As with other admission exams, the Independent School Entrance Examination, or ISEE, in Orinda may cause students to feel a bit disheartened. They don’t have to worry because there are tips available to help them prepare. The Internet is a vast resource of information which may be helpful to students who plan to take the ISEE. Here are our tips to help you pass and enroll at an independent school of your choice:
- Take time to do a good bit of reading as this will help, in fact, we recommend that you read as much as you can. While it’s all right to read contemporary literature, you should also read the classics such as the works of Shakespeare and Mark Twain, as well as national newspapers. Independent and diversified reading can make a difference.
Whenever you encounter unfamiliar words and phrases, highlight them with a marker, and then find out what they mean. Remember those words and phrases. Try composing sentences using them. Reading not only helps improve your vocabulary but also makes you well informed about current events as well as classic literature. Besides, being a well-read person makes you better prepared for the challenges and demands of independent private schools, which generally have higher standards of learning. You may also find that reading can be a lot of fun! - Test and develop your reading comprehension skills while you’re reading. Make a quiz on a chapter or a passage that you’ve just read. Can you summarize the storyline of a paragraph? If you find it hard to understand, don’t hesitate to leave a mark on that particular text or highlight important passages while you’re reading. Make a note about the important plots or characters as well to assist your comprehension.
- Making your own timed practice tests can be really helpful. Through this timed practice test you will learn which areas you find easy to answer and solve, and which areas you need to work on improving. You can also look online to find free practice ISEE tests you can use.
- It shouldn’t hurt to know a thing or two about strategies for answering ISEE questions. In the synonym question for instance, you are confronted with words. Some of them you will know quite well, some of them you know fairly well, and other words you may not know at all. So the first strategy is to answer questions with words that you know well, and then to the questions with words that you fairly know, and then lastly to the words that you don’t know at all. Make the best guesses possible on the words you don’t know at all, but pay attention to the context of the sentence. You may be able to determine that one of the choices sounds close to the word in question. Be sure to answer every question in the last few minutes you spend in this section.
The process of elimination is also a good strategy. This strategy means you eliminate the answer choices that you know are incorrect. For instance, you’re faced with five answer choices and you cross out three that you find to be incorrect. Then you’re left with two answer choices — this will give a 50-50 chance to guess the right answer. - It is always recommended that you start studying and reviewing several months before the test day. It will give you plenty of time to learn and acquaint yourself with the coursework. Cramming won’t get you anywhere, and chances are you won’t score well on the ISEE when using this method of preparing for the test.
If these suggestions are not to your liking, you can also hire a qualified tutor like one of the tutors from Apex College Prep. Since tutors are familiar with admission tests such as the ISEE, they will help you to become accustomed to its test sections, questions, and problems. These tutors also have the knowledge that as the test progresses, the more difficult these questions which may prove too challenging for the test-taker. Apex College Prep will help students to get prepare even for the harder sections of the ISEE in Orinda.