About This Site
The Riveting Tale of Me
Hey. I’ve been helping students beat this test for years. In that time, I’ve mastered the test inside-and-out, and want to share my knowledge with the world for free. Aside from Khan Academy, which I have great admiration for, there are few good resources for free SAT prep. If you want to get started on mastering the SAT, just head to my SAT 101 guide.
My Mission
I want people to have access to real SAT prep for free. Not just some crappy blog posts that advertise expensive books or tutoring, and not just some garbage College Board official guides. I'm talking about the kind of prep an expert tutor would give you, breaking down the test and showing you how to abuse it.
Why the SAT is Problematic
First off, it’s completely fucked up that people with the money to afford tutoring can score hundreds of points higher than those without, and it’s my goal to help change that. Think of it this way - the fact that my profession (SAT tutoring) exists is direct evidence that the test is poorly designed. If you can pay me a thousand dollars to increase your score by 200 points, it's by definition a pay-to-win game. Yet the entire point of standardized testing is to measure someone natural intelligence, right?
On top the all that, SAT and it's parent company CollegeBoard have policies and practices that perpetuate this system of inequality. They copyright strike and threaten to sue anyone who posts their questions online, even when they are from publicly released practice tests that anybody can download from their own website.
What the hell, right?! If someone uploads a youtube tutorial going over a freely available practice test, it will be taken down promptly. But a privately paid tutor will sit down with you and go over those all day with no repurcussions. As far as I can tell, the SAT makers continue to do this because test prep and tutoring companies pay them good money in licensing fees and stuff like that, but letting people have free prep material loses them money.
They try and hide behind the guise of "oh we're just protecting our intellectual property, we don't want people to be able to copy our questions or learn too much about our test." That's complete and utter bullshit. Anyone who wants to access these tests for nefarious can just do a quick google search. Someone who wants access to them so that they can provide free prep, on the other hand, is fucked.
The Great Khan Academy
Don't Hurt Me, Genghis
I give them a hard time, but Khan Academy is still an incredible organization and you should check them out if (when?) you get tired of my profanity and general idiocy. They are only limited by their morality and desire to do everything properly and by the books. That's a pretty good reason to limit yourself.
While it's an amazing site and project, even Khan Academy isn't perfect - they have excellent material, but they tend to shy away from things like little tricks to improve your score, and focus more on actual learning of math concepts, grammar rules, etc. That's because in order to provide free prep, they had to partner directly and publicly with CollegeBoard, which is ironically the worst thing to do if you want to provide the best SAT prep. CollegeBoard, as the makers of the SAT, don't want you to know about all the tricks and exploits you can use to game the SAT and get free points without having to do much thinking. As a result, neither does Khan Academy. They want you to believe that doing well on the SAT is all about actual in-depth knowledge of grammar and math - give me a fuckin' break.
That being said, Khan Academy remains one of the best places to take online practice tests. They are official tests by the College Board, and they give you a good overview of your results. I recommend looking over my SAT 101 lessons and then taking a Khan Academy practice test as the first steps of your SAT studying.
Anyways, I'm here to make your SAT prep more efficient and more fun. I call out bullshit when I see it, and hopefully you get some laughs as you study.