Why Bad Test Takers?
We’re a team of experienced tutors who specialize in helping students boost their ACT scores. But we’re not naturally gifted at standardized tests. We definitely weren’t born with whatever genetic blessing it is that makes some people perform exceptionally well on standardized tests with little to no effort.
And yet, when we take the ACT, we regularly score in the top 1% of test takers (between 33 and 36). How? We figured out not only know what it takes to do well on the ACT but also how to teach regular test takers like us to considerably improve their ACT scores.
In our experience, the earlier a student can begin preparing for the ACT, the better. We recommend starting no later than your sophomore year in high school, but we’ve worked with students as young as seventh or eighth grade. Many students, however, don’t begin worrying about the ACT until their junior or senior years. Of course, dedicated students can still make impressive gains in their scores, even if they start later. They just have to work harder and learn to think strategically about the test.
We’ve been able to help every type of student approach the test in a smarter way. We regularly have why students who score in the upper 20s and whom we help break into the 30s, but we mainly help students who score in the low 20s or teens. In fact, we’ve become specialists at helping students with an average (or even below average) score to see tremendous gains in their ACT scores.
How do we get such great results? We excel at teaching strategic thinking to students taking the ACT. We begin by showing students what they truly need to know about the ACT and why they should reject the “programming” they acquired in school about how to approach tests. We then offer our students a much more effective and logical attack plan for the ACT, which transforms them into much smarter and much more analytical test takers.
We have helped well over a thousand students reach their ACT target scores. Now, let us help you.
The Bad Test Takers Team
Founded by ACT expert and author Moshe Ohayon, Bad Test Takers includes a team of highly experienced tutors who specialize in the ACT and in helping students to boost their ACT scores.
What surprises our students most about us?
We definitely haven’t forgotten how dreadful it is to take the ACT. Why not? Because we still take it ourselves. That’s right. We wake up early on the occasional Saturday morning to go take the ACT at actual test centers. Obviously, we don’t love going through that nearly 4-hour ordeal on a Saturday morning. Just imagine how awkward it is for us on test day – it’s not fun being the weird, “old” person in a room full of high school students.
Why do we torture ourselves then? Two reasons. First, to be true experts on ACT prep, we think we should take the exam regularly; we should be able to put ourselves in our students’ shoes. Since we wouldn’t take advice from someone who has to rely on the memory of a test they took 20+ years ago, we don’t think you should either. Second, we think it’s important to make sure our strategies not only remain effective but continually improve.
So, how do we score on ACTs? We regularly score in the 99th percentile, which means we earn scores between 33 and 36. That may sound impressive to you, but it’s important to notice that we don’t get a 36 every time on every section. Why not? Because we’re human, just like you. We make mistakes too, but we’re also always analyzing test questions for how to prevent these errors. As a result, our students benefit. Almost all test takers make errors, careless or otherwise. But we’ve become experts at minimizing them, and we teach our students how to do the same thing.
What surprises parents most about us?
We’re not ashamed to say that we were once bad test takers ourselves. We readily admit that we weren’t born with whatever genetic blessing it is that makes some people perform exceptionally well on standardized tests with little to no effort. In fact, we personally know the frustration that comes from doing well in school but feeling like your ACT score doesn’t match your grades or honestly reflect your true abilities.
But we came to understand that what works in school doesn’t directly translate to success on the ACT. So, we figured out what it takes to get regular students to significantly improve their performance on the ACT. We literally spent hundreds of hours studying how the ACT is scored, the types of questions the ACT asks, the patterns that the ACT employs, and everything else we could find out about the ACT. We studied this test like crazy and have become true experts at it. Try us out and see. You won’t be disappointed.