<p>Hundreds of thousands of students with a math sAT similar to your S’s spend thousands of dollars on tutoring, and don’t raise their math score anywhere near where your S’s went up. AS you retell the account, it seems much more clear that he was a 1500 type student who was blocking himself. That seems to be the exception, not the rule. It’s not the hundreds you spent that brought him up 140 points on one test; he had that knowledge already, as you demonstrate.</p>
<p>My S got a 690M the first time he took the SAT. He didn’t need tutoring; he needed to look at the question and answer key, and realize that he’d been answering to hastily and should pay more attention. He did, and went up 70 points on the M (10 more on the V.) </p>
<p>I think your story illustrates the same thing.</p>