Testtakers has been operating for over 30 years in the New York City metropolitan area. Testtakers Singapore is the sole licensee of Testtakers’ materials for the Asia-Pacific region. Testtakers Singapore has been an ACRA-registered company in Singapore since 2001.
The Testtakers Approach
The SAT, for better or worse, uses a good deal of American vocabulary and cultural references. Testtakers' instructors are American graduates of top universities with many years of teaching experience. Materials only count for so much – experienced, dynamic and entertaining teachers are what makes the difference.
Getting a perfect SAT score and going to Harvard does not, a good instructor, make
We receive and ultimately reject a good number of inquiries from graduates of top schools with exceptionally high SAT scores who somehow believe that those two criteria are enough to teach the SAT well. This view may wash with other test prep providers, but we believe that it takes more to be an effective Testtakers instructor.
Our instructors are not only knowledgeable about the tests but are also able to translate the American cultural references inherent in the questions to a local audience. Most crucially, our instructors engender a creative learning experience where the students learn a great deal, and also have a good time. The objective is for the students to walk out of class with a smile on their face and new knowledge in their heads. Finally, our instructors average over 10 years of experience specifically in test preparation, longer than most of our competitors have been in business.
Focus on quality, not quantity
Unlike other test prep providers, we believe that preparing too far in advance will have a potentially negative effect on test performance. We believe that rote memorization and incessant drilling can result in overkill, exam fatigue and lower test scores.
Our test taking techniques, course materials and homework assignments are designed to achieve results as efficiently as possible. Hundreds of hours spent on the test will reduce time spent on sports and extra curricular activities that ultimately will really make the difference for admissions to top schools.
All of our general public and school programs are therefore no later than 8 weeks in length and are specifically scheduled to end just days before a particular test date. The goal is to take the test while our techniques are freshest, resulting in getting the most effective test score possible (and never worrying about the test again).
We know and understand that our test takers have a multitude of school and extracurricular commitments and our programs are tailored to accommodate them as much as possible. We believe that is why Testtakers is the program of choice for an overwhelming majority of international schools in Singapore.
Small Class Size
We group students by ability and the average class size is 8-10 students, offering a level of personal attention no one else can match. We reinforce this through mid-term evaluations, graded homework with individual comments and frequent phone calls to all of our students.
First Class Materials & Analysis
Testtakers employs advanced score analysis software that generates a score report for each diagnostic test taken. The score report pinpoints areas that require more work and clearly documents how many points the student “lost” from not following the Testtakers techniques.
In addition, we are also the only company with the 400-word vocabulary flash-card box that contains the difficult words that occur most often in the SAT. Learning these words is more effective than learning 2,500 random “hard words”. The course materials themselves have been written for classroom learning and have been honed to near perfection after being used by thousands of students over the last 25+ years in Singapore and the United States. The focus is on new techniques and strategies to out-think the test, not tedious practice and rote memorization.
Superior Results
To date, Testtakers Singapore has run regular full-length and custom-tailored on-campus programs with many junior colleges, independent and international schools in Singapore. All Testtakers Singapore’s programs have been nothing short of extraordinary, resulting in an average score improvement of well over 250 points over the length of our programs, and even more once our Test Takers take the SAT.