“Our students walk away with more correct answers and higher confidence.”
- Hafeez Lakhani
SSAT / ISEE SAT ACT SAT Subject Tests AP/IB GRE GMAT LSAT MCAT
Testing
Standardized tests have an aura of import and mystery that can be intimidating. From our prospective these tests are important, but they are no mystery.
No student should expect to give her best performance without a carefully crafted program of skills growth—any more than she should expect to master a Beethoven symphony overnight.
Through an intimate, one-on-one process, our world-class coaches patiently teach the specific skills required for each test—the detailed reading strategy, finding the “aha moment” of various math scenarios, the nitty gritty grammar rules. But more importantly, we teach our students to ignite an earnest drive to make their ambition a reality. Our students don’t just walk away with more answers correct—they become better equipped to chase down goals of any kind.
Over and over, we’ve seen students achieve higher scores than they ever thought possible: SAT scores rising by 600 points, GMAT scores rising by 350 points, LSAT scores rising by 8 points.
In coaching standardized tests we harness our highly-effective 4-step method:
1) Goal Setting: We encourage every student to assign a numerical goal score based on expectations for desired admissions targets. No goal is too lofty so long as the student is willing to put in the work.
2) Diagnostic: We conduct a diagnostic exam. Understanding these results may be humble, we simply need to identify areas of strength and improvement before we begin the heavy lifting of skills growth.
3) Skills growth: In a rigorous one-on-one setting, we teach problem solving skills across all sections and subsections, with a particular focus on gap areas. We create detailed, personalized notes for each student alongside our overarching curriculum.
4) Drilling: Knowing that test-anxiety can be a hurdle helps us empower students to overcome it. Once the skills are there, we implement timed and untimed drilling, including a strict practice-test regimen shaped by a student’s customized testing calendar.
SSAT / ISEE
Preparing for a standardized test can be particularly intimidating for younger students preparing for elite private or boarding school admissions. Our coaches focus on removing the pressure from the process, as well as on identifying differences between what the student has learned in school and what the exam demands, such as specific formulas on the math section and familiarity with advanced vocabulary.
Through our diligent one-on-one approach, we teach quantitative and reading problem solving along with focused strategies around word charge, roots, and word associations.
SAT
We are perhaps most famous for the gains we’ve coached on the SAT, with students raising scores by as many as 600 points.
We take pride in helping students of all types, from a student with a learning difference who is looking to show his metal to a student who is committed to overcoming test anxiety, a 25th percentile scorer looking to break into the 75th percentile or a brilliant phenom gunning for a perfect score.
Our SAT practice receives one consistent response from students and parents: that the skills growth and commitment fosters a permanent growth in confidence.
ACT
While the ACT has a slightly less intimidating reputation than the SAT—students often report that it feels less difficult—our coaches know that the ACT’s scale can brutally punish a student who has not yet gained the lightening speed that the test requires.
Our practice balances the skills growth element—formulas, reading strategy, grammatical rules, charts reading technique—with a rigorous drilling practice that specifically targets the speed requirements of the ACT, resulting in score increases as dramatic as 12 points, as well as permanent gains in confidence.
SAT Subject Tests
What if you could get a former Wall Street trader, or Math major at Yale, to help you improve your Math2 Subject Test? What if a Political Science PhD could help you prepare for the U.S. History? What if a Cornell teaching assistant, or a Brown medical school student, could teach you Chemistry, Physics or Biology? At Lakhani Coaching we are proud to make these matches possible, and most importantly in our Subject Test approach, we move quickly to help students fill content gaps that a given high school course—even if it is AP or IB—leaves behind.
It is not uncommon for our instructors to teach a Math II student complex probability for the first time, or a Chemistry student thermodynamics and rate laws, or to delve into advanced vocabulary with a Spanish or Chinese language student.
Subject Tests play an important role—even when they are not strictly required—in helping an advanced student differentiate herself in a competitive applicant pool. While AP or IB scores may be self-reported, Subject Tests scores come officially from the College Board to put a student’s hard earned expertise on display.
AP / IB
AP and IB curricula are some of the best ways to demonstrate the absolute rigor a student has sought out in particular subjects. As with our approach on Subject Tests, we work past any stress created from these demanding courses and quickly fill gaps in knowledge that even a fantastic teacher may have left.
GRE
Students preparing for the GRE begin in a wide variety of starting positions—some are coming straight out of college and are used to studying for academic exams, while others haven’t set foot in an academic setting in years.
Our coaches are adept at helping both groups prepare for the GRE, utilizing our focused four-step method (read more about GDSD here), to help a variety of students from an aspiring Physics Phd to a Master’s student in Journalism to everything in between.
GMAT
The GMAT requires intense preparation. It’s the most widely taken graduate-level admissions test globally and is scored on an extremely tough curve (especially on the Quantitative section). It also requires more rigorous focus on time management than any other standardized test.
The GMAT also incorporates concepts that most students preparing for business school have not reviewed since high school, if at all—including quadratic equations, angular geometry, and combinatorics. Our coaches help students sort through a vast set of material quickly and develop a custom time-management strategy.
LSAT
Possibly the most mentally challenging standardized test in the American canon, the LSAT requires an intense focus on logic—something few students have ever formally studied. Our coaches have ample experience helping students recognize the many traps and pitfalls hidden in the LSAT, and are experts in coaching for complicated Logic Game problems.
MCAT
While most of the exams we coach test problem solving ability, the MCAT also demands an enormous wealth of subject knowledge. We approach the process with the same care: our program begins with a close examination of a diagnostic test for specific strengths and improvement areas—whether in critical analysis and reasoning or in organic chemistry and physics—before implementing rigorous one-on-one instruction targeting knowledge gaps and intensive practice from large banks of past problems and officially administered exams.
SSAT/ISEE
Preparing for a standardized test can be particularly intimidating for younger students preparing for elite private or boarding school admissions. Our coaches focus on removing the pressure from the process, as well as on identifying differences between what the student has learned in school and what the exam demands, such as specific formulas on the math section and familiarity with advanced vocabulary.
Through our diligent one-on-one approach, we teach quantitative and reading problem solving along with focused strategies around word charge, roots, and word associations.
SAT
We are perhaps most famous for the gains we’ve coached on the SAT, with students raising scores by as many as 600 points.
We take pride in helping students of all types, from a student with a learning difference who is looking to show his metal to a student who is committed to overcoming test anxiety, a 25th percentile scorer looking to break into the 75th percentile or a brilliant phenom gunning for a perfect score.
Our SAT practice receives one consistent response from students and parents: that the skills growth and commitment fosters a permanent growth in confidence.
ACT
While the ACT has a slightly less intimidating reputation than the SAT—students often report that it feels less difficult—our coaches know that the ACT’s scale can brutally punish a student who has not yet gained the lightening speed that the test requires.
Our practice balances the skills growth element—formulas, reading strategy, grammatical rules, charts reading technique—with a rigorous drilling practice that specifically targets the speed requirements of the ACT, resulting in score increases as dramatic as 12 points, as well as permanent gains in confidence.
SAT Subject Tests
What if you could get a former Wall Street trader, or Math major at Yale, to help you improve your Math2 Subject Test? What if a Political Science PhD could help you prepare for the U.S. History? What if a Cornell teaching assistant, or a Brown medical school student, could teach you Chemistry, Physics or Biology? At Lakhani Coaching we are proud to make these matches possible, and most importantly in our Subject Test approach, we move quickly to help students fill content gaps that a given high school course—even if it is AP or IB—leaves behind.
It is not uncommon for our instructors to teach a Math II student complex probability for the first time, or a Chemistry student thermodynamics and rate laws, or to delve into advanced vocabulary with a Spanish or Chinese language student.
Subject Tests play an important role—even when they are not strictly required—in helping an advanced student differentiate herself in a competitive applicant pool. While AP or IB scores may be self-reported, Subject Tests scores come officially from the College Board to put a student’s hard earned expertise on display.
AP / IB
AP and IB curricula are some of the best ways to demonstrate the absolute rigor a student has sought out in particular subjects. As with our approach on Subject Tests, we work past any stress created from these demanding courses and quickly fill gaps in knowledge that even a fantastic teacher may have left.
GRE
Students preparing for the GRE begin in a wide variety of starting positions—some are coming straight out of college and are used to studying for academic exams, while others haven’t set foot in an academic setting in years.
Our coaches are adept at helping both groups prepare for the GRE, utilizing our focused four-step method (read more about GDSD here), to help a variety of students from an aspiring Physics Phd to a Master’s student in Journalism to everything in between.
GMAT
The GMAT requires intense preparation. It’s the most widely taken graduate-level admissions test globally and is scored on an extremely tough curve (especially on the Quantitative section). It also requires more rigorous focus on time management than any other standardized test.
The GMAT also incorporates concepts that most students preparing for business school have not reviewed since high school, if at all—including quadratic equations, angular geometry, and combinatorics. Our coaches help students sort through a vast set of material quickly and develop a custom time-management strategy.
LSAT
Possibly the most mentally challenging standardized test in the American canon, the LSAT requires an intense focus on logic—something few students have ever formally studied. Our coaches have ample experience helping students recognize the many traps and pitfalls hidden in the LSAT, and are experts in coaching for complicated Logic Game problems.
MCAT
While most of the exams we coach test problem solving ability, the MCAT also demands an enormous wealth of subject knowledge. We approach the process with the same care: our program begins with a close examination of a diagnostic test for specific strengths and improvement areas—whether in critical analysis and reasoning or in organic chemistry and physics—before implementing rigorous one-on-one instruction targeting knowledge gaps and intensive practice from large banks of past problems and officially administered exams.