John's Test Prep Blog - Tutoring by John - Serving Berkeley, San Francisco, Alameda & San Jose.

Quick Note for the January 23, 2016 SAT

12/28/2015

Hi there, students and other blog readers! We’ve just gotten done with one SAT, and the next SAT date’s coming soon! This will be the last date before the “new SAT” goes into effect in March, so it’s a good idea to take this one, just in case you’re better at the old format than the new, more ACT-like one (which I personally dislike).

First of all, make sure you’re registered for the test (I know, it’s obvious, but people can forget even the most obvious things). The deadline is literally TODAY, at midnight Eastern time (so that’s 9 pm Pacific time, so if you’re in California, which you likely are if you’re reading this, get this done by 9!). See https://sat.collegeboard.org/register for details.

Secondly, use your winter break time to STUDY. Look at the vocabulary lists and flash cards in the Barron’s SAT book or whatever SAT prep book you have. If you don’t have a book with such lists and/or flash cards, go buy one or get one from the public library near you. Study the writing questions, especially the idiom questions (e.g., we say “ability to” not “ability for” – these are tricky because there’s no rhyme or reason to them, so you just have to memorize them), comparison error questions (e.g., “John’s bike is cooler than Fred”), and the idea that the use of “they” or “their” as gender-neutral singular pronouns doesn’t work in SAT Land (you have to use “his or her” or “him or her,” even though we’ve all been using “them” and “their” for a long time – it’s also what Facebook does).

Go through the math section of your review book – don’t skip over or “blow off” the “basic arithmetic,” geometry, probability, counting, or “logical reasoning” questions – even if you think “Oh, that’s easy, I totally rocked that back in ninth grade,” the point is, YOU WERE IN NINTH GRADE. That was long enough ago for you to forget important concepts.

Make sure you:

Review the geometry of lines, circles, triangles, cubes, and cylinders.

Know how to handle addition and multiplication problems like “In the correctly worked-out multiplication problem ABA * ACA = BBA, each letter is substituted for a different number. Find the value of A.”

Know how to answer questions such as “Jack and Jill are the 121st and 357th people in line for the new Star Wars movie. How many people are between them?” You may have to do more than just subtract 121 from 357 (okay, you DO – try it with Jack as the 2nd and Jill as the fourth. How many are between Jack and Jill now? Is that equal to 4 – 2? Extrapolate from that result.)

Know what negative and fractional exponents do – that is, what they are in terms of normal exponents and square roots (Personally, I forgot this stuff until I needed to relearn it, and I’m guessing you did too). Remember that multiplication is just repeated addition, and exponents are repeated multiplication, so, for example 3+3+3 = 3 3, and 333 = 33. These facts will help with some trick SAT questions, as will remembering that when you multiply two powers of the same base, you just add the exponents, and you subtract when you divide. For example, 33 32 is 35, and 33/32 is 31, which is just 3 (oh yeah, anything to the first power is itself, and anything to the zero power is 1). However, (33)2 = 36, and the square root of 36 = 33. Review my previous blog entries on how to write an essay, and review that section in your SAT prep book.

*Take at LEAST one complete practice SAT test under timed conditions- the official SAT practice test is available at https://sat.collegeboard.org/practice/sat-practice-test , and you can find a truckload of other free practice SAT tests simply by using a search engine to find “free SAT practice test.”

It’s also a great idea to get in some time with an actual SAT tutor like me (yes, this is a shameless plug ;-) ). It’s easier to sit down and do the work when someone is there with you to explain things and keep you on point, especially when you’re working on a subject you DON’T like (e.g., the reading if you’re a math person; the math if you’re more of a verbal person). Again, the sooner you do this, the better, since cram studying doesn’t work (science has proven this, as I’ve noted in one of my earliest blog entries), and tutor availability declines greatly as test dates near (supply and demand), so you’re paying the same or more money for results (and possibly tutors!) that won’t be as good.

In any event – good luck on the SAT, and feel free contact me with any questions you may have. I’ll be posting more blogs soon. :-)

How to Have Your Review Taken Seriously.

12/26/2015

Disclaimer: I have no idea how Yelp’s filtering algorithm works, and I’ve seen Yelp filter out a positive review of my business by one of my best customers, but that experience, along with what I’ve found online, has given me some ideas to pass on to you. Here are my suggestions for how to have a Yelp review NOT be filtered and hidden (“hidden” reviews can be seen by clicking on a link attached to an announcement that the reviews are not recommended.)

Be Real.
First, use your real name and picture. While your pets are cute, and lots of people like cartoon characters, using them as your picture on a site that doesn’t publish your last name doesn’t make people believe they can trust you. Clever nicknames like “OaklandRater” or “SanFranciscoFortyDiner” are awesome (I just made those up - no one’s using them as far as I know), but again, if you won’t trust me with your first name and last initial, why would I trust you to be honest and not just a troll?

Second, try to sound like a normal person having a conversation with the person reading your review. (“The reader.”) I can be one of the biggest offenders in this area – I’ve been accused of cutting and pasting things from websites when discussing academic topics online. I chose to take that as a compliment about my clear, articulate academic writing style. ;-) But seriously, if your review sounds like the work of a professional advertising writer (e.g. “Dessert Den will Tantalize your taste buds with its tasty treats!”), someone who’s a little too familiar with your business and/or industry (e.g., using tons of industry jargon “I bought a model XJQ-47 nuclear-powered roto-plooker” bonus points if you know where I got that from) or something Sideshow Bob or Mr. Burns from the Simpsons would write (“While John is a very diligent tutor, he favors his students with his wonderful whimsy…”), it’s not going to be taken very seriously, if it’s even understood by most readers. Use simple, easy-to-understand language in your review.

Thirdly, the most important part of being real is to BE TRUTHFUL! If your reviews aren’t truthful, people won’t take them seriously once they find out they can’t trust you. If you’re writing a review of your friend’s business, but haven’t used your friend’s business, be truthful and SAY that in the review. [Full Disclosure – the three first, and only, reviews of my business on my Facebook page as of this writing are by Facebook friends who haven’t used my services. They’re also too general to be useful, so while I appreciate them (thanks, FB pals!), don’t use them to judge my services…]

You certainly don’t want to be like the group of businesses that were caught making up positive reviews for each other that were either false, or at best, didn’t mention the businesses’ owners or agents were all members of the same business networking group. See the Time magazine article and http://business.time.com/2012/07/06/the-yelp-conspiracy-how-a-group-of-businesses-conspired-to-get-better-yelp-ratings/ and the L.A. Times article it cites: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/04/business/la-fi-yelp-reviews-20120704

Also, a false review that makes a business or an individual professional look bad may qualify as “defamation,” “libel,” “unfair business practices,” and other violations of the civil law that can result in your having to pay money to the business or person about whom you wrote the review, and could imaginably lead to other court-ordered conditions you may not like (perhaps an injunction that prohibits your posting further reviews). NOTE: This isn’t legal advice; I’m not eligible to practice law in any jurisdiction; if you have a legal problem, go see a lawyer instead of making decisions based on anything I’ve written here.

Finally, posting fake reviews will just make you look like an idiot. The obvious response of any savvy business owner to any negative review you wrote from then on would be to cite how you were found liable for libel (for some fun, say that a few times fast) in relation to a fake Yelp review, or how you have left obviously-false positive reviews for your friend’s - or even worse, your own – business.

For example, see this small business owner’s way of dealing with fake Yelp reviews that were left for him [WARNING- he uses some R-rated language in the videos, so they may be NSFW or inappropriate for young children] click here.

For the whole saga, click here [again, may be unsafe for work/kids].

If you’d like to avoid that sort of (justifiable) treatment by an enraged business owner – be kind, truthful, and fair in your Yelp reviews (especially if you own your own business and he or she can leave reviews for yours)!

Be Kind.

If you’re about to leave a bad review, but you’ve had previous good experiences with the same business, MAKE SURE YOU MENTION THAT. If you see an obvious reason that might explain the poor service you received, again, MENTION THAT. If you patronize the same business again, and you find the service has improved, by all means, MENTION THAT.

If you’re having a bad day, WAIT before posting the review. Write a draft in your word processing program, THEN read it the next day. Not only will it help you catch spelling and grammar errors by proofreading it, it will let you consider if the service was really THAT bad, or if your perception of the service was affected by whatever other bad things that happened to you that day. Even then, try to be kind and fair (see below), and, if it’s true, mention that you rarely write bad reviews and are usually happy to ignore minor inconveniences, but you still have to leave this bad review.

If you’re leaving a good review, don’t praise the business by trashing its competitors. First of all, it makes your review look fake (think about it – would an unscrupulous business owner write fake reviews of his or her business praising it and trashing its competitors? You bet he or she would.)

Second, complaining about a business in a review of another business makes you look like a malcontent. If you want to say bad things about another business, review THAT business. By the way, at the time of this writing, I have had NO bad reviews of my tutoring business, so this isn’t personal or aimed at anyone in particular.

Be Fair.

If you are going to leave a bad review, but haven’t asked the business to “make it right” and fix the problem, or even complained to a manager or the owner about the problem, it’s really unfair to make a scathing review the first notice to the business about the problem. Don’t do it.

Think about it – do you work better with supervisors or co-workers who explain the problem they have with your performance, then give you a chance to fix the problem, or people who immediately tell everyone BUT you how your work is awful, you should be fired immediately, and you shouldn’t even be in your industry?

Also, as mentioned above, if the business normally gives you great service, mention that – don’t just trash them for the ONE time they did a bad job without pointing out that it’s not your usual experience with that business.

Be specific.

Explain your specific experience- “I hired John to tutor my son for the SAT” or “I needed to get the muffler replaced on my car.” How much did the service cost? Did it match the estimate, if you were given an estimate of the cost before the work was done? What exactly made you feel good or bad about the service? Would you recommend the service to a friend? Why or why not?

Be Professional.

Don’t use profanity! I know, awful service may make you so angry that you want to comment “This place is fing horrible! Don’t eat here!” or great service may make you want to write “John is fing awesome!” Don’t do it. Just as your parents, teachers, and others taught you when you were a child, profanity shows the reader that you are either so inarticulate that you can’t express extreme emotion without swearing or you have really poor impulse control. The reader may even think both things about you, or just think you’re a fake reviewer trying to smear the business, especially if the review isn’t very specific.

“No, seriously, it wasn’t just terrible, it was F***ING TERRIBLE!” isn’t going to be anywhere near as effective as “I eat at Italian restaurants all the time, including the ones in this area. This one is clearly subpar; the marinara sauce tastes like something Chef Boy-ar-dee would offer. In fact, never mind that, I’d rather eat Chef Boy-ar-dee Ravioli from a can for about $2 than pay the $15 I paid for this horrid mess of an entree.”

The problem with really angry, profane remarks is they make YOU look like a crazy person who couldn’t be pleased under any circumstances and they’re just not specific. If I write “This place is run by a bunch of [insert swear word here!]s,” your natural thought will be “Okay, John, in what way are the people running that place such [expletive here]s? Were they rude? Incompetent? Did the job take way longer and cost much more than what they told you, for no good reason?”

People will apply the same logic to your reviews, and if you’re really nasty and profane, they’ll just assume you have some personal problem with this business, or you just have personal problems in general. This applies doubly if you’re not specific.
Take it easy on the exclamation points! (Yes, I ended that with an exclamation point to be ironic). An article on how Cornell University and other researchers have developed an algorithm to detect fake hotel reviews detector (here’s a link to the page for a detector based on that research) above mentions the excessive use of exclamation points as a sign a yelp review isn’t real.

Be Active:
What do I mean, “Be active?” I mean, leave lots of Yelp reviews, including both positive and negative ones. The more reviews you leave, especially ones that aren’t all positive or all negative (see above), the more likely people, including the review site moderators or staff, are to trust your reviews. Obviously, a guy who posts one really nasty review, then goes completely inactive, is going to be less trustworthy than someone who’s posted hundreds of reviews.