One of the most challenging aspects of SSAT and ISEE prep is figuring out what the heck is on each test. In comparison to other standardized tests, the SSAT and the ISEE release very little new official material each year, which doesn’t give students too much to work with. In order to have enough practice material, it’s necessary to turn to third-party content, but it can be hard to tell which books are the highest quality. That’s why our test experts periodically review the available third-party materials and include in our programs the resources we find best help students prepare. The closer the books are to the actual test, the better.
The best place to start is the Test Innovators (TI) platform. TI puts a lot of time and energy into figuring out what content is showing up on both the SSAT and the ISEE by surveying as many students who have taken the tests as possible. They then adapt their materials to reflect the types of questions that show up most consistently, and they especially focus on adding questions that students find most difficult.
Beyond that, TI has been an official partner of the ETS (creators of the SSAT) for several years, and they recently became an official partner of the ERB (makers of the ISEE) as well. As a result, their site includes official practice exams for both the SSAT and the ISEE, as well as and hundreds of practice exercises written by the test-makers. Because this material has the official endorsement of the test-writers, it has to be taken as the clearest indication available of what students are going to see on test day.
Armed with this knowledge, students can ensure that they’re prioritizing the content in their SSAT and ISEE prep that’s most likely to come up on the real thing. And when you throw a highly trained Inspirica Pros tutor into the mix, equipped with strategies to help students take advantage of the test’s structure and patterns… well, the test really doesn’t stand a chance.
