Our mission is to educate and create better students by teaching proprietary skills, encouraging interest and saving time in order to not only gain admission to the next school, but to succeed there as well.
Why us for test prep?
About our system: The Three Fundamentals and the 8-point attack
Nowadays, every test preparation provider recognizes the need to deliver strategies as well as offer fundamental skills development. These purveyors vary by degrees ranging from the few elite avant-garde companies in the United States that develop their own materials to the out-of-date pretenders and charlatans found elsewhere. In both cases though, the preparation teaches towards the test. They are instructing the students to look straight at the test and attack it directly— either through a proportioned combination of baseline proficiency in the essential concepts and rudimentary strategies or, most commonly, through grinding repetition of learning and drilling content that the exam tests…exactly how the test makers plan for the students to take it.
Ivy Bridge has created its own test preparation manuals using its own unique strategy. We make sure our students have all the fundamental skill development and cutting-edge strategies they will need to take the exam head on…then add one more layer. In the same way someone has truly mastered a discipline if he or she can teach it, a test taker can truly master the exam by understanding how it is made. We not only show the blueprints and goals of the test architects but also allow the students to design and trial their own questions and answers. This third process gives them an unprecedented view into the mechanics of the test. The additional knowledge and perspective gained bolsters all the strategies they have learned, gives them supreme confidence in using them and decreases the chance of being tricked to an absolute minimum.
8-point attack for each lesson
Teach or remind the students of the global strategies such as estimation, pacing, POE (process of elimination), and how those global strategies will apply to the test section on which the lesson is focused for that class.
Introduce the concepts the exam intends to test, teach any of them not understood and show how the test makers test these concepts.
Let the students practice to make sure they understand the basics, familiarize themselves with the the way the basics are tested, and feel what it’s like to answer on the clock. [a chance to practice the global strategies and the basics]
Show all the tricks that are associated with the content of that class’s lesson.
Reveal the specific strategies to deal with the aforementioned tricks.
Be-the-test-maker: walks the students through how questions—especially the tricky ones—are made. They are given structured templates to create their own trick answers and questions. These are reviewed by the instructor and trialed on classmates.
Homework. Homework gives the opportunity—and challenge—to put everything they learned together. It is very important not only for the traditional purpose of homework, but also because on the real exam, the test makers will not announce what concept they are testing and when to use which strategy.
Break the Block. The ninjas that chop through bricks are not aiming at the first brick or the center brick, they are aiming at a point well beyond all of the bricks so that they will reach their goal. In this final training, students are given the absolute most difficult questions, often times from the most difficult questions of tests beyond their level, i.e. a difficult ACT question for a middle-level SSAT student or a difficult GMAT question for an SAT student. This exposure, even if the student cannot solve the problem, will make them more confident by knowing the real test is much easier as well as teach them to use strategy when they don’t know the answer.
Saving Time
Any competitor can, over a long period of time, improve a student’s reading comprehension (and other basics) using traditional approaches and copious repetitive drills. But Ivy Bridge knows that students have A LOT of other academic and extracurricular activities and that students DO NOT HAVE A LOT OF FREE TIME! That’s why it is so important to prepare smartly and take advantage of the strategies and flaws of the test.
Why us for writing coaching?
Writing is a special talent… most people know that. It also differentiates people—and candidates for positions—in a way that other abilities may not because writing allows the author to craft exactly what he or she wants to express AND how he or she wants what the audience to feel. This power is tremendous, and we understand how to develop it.
It is difficult to find any kind of writing coaching anywhere. In most schools, writing is left to develop in classes that focus on literature and history. Our course goes beyond that and rather than writing as just a supplement, it is in fact the subjects of philosophy, literature, and history that are the background and stimulation to develop writing skills. In addition to the benefits of familiarity with major works, thinking in a new, better way and learning how to write, the students will have a portfolio of compositions they can proudly show.
We at Ivy Bridge break down writing into small pieces. We do this by topics, categories, intention, audience… any way possible to make the lesson easily understood and digestible. Then, once the student has comprehended and written, we show how what he or she has done fits back into the whole idea. This moment is always special, as the students discover they can not only WRITE WELL but also SEE a larger picture that puts them on a plane above those who have not ventured down this path.
Our Obligation
Ivy Bridge is founded by educators who take great pleasure in sharing the wonderful road of enlightenment that we have delighted in ourselves. This joy is apparent in the carefully crafted curricula and meticulously created materials. We want every student to have as many ‘a-ha!’ moments as possible and will do whatever it takes to allow them to discover these treasures. Our students’ ambitions are the only limitation to how high we can climb with them.