Brian McElroy's Tutoring Blog

Brian's Original SAT Critical Reading Tips

Posted 2021-07-11

Brian McElroy lays out his 6-step strategy for cracking the Critical Reading Section of the SAT. Keep Reading

Brian's Comma Rule for the SAT Writing Section

Posted 2021-07-11

Hello to those of you preparing for the upcoming March SAT.
I’ve got a particularly powerful SAT Writing technique for you today. I came up with this rule because my students were struggling to understand how to properly use commas, and were getting SAT Writing questions wrong as a result. This type of error occurs frequently in the Sentence Improvement subsection of the Writing section, which is the first of three subsections (the other two are Error IDs and Improving Paragraphs).<... Keep Reading

SAT Score Choice, and SAT vs. ACT: What Do the Recent Policy Changes Mean to You?

Posted 2021-07-11

Brian breaks down the recent SAT policy changes regarding Score Choice, and the implications for this year's high school sophomores and juniors. Keep Reading

McElroy Tutoring Earns an A+ from the BBB!

Posted 2021-07-11

McElroy Tutoring Inc. has recently been granted a rare "A+" rating by the Better Business Bureau. Keep Reading

SAT Writing Error #1: "You and I" vs. "You and Me"

Posted 2021-07-11

Please correct the following sentence:
“Jessica and me went to the beach.”
Easy, right? Everybody knows this one. It’s “Jessica and I,” not “Jessica and me,” you say. Well, yes, you are correct. Congratulations.
How about this one:
“Would you like to come to the beach with Jessica and me?”
Same error, right? Nope. This one is actually 100% correct. Why is that? Well, technically “me” is an object... Keep Reading

SAT Scores of Brian McElroy's private tutoring students average over 2000 points

Posted 2021-07-11

I'm happy to announce that for the first time ever, my March SAT students have averaged a score of OVER 2000 on their final proctored SAT practice tests (using only REAL SATs) at the McElroy Tutoring main office!Congrats to everyone, and good luck on the real thing on Saturday.High scorers included scores of: 2250 (99th percentile)2160 (98th percentile)2120 (97th percentile)2080 (96th percentile)2070 (95th percentile)2000 (93rd percentile)-Brian... Keep Reading

Understanding the Order of Difficulty on the SAT, How to Pace Yourself, and why the SAT is like an Apple-Picking Contest (seriously!)

Posted 2021-07-11

In a future blog posting, I will explain the details of the SAT scoring system, and why it is important to understand that GUESSING DOES NOT HURT YOUR SCORE.However, this does not mean that you should try to answer all of the questions on each section. In fact, this will often work against you. NEARLY ALL STUDENTS SHOULD SKIP SOME QUESTIONS ON THE SAT. Why? Well, because although guessing in itself doesn't hurt you, SPENDING TOO MUCH OF YOUR TIME ON THE WRONG TYPES OF PRO... Keep Reading

SAT vs. ACT (comparison and score conversions..)

Posted 2021-07-11

SAT vs. ACT considerations. Keep Reading

SAT Math - Page 411 number 14

Posted 2021-07-11

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The following is an example of the notes I provide for my private tutoring students (my students' names will always be blocked out for privacy). This is an explanation of problem number 14 from page 411 of the Official SAT Study Guide (which I classify as an "Arrangement" problem), along with an additional lesson on Groupings. I will start posting more of these written lessons for free, along with recorded audio explanations (looking at the explanat... Keep Reading