When I first started developing ISEE curriculum back in 2002, I did an exhaustive search evaluating all the ISEE test prep books on the market. The best book at the time was published by the Princeton Review. What I especially liked about the Princeton Review is that they had a philosophy of learning vocabulary in conjunction with Latin and Greek roots. This approach gave students tools to pick apart more words than they could learn on their own, and it has been a very effective method over the last 14 years in helping students to ace the verbal sections of the test.
While the Princeton Review had a good section on vocabulary, with over 40 pages and an extensive list of words known to be favorites of the test makers, it was not very user friendly. I developed over 50 vocabulary lessons incorporating Latin and Greek roots which became the basis for our work on building a student’s vocabulary. We also have weekly vocabulary quizzes, cumulative quizzes, and verbal worksheets based on the test format for synonyms and sentence completions. Our students’ verbal test scores last year were in the 80th percentile. Clearly this approach is working well for our students.
Imagine my surprise when I looked at the 2017 version of the Princeton Review book and saw that the verbal section has been reduced to 9 pages, and all definitions for words have been eliminated! Students relying on this list alone will have significant gaps in their preparation for the verbal section of the test.
The essay section of the Princeton Review used to have a great section on writing the essay that contained over 40 pages, and walked students step-by-step through how to respond to various prompts, how to craft an essay in 30 minutes (the time limit on the test) and how to develop idea banks of examples to use on a variety of essay topics. The writing section is now cropped down to 5 pages, with all of this content deleted.
We expanded on the approach in the Princeton Review book and developed a series of writing lesson plans to help students hone their writing skills, and work on the specific format of the ISEE essay. Students relying on the scant material in the Princeton Review 2017 ISEE test prep book will have little assistance in preparing for the essay portion of the test.
The ISEE math section of the Princeton Review book used to be over 60 pages, and it contained many valuable practice drills to help students master many of the challenging concepts presented on the test. The ISEE math section has been reduced to 25 pages, and the practice drills have been moved on-line, with a very small side bar note in the book recommending students go on-line to access the practice drills.
We developed a series of 32 math lessons for each of the three ISEE levels: lower, middle and upper level, to delve deeper into the math content on the test and give students more practice with the new concepts. The math curriculum was designed to teach students how to solve the problems, not just teach them to guess between four answer choices. Our program builds skills that help students in school now, and in the future.
Princeton Review has also migrated all the verbal and reading practice drills on-line, and reduced the content in these sections as well.
The ISEE test changed in 2010, and over 6 years later none of the test prep books on the market has been updated to include all the new material. The ISEE is a very niche market for book publishers, and it does not get the attention that more popular tests such as the SAT and the ACT receive.
Every few years we shop the competition and ask what material they use to prepare students for ISEE test prep. The vast majority of companies rely on these outdated and incomplete books to prepare students. We have yet to find a company that has the extensive and customized math, vocabulary and writing lessons plans used by our tutoring center.
It is a shame that these companies are giving consumers less material every year for the same price. When you buy these books, there will be a lot of work required to supplement the missing material in order to best prepare students for the test. It has taken us many years to develop the material we use, and we are constantly refining our lessons plans to garner the best possible results for our students. It has been a significant investment of time and money for us to develop these materials, but it has paid off in the results we see each year from our students.
Do your homework and make sure the material being used to prepare your child for the test is the most up-to-date material available!
Anne Yount Boston ISEE Prep 617-553-8083 www.bostoniseeprep.com - Test Prep for the ISEE & Latin School Exam Boston Tutoring Center 617-553-8083 www.bostontutoringcenter.com - Tutoring Grades K-12 Boston Private School Search 617-553-0540 www.bostonprivateschoolsearch.com - Your Resource for Private School Admissions Follow my blog at: www.privateschoolguru.com/blog