Ivy Bridge 

The Ivy Bridge Test Preparation System

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About our system: The Three Fundamentals and the 8 point attack

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Nowadays, every test preparation provider recognizes the need to deliver strategies as well as offer fundamental skills development.  These purveyors vary by degrees ranging from the few elite avant-garde companies in the United States that develop their own materials to the out-of-date pretenders and charlatans found elsewhere.  In both cases though, the test preparation teaches towards the test—they are instructing the students to look straight at the test and attack it directly either through a smartly proportioned combination of essential proficiencies [drop down menu] and clever strategies or grinding repetition of learning content that the exam tests.

Ivy Bridge has created its own test preparation manuals using its own unique strategy.  We make sure our students have all the fundamental skill development and cutting-edge strategies they will need to take the exam head on…then add one more layer.  In the same way someone has truly mastered a discipline if he or she can teach it, a test taker can truly master the exam by understanding how it is made.  We not only show the blueprints and goals of the test architects but also allow them to design and trial their own questions and answers.  This third process gives them an unprecedented view into the mechanics of the test.  The additional knowledge and perspective gained bolsters all the strategies they have learned, gives them supreme confidence in using them and decreases the chance of being tricked to an absolute minimum.

 

8-point attack for each lesson

To tell them or remind them of the global strategies such as pacing, (pood), poe, and how those global strategies will apply to the test section of which is the lesson focus for that class.

Introduce the concepts the test intends to test, teach any of them not understood and show how the test makers test these concepts.

Let the students practice to make sure they understand the basics, familiarize themselves with the the way the basics are tested, and feel what it’s like to answer on the clock.  [a chance to practice the global strategies and the basics]

Show all the tricks that are associated with the content of that class’ lesson.

Reveal the specific strategies to deal with the aforementioned tricks

Be the test maker walks the students through how questions—especially the tricky ones—are made.  They are given structured templates to create their own trick answers and questions.  These are reviewed by the instructor and tested on classmates.

Homework.  Homework gives the opportunity—and challenge—to put everything they learned together.  It is very important not only for the traditional purpose of homework, but also because on the real test, the test makers will not announce what concept they are testing and when to use which strategy.

Break the Block.   The ninjas that chop through bricks are not aiming at the first brick or the center brick, they are aiming at a point well beyond them so that they will reach their goal.  In this final training, students are given the absolute most difficult questions, often times from the most difficult questions of tests beyond their level, i.e. a difficult ACT question for a middle-level SSAT student or a difficult GMAT question for an SAT student.  This exposure, even if the student cannot solve the problem, will make them more confident by knowing the real test is much easier as well as teach them to use strategy when they don’t know the answer.

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​Many competitors can over a long period of time improve a student’s reading comprehension (and other basics)  using traditional approaches and copious repetitive drills. 

And if you think Ivy Bridge has made these examples particularly hard, remember our trademarked Break the Block system:  The ninjas that chop through bricks are not aiming at the first brick or the center brick, they are aiming at a point well beyond them so that they will reach their goal.