Eureka1634776930

Thank you for welcoming me to the pack so warmly, Odyssey. First of all, as a marketing professional, I must take exception to you calling my claim of a 300 point increase "totally bogus." I and most of my colleagues in marketing, unlike what most people think, hold ourselves to high ethical standards, and would never lie in a marketing statement. Just because you can't raise your score 300 points by using our methods doesn't mean there aren't people who do. If you like, I can give you a temporary password, and you can do the math yourself. The average increase of our students IS 300 points. Of course, I would think you have too many cognitive science mags to read and other companies to research to waste time perusing our thousands of pointless, overzealous hard data. As for Miller's law, it would be true if we were to use our method as you dictate. Our students never "finally read the passage." Their memories never have to "compete" with the "gist of 3 questions," and you don't have to be an exceptional reader. Just a smart one. Our system makes the use of memory a non-factor. Neuroscience being 2/3rds of your education, you should know that one of the quickest ways to fatigue your brain is to repeatedly access short term memory while confronted with constantly changing stimuli, especially under pressure of immediate performance (the SAT!) If you are asked for a synonym in line 15, you don't even have to read line 15. Just pick the synonym! One of the things we teach is to believe in the education you have already been given. One of the tricks the SAT pulls is to make students waste time and mental energy going back and forth between passage and question on a simple synonym replacement second-guessing themselves. Our students believe in themselves and trust their educations. We also teach them some of the same things you do; that is, quick answer elimination, correct guessing technique, and most importantly, VOCABULARY. By skimming the passage first, and then following our methods through to completion, our students can raise their reading score considerably beyond a 600. Why would we adopt a method with a cap on the success rate? I would argue that your method needlessly teeters back and forth between passage and question and makes the student waste time.

I used to work for Kaplan. I work for Eureka Review now, which is in southern California. For SAT help, it really is the best because it's all we do. Kaplan simply spreads itself too thin. Ivy West is in danger of doing the same thing!

The reading section is not meant for the passages to be read. Excuse me, what?? That's right, DO NOT READ THE PASSAGES. SKIM THEM. Notice in the reading section: 1. The questions are in chronological order. Most require you to go to a specific line. 2. There are some word replacement questions which simply require you to pick a synonym from the choices. Do you have to read the passage to pick a synonym? 3. How many points do you get for reading the passages? That's right, NONE! Eureka kids go up an average of 300 points using this as one of their strategies. Save your brainpower. This is a long test, so why do extra work?