Help your Child ACE those Entrance Tests

(Philstar.com) – May 26, 2009 – 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines – Think it’s too early to be thinking about your kids’ college entrance tests? When it comes to your child’s education, it’s never too early.

The college entrance test is one of the most important examinations your child will ever take. Board and bar exams may be taken several times, but a college entrance exam can only be taken once. There are no second chances. Once a student fails a college admission test, there’s no retake. Certainly, transferring to the first-choice university can be attempted a year or so later, but why not just ace the entrance test on the first try? Many parents believe that providing their children an extra boost in their academics also gives them a better shot at getting into one of the top colleges.

This is where review centers like AHEAD Tutorial & Review come in. Whether your child is innately brilliant or challenged in certain academic areas, tutorials and reviews provide the right approach and strategy for more effective learning of specific subjects. Just as athletes have a coach helping them to excel in their chosen sport, students need a “coach” as well, a review instructor in this case, to be at their best when taking the college entrance tests.

Many parents prefer to be their children’s mentors. But for most parents, it’s been a while since they went through those exams, and a long, long time since they last reviewed their textbooks and lessons.

The same goes for the child. The entrance tests cover a wide range of topics, such as math (arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and trigonometry); science (natural science, biology, chemistry, and physics); languages (English 1 to 4, reading comprehension, and grammar); and other subjects such as history, geography, current events, sports, literature, music, arts, mythology, abstract reasoning, logical reasoning, and essay-writing. These are lessons learned throughout all four years of high school. By the child’s senior year, remembering all of these will be quite difficult.

The test-based review program exclusive to AHEAD is patterned specifically after the UPCAT (University of the Philippines College Admission Test), ACET (Ateneo College Entrance Test), and DLSUCET (De La Salle University College Entrance Test). There is a specific program for each test, because each exam is different. The test-based review program does not attempt to compress four years of high school learning in only a month or two. A test-based review program covers not only the topics in the specific tests, but also simulates the time limits and the pressure involved during test-taking.