It is common knowledge that these days’ children often get derailed or sidetracked while they’re on their summer breaks.

With distractions such as video games, social media handles, multiple TV shows and movies on Netflix, students tend to get involved with such diversions from their academics and are unable to cope with school work later on.

It is important to keep your child engaged mentally and physically over the summer break as they might get bored and engage themselves in useless activities that can be detrimental to their progress.

For example, making them participate in an upcoming Drama or dance class, or engaging them in Writing, Math and Poetry clubs can have a positive impact on them, and help develop their hobbies.

Children can be introduced to reading magazines and novels in their spare time before going to bed, or letting them get creative by writing down they’re very own stories to readout. Going on a family trip to a different country or place which hasn’t been discovered, can prove to be an enriching experience for your child.

They can learn about different cultures, different people and see new landscapes, adding to their knowledge and growth. This also gives everyone in the family an opportunity to bond with each other and understand your children better. Thus, planning a trip a few months beforehand does take some effort, but is definitely worth it later on.

Children can also be taken to meet other relatives to help them learn about their family history and gain exposure from meeting different kinds of people.

It is usually the responsibility of the parent or guardian to overlook the progress of their child during these summer months.

Along with such extra-curricular activities, there is no harm in including a few academic lessons, so that your child remains familiar with what has been taught in school a month ago. And going back to those Math and English lessons aren’t dreaded anymore.

All of this can be achieved at the comfort of your own homes! There are various free worksheets available for all subjects and all grades online.

Students can also get help with clearing their concepts on various online tutoring websites such as Etutorworld. All that is needed is a device with a good internet connection and a pair of earphones. Such online tutoring websites provide professional help to students for Math, English and various other STEM subjects, whether it is to clear some doubts or brush through concepts over the holidays.

They provide sessions of about 50 mins each, depending upon the child’s concentration span and interest in a particular session. The tutors also discover creative ways to make a topic interesting and understandable at the same time! Thus not ruining the best time a student has over the summer break.

Over these summer months, a child is able to progress and grow in many ways. Every child is unique, and it is important to acknowledge and nurture those unique qualities in them.

We at Etutorworld strongly believe that every student learns differently and learns at their own pace. Hence, we treat the case of each child separately, adapting teaching methods suitable for every child.

Making sure we add to the fun journey a child goes through during their summer break. Children can also register for a free trial session on our website without any credit card details required.

The Preliminary SAT or PSAT is answered by about 3.4 million high school students in their junior and sophomore years nationwide. It doesn’t help in the process of college admissions directly, but it serves as a great primer and prerequisite to the SAT tests and even the ACT as a trial run. Although it isn’t necessary to give the PSAT test before your senior year, it gives students the opportunity to get experience with the SAT…Hence, making them more comfortable when they give the actual SAT a year or two later.

The PSAT is held once a year in October, and the exam fees are usually paid by the schools, so students can give the test for free. Here are the tentative dates on which the PSAT shall be held in 2019-2020 so that you can ask your school counselor about when it will be held at your school :-

The PSAT is a two hours and 45 minutes test similar to the SAT with separate math, reading, and English writing sections. It includes evidence-based reading and writing with passage-based questions, tables, graphs, and charts; math problems based upon geometry, trigonometry, and algebra. The maximum a student can score is 1520 on the PSAT.

The most popular reason students take the PSAT, is that it serves as a qualifying test for the National Merit Scholarship.  Students in the top 1% are awarded merit scholarship money which in turn can ease out their financial situation while paying for college in the future. This scholarship competition awards approximately 8200 students annually; and is only applicable for students in their junior year. Sophomores can sit for the PSAT as a trial run. The selection process begins with selecting about 16000 semi-finalists who score in the top one percent of students in their respective states. Finally, 8200 kids are given checks for the merit scholarship.

Another advantage of taking the PSAT is that students receive access to the ‘My College Quickstart’ portal, which serves as a personalized college and career planning kit, irrespective of your PSAT score. It’s available using the access code printed on your score report.

This useful tool provides a child’s information in four sections namely–

• The Online Score Report – it is the score report of the PSAT test taken which allows a student to review each question with correct answers and explanations given.
• The SAT study plan – it’s a customized plan according to how a student performed on the PSAT test, highlighting areas of improvement.
• College Matches – the tool creates a starter list of colleges based on your choice of a major and desired location
• Major subjects and Career matches – the tool matches the major subjects you are compatible with and also suggests a career path given your strengths and personality type.

The PSAT test has numerous advantages, even though it is not necessary for high school students to take it. It serves as a marginal gain for students who are looking to apply to premium colleges around the world, giving them feedback on their preparatory process and confidence. It also gives kids an opportunity to earn financial aid for college fees in the future, given that they score very well. It acts as an important guidepost on college admission journeys, giving students the experience of sitting for the SAT test or ACT test without ruining the actual assessment during a critical period in their senior year.

Thus a good PSAT score does matter if a student wants to attend college and build a brighter future for herself. Hence, just registering and taking the PSAT serves as a whole new experience and advantage irrespective of the score a student gets.

The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is taken up by millions of high school students all around the world to get into various colleges in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, and Canada. It’s one of the most sought-after and common assessments amongst students. It offers a fair competition to all those who opt to take it and is accepted by most of the American and foreign universities. It also offers the flexibility of taking the test several times over a period of three-four months giving high school students a chance to re-evaluate themselves and perform better in the next SAT.

The SAT tests focus on assessing the skills and knowledge acquired by a student in high school and middle school in terms of their logical and reasoning abilities, depth of knowledge in a particular subject and their vocabulary. It is able to cover all the dimensions to make sure your child is ready to attend University.

Though the SAT provides kids with an opportunity to a new phase of life in terms of education, adulthood and personality development; getting a good score requires strategic planning to be done a few months beforehand. With the various number of SAT test dates available around the year, students need to fix a date on which they want to attend the SAT test.

Below is a table showing SAT dates for 2019-2020 and tentative score release dates:-

As we can see, the SAT is conducted several times annually and the earliest date from now for giving the SAT test in 2019 is last week of August, which is about two months from now. Usually high school kids take about 2-3 months on an average to prepare for the SAT test. So the best time to start your SAT prep is during the summer-break. That is the time when children have some time off from high school activities, and can start their SAT practice from the comfort of their homes or public libraries. So if you’re looking to give the PSAT or the SAT in 2019-20, then the SAT Summer Program is the right one for you.

The College Board has given students the liberty of taking the SAT test 38 TIMES in a lifetime! Although universities accept only 6 of the most recent SAT test scores at once, hence its better to clear the SAT with a good score at the earliest, to save up on all the time, energy and SAT test fee spent giving it over and over again (about $60 and $46 with and without the SAT essay respectively).

Students also have the option of writing  the SAT essay along with the test, depending upon which Universities they’re applying to. Different colleges have different policies when it comes to accepting new applicants, in terms of SAT cut-off scores, SAT essays and extra-curricular activities. So before registering for the SAT test, it’s better to shortlist your dream colleges or universities and read up on their admission policies, requirements and acceptance rate. Whether these colleges accept SAT essays or not? Whether they need certain SAT subject Tests depending upon the course  you’re applying to or not? So on and so forth.

By considering these factors while prepping for the SATs, studying becomes easier and less confusing, showing children a determined path and plan of action. This will also give students and parents a sense of confidence and control over their preparation.

Researching and planning for the SATs on your own can be a mind-boggling and time-consuming experience! Especially if you are planning to give the SAT test within 2-3 months. In order to make your journey through the SAT test prep easier, we at eTutorWorld provide hands-on and personalized live tutoring for all SAT subjects.  We also provide free SAT practice worksheets and SAT practice tests to prep and improve your SAT score.

Personalized guidance by expert academic counselors helps students to set up a plan of action and study schedule. eTutorWorld also guides students to register for the SATs and decide on setting a date for the SAT test, given their preparation and confidence, all from the comfort of your home!

We also provide counseling to students and parents who want to improve their SAT scores in the next assessment and help students improve their weaknesses. eTutorWorld is a COMPLETE PACKAGE DEAL for your child’s SAT preparation experience. We can prove that to you with a free SAT online tutoring class we offer to every new student looking for external expertise and guidance in the SAT test prep. So go ahead and register for a Free SAT personalized lesson with eTutorWorld and get accepted into your dream college! (No credit card details needed during registration).

Recently, smartphones or more specifically touchscreen phones have become extremely popular around the globe amongst the younger generation, other than making its way into the hands of the people born in the 50s and 60s. The boom started with the first ever iPhone released in 2007 by Apple Inc. wherein the usage of buttons on a mobile phone was no longer available. This new concept widened the variety of functions that were possible on the smartphone, right from checking your mailbox, clicking and editing pictures, surfing the internet and video conferencing. Hence, every other person started to hold possession of the smartphone –an extremely reliable and efficient device considering all its features.

Unfortunately, it has also made its way into the hands of children as young as 5 and 8 year olds! Young kids use the smartphone in their own way, be it for learning or just fun and games. It provides a gateway to the entire outside world which is easily able to satisfy the curiosity of these young minds. Hence they tend to spend at times hours on these handy devices. Even though the smartphone has proven to be extremely beneficial, it does have its negative effects if not used wisely. Often children have a tendency to get addicted to online gaming arcades and competitions to such an extent that they forget their worldly responsibilities; they become completely engrossed in the virtual sphere and end up spending a lot of time playing a game which might not really contribute to their real lives.  The fact that children obtain easy access to the outside world via the internet on the smartphone, makes them vulnerable to all sorts of traps set up by the internet. The search results displayed by web browsers like Google constitutes only about 10% of the internet and the rest of it can be found on the Dark Web, Deep Web and illegal sites which aren’t registered with a particular web browser. One such shuddering instance is the Blue Whale Challenge found on the Dark Web, this online challenge had influenced naïve children into self-harm and suicide in order to win the challenge at any cost. Innumerable cases were reported where children could be seen standing on high-rise buildings, ready to give up their precious lives just so they could complete a trivial challenge. Cyberbullying is another cause where children are mentally harassed and their peace of mind is disturbed.

Excessive usage of the smartphone can also result in detrimental health effects such as weakening of the eyes, lethargy resulting from the lack of movement and physical activity, even damage of brain cells due to the harmful radiations released from the device which can penetrate their soft skulls.

However, parents and teachers can take some measures in order to help their children benefit from this device in positive ways:-

• Make your child realize the detrimental effects: Have a conversation with your child regarding the long-term and short-term effects of excessive usage of the smartphone, such as Obesity, lack of creativity, sleep-deprivation, damage to social skills etc. Also, set and be an example for your child by using your smartphone only when necessary.

• Keep your child engaged: Try to introduce new real life activities to your child like a new sport or outdoor game, board games, participation in various group activities and clubs.

• Enable Parental Controls on the smartphone: For children who are naïve and curious, it’s always safer to monitor their online activities and ban promiscuous websites. You can also set passwords on certain Apps to avoid the child from wandering and misusing the smartphone.

• Introduce the importance of ‘Netiquettes’ : With the availability of various messaging applications, children have a free hand at guiltlessly sending away harsh or inappropriate messages to others. Hence the child can be taught the ethical use of these Apps. Children should be taught to think twice before expressing their opinions on a website or app.

• Encourage the usage of positive and educational Apps and websites: Considering the vastness of the uses of a smartphone, children can be introduced to educational and growth-promoting Apps and websites. This will help them secure their learning process and keep them level-headed. Practicing online for an upcoming test, exam or just to further academic skills, children can login to elearning websites such like www.etutorworld.com from the comfort of their home or even when they are on the move!

These are some of the measures amongst various others, parents and tutors can take so their child can have a positive and enhanced experience on a smartphone. It is a world-renowned fact that the smartphone is a unique device of convenience and class. Eventually, it depends on the parents if they want their children to use it to “run” their lives or “ruin” their lives.