Who I am and how I am qualified: My name is Jeff, and beyond an M.A. in History/Literature and teaching credential from Indiana University, I have taught in World Languages, History, and English departments at both the high school and university levels. I began working as an SAT tutor part time five years ago, before ultimately earning the opportunity to become an SAT Prep Curriculum Director more than two years ago.
Why I started The Verbal Method: After working with well over 100 students, a clear pattern emerged: high achieving/gifted students whose SAT Reading and Writing scores did not match their academic achievements and ability. Sure, some students who excelled in school picked up the SAT quickly and worked their way up to elite scores without much issue, but many other excellent students seemed to struggle to translate their academic success into elite SAT scores.
Of course, this counterintuitive phenomenon caught my eye, and upon looking closely into dozens of test results from students who fit this description, two primary causes stood out; the first is that the SAT rewards a different set of skills than what students’ classwork often does. More specifically, students are trained in school to read slowly, think deeply, and use intuition to interpret meaning. But on the SAT, success depends on the ability to quickly locate clear textual evidence. This disconnect can punish high-achieving students because their instinct to read closely and consider nuance often leads to overthinking and pacing issues when the test instead requires fast, literal decisions grounded in the text.
The second issue is nearly universal but exceedingly learnable: a lack of true mastery of foundational grammar conventions and trouble decoding high level, academic texts in a timely manner. In order to obtain an elite score, students must be 100% comfortable with their understanding of when to, for example, use a comma or a semicolon. If there is any doubt in these basic grammar conventions, students will be punished by the SAT. Additionally, if students feel overwhelmed by the task of having to quickly comprehend dense, academic writing, they, again, will be punished by the SAT. The good news, however, is that these skillsets are highly learnable.
With this understanding of why such a surprising number of high achieving students struggle to score 700+ on the SAT Reading and Writing section, and the fact that there are so few resources for students struggling with this disparity, I decided to start The Verbal Method. Over a year of research and writing has gone into building the framework for this curriculum, and new materials are added to it weekly. The Verbal Method is quickly becoming the ultimate resource for students seeking to turn good SAT Reading and Writing scores into elite scores.
To get started, take a free, detailed diagnostic exam here, and click here to read the Ultimate Guide to Scoring 700+ on SAT Reading and Writing. In it, you will find the top, overarching rules with links to over a dozen, in-depth articles that will help guide your journey to unlocking the 700’s. Best of luck and happy studying!
