IST tutors have helped Hong Kong students achieve excellent results on the SAT since 2005. 

In 2024, the SAT has undergone several notable modifications:

• Digital Format: The SAT is now administered digitally, replacing the traditional paper-based format. This change offers a more modern test-taking experience and enables faster scoring.
• Reduced Test Length: The new SAT is approximately an hour shorter than the previous version, reducing test-taking fatigue and allowing students to focus more intently on each question.
• One Question per Reading Passage: This change eliminates the need for students to answer multiple questions based on a single reading passage, allowing them to focus on understanding the text more deeply.
• Graphing Calculators Allowed: Students are now permitted to use graphing calculators on the math section of the SAT, providing them with a valuable tool for solving complex problems.
• Optional Essay: While the optional essay has been eliminated from the core SAT, it may still be required by certain states or universities for admission.

The Reading and Writing Questions will still be Evidence-Based focusing on comprehension, analysis, reasoning, interpretation, evaluation, integration, synthesis, vocabulary, and effectiveness skills; in addition to the rules of Standard English sentence structure and punctuation.

Reading and Writing passages represent the subject areas of History, Social Studies, Science, Humanities, US Literature, and World Literature. To achieve a high score on the SAT, students will need to able to determine explicit and implicit meanings, use analogical reasoning, cite textual evidence, determine central ideas and themes, summarize and understand relationships, and interpret words and phrases in context.

In addition, SAT students will need to be tutored in analyzing word choice, text structure, point of view, purpose, arguments, multiple texts, and quantitative information. The Vocabulary on the New SAT will be more useful and relevant, eliminating many of the obsolete and obscure words. The optional SAT Essay and SAT Subject Tests have been discontinued as of 2021.

The New SAT Math allows calculators on both modules, which asks students to solve systems of quadratic and higher-order equations and inequalities, create expressions, rearrange and interpret formulas, analyze relationships using ratios, proportions, percentages, units, and graphs, and summarize qualitative and quantitative data. Area, volume, angles, triangles, circle theorem, and trigonometric function questions will also be asked.

The mean average SAT score for Caltech (California Institute of Technology) is 1545, which is the 99+ percentile, which is the highest. Chicago, Harvard, Princeton, MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and Yale are all above 1500, which is the 98 percentile. To achieve these scores, students need to be doing questions everyday.

Principal SAT Tutor, 2005 – present

Mr Don Ho has been successfully tutoring SAT students in Hong Kong at International Scholars Tuition since 2005. Some have achieved excellent scores and received offers from Ivy League Universities, MIT, Berkeley, Chicago, and Stanford. Don’s methods focus on improving accuracy, speed, and memory by using fun mnemonic learning strategies and practice to increase confidence and reduce the time required to answer each question, which are essential to doing well.

Senior SAT Math Tutor,  2009 – present

Mr Daniel Chan holds a Bachelor of Science Degree (Hons.) in Chemistry from the University of New South Wales, Australia, and a Bachelor of Science Degree (Advanced) from the University of Sydney, Australia, majoring in Chemistry and Biochemistry. As a student, Daniel achieved a perfect score of 800 on his SAT Chemistry, SAT Math, and the Mathematics section of the SAT Reasoning Test. Since 2009, Daniel has been tutoring internationally focused students at IST in Mathematics, ACT, UKCAT, and BMAT.

Senior SAT Math Tutor, 2009 – present

Mr Calvin Chan has a Masters of Science in Mathematics from the CUHK and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics (Hons) from Imperial, and has tutored Mathematics at IST since 2009. Calvin tutors the Mathematics sections of SSAT, ISEE, SAT, and ACT.