Strong SAT and ACT scores are built over months, and often more than a year, of step-by-step, steady work. For many students, taking the SAT or ACT is a first major milestone on the road to their college applications, and it comes with its own pressures, both real and imagined. 

Starting early gives students the most flexibility, because their calendars fill with summer programs, competitions, training camps, and volunteering, on top of a growing academic workload. Academic and AP test dates, college visits, essays, and applications often arrive at the same time as official SAT and ACT tests, and we guide families through these overlaps. 

Each SAT and ACT program begins with targeted grammar and math notebooks and practice worksheets, which teach and refine the skills that each tested topic demands. From there, students move through practice sections to full tests from official sources as well as other publishers, and we review each one with the student one-on-one, question by question. In reviewing the tests together, our tutors can see where the habits and solutions that have served a student well in school need to change on these exams. Because student and tutor work together over a long stretch, there is time to recognize what needs to change and to build stronger habits and methods, until they become second nature.

Throughout, we coach students through prioritization and help them keep their momentum and a healthy perspective through the long lead times that strong scores usually require. It is a time of real self-examination, and one of the first times students are asked to show who they are, both academically and in their written statements. It is a pleasure to watch them gain confidence and a stronger sense of self-worth along the way.

Choosing between the GMAT and the GRE depends on several things: what target schools weigh, which tests they accept, and where each student’s strengths lie. Business schools increasingly accept more than one test, which makes the decision more nuanced for many students. At Xcel, we help students assess their strengths, and once the choice is clear, we prepare them according to our flexible, layered system. The first layer begins with a customized notebook and corresponding worksheets, followed by practice questions and sections, and finally full practice tests, both official and from other sources when available. Every element of each layer is reviewed in one-on-one, live sessions so that each student’s methodology and patterns can be identified and strengthened by their tutor. Because the same tutor stays with the student over the course of their entire program, the tutor comes to know how that student thinks and adjusts the work as the student’s relationship with the methods, materials, and test changes and grows. 

The MCAT tests more than what a student has memorized. It asks them to apply a very large body of science knowledge, from biology and psychology and sociology to general and organic chemistry and physics, to unfamiliar passages, and to read dense text critically under time pressure. Preparation moves through overlapping but clear stages, from mastering content to learning how to pace each section and make decisions under pressure, and our tutors diagnose where each student is and what comes next. We go beyond content to teach the specialized skills each section demands: the mental math critical for MCAT physics and chemistry, the logic required for biology, the terms that build the foundations needed for behavioral science, and the ability to systematize the passages the MCAT adapts from published sources. 

With so many scientific fields in play, our materials are tailored for this exam, and practice test review is central to our program. We go through every practice test with each student one-on-one, question by question, whether it’s an official exam, one written by another company, or material we develop ourselves. Our program prepares students to apply for both medical school and special master’s programs, whatever their immediate goal.

The LSAT has been restructured in recent years and now comprises Logical Reasoning, Reading Comprehension, and an unscored writing sample. With the removal of the Analytical Reasoning section (also known as Logic Games), the test is shorter. For some students, that is welcome news, but most find it harder to reach their goal scores. With fewer questions, each miss costs more, so test takers can afford fewer mistakes. While the LSAT requires no actual legal knowledge, it does test how well a student can read dense text and reason through challenging arguments. We teach the specialized skills, such as argument mapping and assumption negation, that help students identify what each question is really testing. 

Practice test review is essential to every program we teach, and for the LSAT it is where much of the learning happens. In reviewing tests together, an Xcel LSAT tutor sees how the student’s underlying assumptions and thought patterns affect their interpretation of the LSAT and teaches the student how the test builds its passages, arguments, and questions. With that expert view, students see their own assumptions clearly and learn to correct them.