<p>Is there such a thing? I already took my SATs back in the day when there were analogies… ah… now it’s my brother’s turn (currently a sophomore). He has absolutely no motivation, doesn’t do well in school (all areas are pretty weak =(…), etc.</p>
<p>In your experiences, what would be the best way to help him prep for the SATs? Private tutoring? One of the general prep centers (kaplan/pton review) first? Just buy him a ton of practice books and make him go through all of them & reviewing answers? It’s been awhile and I don’t really know how the new test is formatted! Help!</p>
<p>He should probably take a prep course; I don’t think tutoring would be the way to start. If he takes a course that has really small classes, he would get a decent amount of attention and hopefully stay motivated. </p>
<p>I would recommend Princeton Review over Kaplan. The strategies are better and the tests are very close to the real one. I used the Cracking book and am going through their online course, and it’s actually holding my attention (I tend to multi-task too much on the computer).</p>
<p>If he’s really unmotivated, just getting him a bunch of books and saying, “Sit! Study! Good boy!” isn’t going to have an impact. ;-)</p>
<p>this is one way you can change him. What you should do is try to embarass him. At the dinner table or something ask your brother what he wants to be when he grows up or what college he wants to go to. When he answers laugh a little and say you serious. When he starts to elaborate say " how the hell you going to become that when you do so bad in school. If you really wanna do that you probably should try to get better on your SAT. I mean yours suck</p>
<p>Haha, sadly we’ve already tried repeatedly to ‘embarrass’ him, which doesn’t really amount to that, just anger/being annoyed on his part.</p>
<p>Thanks for recommending Pton review over Kaplan… was debating between those. I know that just getting him in the habit of taking practice tests is probably best initially. After that point, we’re thinking of getting someone his age-ish, yeah, to help him out (cheaper, too… haha).</p>
<p>Would appreciate other insight, but thanks for the advice so far =)</p>
<p>What you could do to help him beyond the Prep class, and if he is uninteresested, doing a prep class as he has to sit there and somewhat attend mentally, it is a start. I think if you refamiliarize yourself with the test, yeah who would have thought one would ever need to revisit that, but I did it with my daughter who does pretty good in school but had ZERO interest in doing anything in regards to SAT stuff. Whe I was able to see things in the test that I never took notice of as a high school kid, and was able to point it out to her, boy did that spark her interest. I think the idea of doing well took on a whole different dimension for her, that it was not a random annoyance of questions, there was a rhyme and reason to it. I took many a standaridized test for licensure for my profession, and no doubt, the right answer jumps out at you once you know the pattern and exactly what they are trying to test your knowledge of.</p>
<p>This seems like the age old question, and it’s somewhat of a catch 22 since motivation alone can take someone to a 2400 on the SAT. the PR and Kaplan courses seem somewhat risky because you’re spending all that money without knowing how your brother is going to be affected. unless it’s a personal tutor, it’s easy to sit back in one of those classes or even small groups and just let the time fly. you can copy/not try on the homework and the tutors barely care (in my, my friends’ experiences). they just did the programs to make their parents happy but that didn’t even work when they got their scores back. you need to make prep interesting for your brother, so it takes either a really engaging and reputable personal tutor or an interactive online course like what Kaplan and ■■■■■■■■■■■■.com offer. if there’s a demo program, let your brother try that and see if it helps him.</p>