
Tags: homeschool, homeschooling, one-on-one tutoring, south bay, Tutoring
Posted in Home Learning, Home Schooling, South Bay, Tutor Tips, Tutors |
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January 15th, 2015
Quite a few students come to Study Hut to work on their foreign language classes. It is especially helpful to get tutoring in a foreign language because the more you use it, the easier it is. One of our Spanish tutors, Laura, was able to help her student Connor raise his grade by ten percent with his final, bringing his final semester grade up to an A!
Connor came in twice a week to work on his Spanish with Laura. They would always go over his homework, as well as reviewing the content that he had learned in class earlier that day or that week. They extensively went over conjugating verbs, especially irregular verbs such as ir and tener. Connor practiced writing each conjugation over and over until he could do it for each subject with no mistakes. Laura and Connor also worked on improving his sentence composition and structure. They meticulously went through all the paragraphs that Connor had to write for homework and made sure that everything was correct. It does not help to slack on homework because doing things incorrectly on the homework will translate to doing it incorrectly on the test as well. Connor booked extra time before tests and when large assignments, such as essays were due. All their diligence and hard work paid off in the end. The final was an absolute breeze and Connor ended the class with an A, which he was a lot easier thanks to all of his hard work with Laura!
Tags: foreign language tutoring, south bay, Spanish
Posted in Spanish |
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January 13th, 2015
This week West Torrance High School will be having two finals week cram sessions at the library. Friday will be in the evening from 3PM to 6PM. Saturday will be in the morning from 9AM to 12PM. Study Hut tutors from the Redondo Beach and Manhattan Beach locations come to the study sessions to help students in large groups as well as individually.
The library is split up into different sections where students can get help in the specific subject that they are studying for. This helps them focus because they do not become distracted by their friends who are trying to learn different subjects at the same time. Once a study feels like they can move on to a different subject, they can move on to the different area of the library and fully concentrate on the new material. Sessions like these are also helpful because then students can work with other students in their class. Many times, students are unable to find a convenient time and location to work together with their peers. These West High study sessions resolve that issue. Students are also able to work through problems together and go over any difficult concepts on the study guide together until a tutor becomes available. This makes their study time more efficient and effective. Many students often have the same question, so the tutor can answer all of them at once. Alternatively, the students can help each other and figure out the problem together. Whether you plan on attending one or both sessions, these study sessions will be highly beneficial to any student.
Tags: finals, south bay, torrance, Tutoring, West Torrance High
Posted in study skills, Tutors, West Torrance |
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January 8th, 2015
Emily came in to Study Hut looking to raise her SAT score. She had done a few SAT prep sessions before, but not consistently and was not happy with her current SAT score. She knew that she could do better. We created a custom plan of action for Emily so that she would be completely prepared before her next SAT.
She started to come in once to twice per week. During her sessions, we would go through each concept on the test and make sure that it made total sense before moving on to the next one. We also went over the best SAT strategies so that she could beat the test, and not be tricked by any trap answers to questions that she knew the answers to. Between sessions, she had homework assignments reviewing the material that she had just learned, as well as weekly quizzes to not only test her knowledge, but to get her familiar with using the SAT strategies in action. After we had covered all the material that would be on the test, we started doing practice test after practice test after practice test. These were timed and without help, just like on the real SAT. She got progressively better with each test that we ran through. Finally, she took her final SAT and the results were amazing! She took the test and scored above a 1900. She was much more confident with her score going into the college application process and cannot wait to hear back from all her schools!
Tags: one-on-one SAT tutoring, SAT tutoring, South Bay tutoring
Posted in high school, SAT, Success Stories |
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January 8th, 2015
With finals right around the corner, a lot of different high schools are gearing up for their weekend finals cram sessions. Study Hut tutors will be helping out at Palos Verdes High School, Palos Verdes Peninsula High School, and West Torrance High School. The AVID classes are holding the sessions in the Palos Verdes Peninsula School District.
There are a lot of different ways that students can maximize their results during tutoring in large groups. First, find other students who are studying the same subject, or better yet are in the same class with the same teacher. Someone may have taken better notes, or have been there on a day when you were absent. Together your group can try and work your way through the more difficult concepts of the semester together. Go through the study guide for the final together. Make sure that the answers make sense to everyone. If you are having trouble with a concept, have a friend explain it to you. They may be able to make it make sense in a way that your teacher could not. Do the same for your friends. Teaching the material to your friends will also help you get a better grasp on the information. If any of you have contradicting answers to one of the questions, make sure you find out what is actually correct either by looking in your book, asking a tutor, or by searching on the internet. Afterward, review the information later in the day or the following day on your own to make sure that it all sank in.
Tags: finals, high school, Palos Verdes High School, palos verdes peninsula, study Hut, studying, west torrance
Posted in AVID, Finals Tutoring, high school, Palos Verdes, Palos Verdes High School, Peninsula, South Bay, West Torrance |
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