Should your student work with a professional test prep tutor? Bobby Hood, of Noodle Pros, says YES! 

Bobby has been tutoring professionally for 7 years. He is a member of the Triple Nine Society, an association of individuals with IQ scores above the 99.9th percentile. After graduating high school as valedictorian with an SAT score of 800 Math and 790 Verbal, he attended Texas Christian University on a full-tuition scholarship.

Before he began tutoring, Bobby had two prior careers as a CPA and attorney respectively. Bobby worked as a CPA for two years before attending The University of Texas School of Law.

After 10 years of practicing law, Bobby returned to his love of teaching and began tutoring students. He tutors the SAT, ACT, LSAT, GMAT, GRE, GRE, and MCAT CARS.

I spoke with Bobby about why he tutors, how to prep for the SAT or ACT, when to start studying, and the advantages of working with a professional test prep tutor.

Q. A course and/or many tutors would be a lot cheaper, why should students not take a course? Why work with a super-tutor?

A. Most courses are designed with a “one-size-fits-all” approach; generally, test prep courses are geared toward students who are scoring below or near the median. A student at that level may benefit greatly from starting with a course or other prep material in order to master the underlying content needed to earn a high score on the test. However, in order to move significantly above the median (say, above the 84th percentile or so), a student will need to focus on the patterns of the test in a very individualized way.

Today’s students generally have very busy schedules, and need to balance test preparation with studying for challenging AP courses and participating in extracurricular activities and organizations. Individual attention from a tutor with a great deal of experience in adjusting the preparation to the needs of the student can in most cases result in the highest improvements quite efficiently, allowing the student to focus on all of those other important facets of the high school experience.

Q. What are three things that all students can do that will improve their scores?

1. Focus on the fact that your past educational background has already prepared you to answer most or all of the test’s questions correctly, as long as you know the patterns of the questions and the proper way to approach them.
2.  Take the test in a mindful, deliberate manner, choosing to work the questions and passages that will be easiest for you first. Save the questions that require the most work until the end, when you can focus on them without worrying about other remaining questions. In the end, the test is more a test of your attitude and approach than it is of knowledge or ability.
3.  Practice intelligently. Learn the strategies, then take a practice test under timed conditions and apply those strategies. Spend at least half as much time reviewing the test as you did taking it. What questions did you miss or spend too much time on? How can you change your approach to similar questions in the future?

To read the entire interview, click here.

This is a sponsored newsletter and I have received compensation for this interview.



The Parents Countdown to College Crash Course is your answer to the complicated college maze. One parent even said "that would be a godsend".  Another parent said, "I wish I knew another parent who had been through this before so I could get some help." Over the years I have listened to frustrated parents voice these feelings over and over again.  In answer to their requests, I have created this amazing toolkit.