Local SAT Tutor Recommends Students Learn Their Way Around Tests

More than 5,000 students from the Hillsborough area all have something in common: they all prepared for the dreaded S.A.T. exam with a local course offered by S.A.T. SMART,  founded by Hillsborough resident Susan Alaimo back in the spring of 1995. 

“Just a few weeks after the birth of my youngest child, I offered the first S.A.T. SMART course to 10 students in an office in the K-Mart shopping center,” Alaimo said. “S.A.T. SMART kept expanding, moving first to a conference room in the Days Inn Hotel, and then to the Hillsborough Municipal Building and Immaculata High School where about 300 students are prepared each year for their P.S.A.T. and S.A.T. exams.  

“As the S.A.T. SMART program grew, so did my four children and my youngest, Nicholas, who was a newborn at the company’s inception, will be a freshman at The College of New Jersey in the fall!” she added.

Alaimo is passionate about education, and says it is vital to help each student reach his or her potential on the all-important S.A.T. exam. 

“The S.A.T. is the one level playing field where colleges compare students from all different types of high schools, from all over the country and even the world,” Alaimo explained. “Most people don’t know that the S.A.T. is marked on a curve, so students are actually in competition with each other. It’s too important a test to go into cold, not knowing the strategy or how to best tackle the test.”

The three areas on the S.AT., Math, Critical Reading and Writing, are each scored on a scale ranging from 200 to 800 points—but the strategy for each area is quite different, Alaimo said.

“The math questions are presented in order from easy to hard, so students should work with care to be sure to get the beginning easy questions correct,” she said. “They should not rush and risk making careless mistakes, because they are only heading for the toughest questions, which are deliberately designed so that most students get them wrong.” 

The Critical Reading questions, according to Alaimo, are another story.  “The Critical Reading questions, at the end of the long and tedious passages, do not go from easy to hard—the first questions are based on the first few paragraphs, and they continue in sequential order as to how the material is presented in the passage," Alaimo said. "So the best strategy is to read the passage one paragraph at a time, answering the questions as you move through the passage.”

How does S.A.T. SMART differ from other prep courses?  According to Alaimo, who earned a Master’s Degree from Columbia University and is an S.A.T. teacher and College Counselor at a private high school in Princeton, a key difference is that she uses all College Board material in the course. 

“The directions, sample questions, box of math formulas, and format of the questions on our practice material are identical to what the students face on the actual test,” reports Alaimo.  “My goal is to instill confidence in my students while insuring that they understand the strategy of the test and are prepared for the type of material on which they will be tested.  I’ve had many students improve by hundreds of points.  It’s extremely rewarding to help students reach their potential and get accepted to the college of their dreams. And the higher their S.A.T. scores, the more scholarship money they are awarded!”

S.A.T. SMART launched a new website in time for the 2013 summer season, and summer classes are being offered at the Hillsborough Municipal Building, the Bridgewater YMCA, and, for the first time, at Rider University.