I teach STEM subjects and currently have a digital SAT student that has a lot of gaps in basic math strategies (poor learning during COVID is my guess), and I struggle to figure out the best way to maximize her score and by extension work with lower scoring students.

She’s a really sweet kid who tries hard, but gets frustrated when she can’t get how to set up a simple proportion or cannot figure out how to read a graph. This goes into not being able to figure out HW and so not doing any, not signing up for practice tests, and pretty much having all the work be in our once biweekly session.

So far my strategy has been to work on a ‘bang for your buck’ topics. Things that show up a lot or things that she is good at. In addition to that, I hype up any success on practice problems that she gets without any help from me. Generally, just being a positive and motivating influence without the stress of worrying about how cutthroat the test is. It seems to be working, and she will still make a 100 point or so gain from her PSAT, but this will still be in the low 1100s if we are lucky.

My question is not how I can get low-scorers to a 1400, but how do I get low-scorers to their maximum potential with about 3-4 months of runway. Any tips and tricks greatly appreciated!