The fall semester of 2021 was the biggest I personally have ever seen for ISEE test prep. I'm sure it's due to an uptick in parents exploring private school options in the wake of COVID, as well as an increase in online tutoring overall, which, for me, has resulted in a third of my tutoring students in 2021 hailing from outside Houston - predominantly from the east and west coasts and Canada.
I have respect for the makers of the ISEE exam. First, because they have crafted a test that is so hard to cram for. It seems to not only test knowledge of skills, but also intelligence quotient, as most clearly evidenced in the mathematical reasoning section. The fast pace adds to the pressure, ensuring that even the brightest students will feel the heat. That's why, on a grade scale of 1-9, anything 7 or better is considered a competetive score. This is one test where perfect overall scores are rarely if ever discussed as a goal, and for that reason I consider it a comparatively more difficult test than the SAT or ACT for its respective target demographic.
Second, I have to give respect to the test makers for retaining the antiquated vocabulary word-definition testing style. While other tests like public school benchmarks and SAT/ACT have pivoted to testing a student's ability to understand the meanings of words in the context of a passage - a student's ability to create meaning as they read - half of the ISEE's verbal reasoning section simply gives words and the student has to choose the correct definition. Again, this speaks to the IQ-style basis of the test. Either students have read enough to have encountered and retained the words appearing on the test that day or they haven't. Furthermore, from my experience, the test is ingeniously designed to foil students' attempts to pick apart the words and build meaning using their knowledge of prefixes and roots. It is a much better strategy to look at the word as a whole and think what the word reminds you of. (Write that down because that's good free advice you won't read in test prep books!)
But hey, I enjoy the peculiar challenges of the ISEE. And there is still plenty of improvement a motivated student can make; specific thought processes and time management strategies are helpful on the verbal sections, and in the math in particular, there are places where learning some relatively easy new skills can bump a score up a lot. Every right answer helps. And familiarity with a test always helps.
When it comes to ISEE prep material, there is generally little to none available in local bookstores, which means you will likely be getting them online. There are so many bad ISEE prep books out there, which seem to me to not even be written by fluent English speakers. I have tried and can recommend the materials from Ivy Global, Test Innovators, Kaplan, and Tutorverse.
My favorite print resource is an out-of-print Kaplan book called SSAT & ISEE Strategies, Practice and Review (you might still be able to find it in secondhand stores), which actually teaches the skills (other books simply provide practice with no instruction).
Test Innovators is a great online option that scores your practice for you and generates analytics reports that show how long a student spent on each question. The analytics are insightful; however, the downside to any online program - especially if the student will be taking the actual test on paper - is that the student can't take advantage of strategies that involve writing on the test. So print out those tests! Also hire me because I have lots of juicy tips and strategies we can use to build your student a personalized plan of attack for each section of the test. (I've gotten so into the ISEE the past 6 months that I even tutor the math sections with confidence!)
Determinations for this year's private school apps are still trickling in so no final results for my students yet, but I heard a couple of days ago that one of my students got a yes from his favorite choice, with a full ride scholarship to the tune of 72,000 a year. That student managed an 8 on the reading comprehension section of the ISEE, a major coup for someone who typically struggles in reading. Another parent I worked with was "shocked" when his 5th grader scored 8s on ISEE verbal reasoning, reading comprehension, and mathematics achievement. I'd be shocked if that student doesn't get a yes everywhere she applied.
Are you looking for ISEE tutoring? Contact me!
281-352-2863
Lisa.Walter.Tutor@gmail.com
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