Right after finals in June this year, The Free State of Jones came out in movie theaters. It stars Matthew McConaughey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Mahershala Ali, and tells the story of a white man, Newton Knight, who leads a counterrevolution during the Civil War. He argues that he will not fight for something, slavery, he does not believe in, and he defects from the confederate army into which he has been drafted and takes refuge with runaway slaves. As the war rages on, an increasing number of men also defect and join Knight in the swamplands of Mississippi, where it...
Read more »Each year in January, The Bay Area Tutoring Centers proctors about one hundred practice ACT tests at Monte Vista High School in Danville, CA. Shortly thereafter, we return the tests and present information about the test itself, content, scoring, etc., some quick strategies to improve scores, and some basic information about what we at the Tutoring Center do. This year is a unique year as there have been a few changes to the ACT test in 2015 and the SAT has been completely redesigned as of March 2016. In preparing for our presentation at Monte Vista this week, we have...
Read more »We challenge you to enter our spooky contest through our Facebook page by midnight on Halloween. Your mission, if you choose to accept it: Upload to our Facebook page, Bay Area Tutoring Centers, Inc., a fun piece about Halloween related to any subject that we tutor in the center and you will be automatically entered into a drawing to win one of six $10 gift cards from Peet’s coffee, Juice Zone, or Yogurt Land. Examples of possible submissions: English: Poem by Dorothy Parker Resume Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp. Guns aren’t...
Read more »It’s only October and you are already exhausted, only getting five hours of sleep a night, falling behind in some, or all, of your classes, and have been getting some grades on tests that aren’t your best. If none of the above applies to you, and you are confident that it will not happen in the future, stop reading now. You’re good to go. Still here? Okay. So you ask yourself: How do I catch up? How do I feel at least somewhat rested? What if I push myself to my limit just to get into college only to burn...
Read more »“Writing is like Math.” I have said this to many students, and I always get the same look of bewilderment. Yes, writing is like math. In both the upper case sense and the lower case. Writing, capital W, the classes we find in academia, and here in the Bay Area Tutoring Center for the SAT, is formulaic, like math. When working on grammar, which is the bulk of the Writing section on the SAT, the trick is to learn the rules and then apply them, repeatedly. It is truly the case that learning is a hands-on experience with the SAT...
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