The first part of the post laid out some of the skills/knowledge areas the standardized tests seek to test the student on.

Also, a logical base was built for the argument that the target perfect score for every student would vary.

The Perfect Test Prep thus starts with a unique perfect target score for a student.

The next target for the PTP has to be to determine where the student stands at the start of the program. For this, a smart assessment has to be devised which essentially goes about this skill-gap assessment in two steps: Step 1 is to map various knowledge/skill/attitude attributes tested in the SAT and ACT to the corresponding scores. This task becomes inherently complicated because:

a) Construction of a mutually exclusive but collectively exhaustive list of attributes tested in standardized tests is a non trivial job - more so because it is difficult to agree upon an exhaustive list of attributes tested and because these attributes are frequently interlinked with each other. Another point to remember is that it may not always be possible to divide the set of attributes in mutually exclusive categories, in such cases, it is important to at least clearly mark out the interlinkages.

b) The second part of this task is to map the attributes to the scores they fetch. This is complex because different combinations of attributes could bring the same score and it is important to determine the difference, a change in each attribute would cause in the scores obtained, keeping all else constant (more like partial differentiation)

Step 2 is more standardized, once attributes are marked out, methods can be determined to assess the candidates level of proficiency on each of those.

The skill assessment (Step 2 above) will also reveal the pattern of attribute configuration (i.e. whether the student is naturally inclined to do well in math or english). Next, keeping the attribute configuration same, one can arrive at the required proficiency level in each of the attributes corresponding to the student’s attribute map (Thus, Jack and Jill, with Jack more mathematical and Jill, more “English types” gunning for the same score will arrive at different target proficiency levels on each attributes corresponding to their respective attribute configuration).

Once skill gaps are mapped, the subsequent task is to determine the set of interventions which would enhance the attribute proficiency scores to the desired levels.

Continued in part 3.

If you want to guage how important tests are, just ask your neighborhood highschool senior or junior year student who is fretting over which course to enrol in for his/her SAT or ACT. It’s the perception yes, but no denying the fact that tests form a bulk of what determines which college one goes to.

Let’s now try to define what could be a “Perfect Test Prep”, let’s call it PTP for brevity hereafter.

Simply put, a PTP should be a series of interventions which enable a student to score the maximum that he is capable of in a standardized test. We are not talking about perfect test score because each standard test measures a certain configuration of skills and those skills will not exist in all test takers in the same standard “intensity” or “quantity” and proportion. Add to it, the differences in test taking attitudes and focus which a child lays on academic vs physical vs artistic skills and the “perfect target score” for every child becomes different which in turn is different from the perfect test score.

Thus, the mandate is to enable a child utilize all his relevant skills, streamline his attitude, polish his test taking ability and achieve his perfect score.

Now, how to arrive at this set of interventions and how to schedule them forms the next part of devising the perfect test prep.

The first step has to be to analyze the variations in skill levels and attitudes that different test takers possess vis-a-vis what is tested in SAT and ACT.

Standardized tests, with some variations, seek to test how well has a student imbibed the knowledge and skills imparted in a US high school.  The objective is to predict how well or how bad a student is predisposed to do in college. Both SAT and ACT focus on following skills/knowledge items with inherent variations:

• Basic knowledge in arithmetic, algebra, geometry
• Basic knowledge of English constructs, grammar and usage
• Reading, comprehension and rhetorical skills
• Ability to take cognizance of the information, understand the inter linkages, decipher the implications
• Ability to understand data, deduce trends, inferences and conclusions
• Ability to extrapolate and argue using logic and the data/information provided

Apart from these, there is a whole set of skills tested indirectly which can broadly be summed up as test taking skills:

• The ability to generate the “intensity” required for the exam
• Confidence - to believe he will do well
• Persistence - to not give up even if he hits few difficult questions
• Discipline - not to spend inordinate amount of time on an unsolvable problem
• Smartness - to know he is in to maximize his score not to prove his ability

Any effective test prep program has to find a way to augment and enhance the students’ skill levels in the above mentioned areas.

Now, we start with different levels of these skills with the students and also with the different rates at which they can be improved. Hence, the Perfect Test Prep program cannot be “a” program - it has to be different for different kids.

(Continued in part 2)

What is the problem of being a very good teacher?

The biggest problem is that there are only so many students you can teach and not just that, they even need to physically reside close by and also, belong to a certain socio-economic group (so that they can afford you).

A good teacher is an extremely valuable resource, an engine which can propel innumerable mini engines and his effectiveness being curtailed due to geographical or economic or any other limitation is a terrible waste.

From students’ perspective, every student who is willing to put in the effort deserves the best available guidance irrespective of his locational or monetary disadvantages.

Now, the challenge is, how to connect a very good teacher to willing students across geographies and make this process cost effective too.

Online tutoring in its current avatar (as done by eTutelage ) works very well in the Indo-US or Indo-UK context. Exchange rate and cost differences make one on one tutoring extremely affordable for the student and the availability of the requisite hardware at the student’s end is never a problem. Geography has already been taken care of by the process itself.

The question of intrigue is whether this model can be extrapolated to a one to many situation - a model where the expertise of a great teacher is made available simultaneously to many more students than in a traditional class room setting and whether the richness of a class interaction can be preserved while keeping the costs minimum. It can have very interesting applications both from a business as well as welfare point of view.

Incidentally, the essence of this model has been very beautifully captured in this Idea Cellular TVC.

The challenge is, how to operationalize it in a business-sustainable manner.

Time for your typical consulting assignment kind of analysis - all the data captured throughout the whole of last year pertaining to every activity that lends itself to be captured in numbers being put on the table and thought about in every conceivable way. Plans for next year including growth financing, marketing, recruitment, product launches everything being put in place.

They say you already know all that there is to know. It’s amazing how almost every answer you seek is already there with you - some of them may be quite evident while some may be hidden and disguised in the layers of numbers and spreadsheets and charts that capture the story you have been.

Last year has been one of frantic activity and essentially, validating a lot of our practices, processes and beliefs in the market. The almost fanatic focus on customer satisfaction has served us very well resulting in zero dropout - Our first customer and everyone who enrolled since then has been associated with us. It is a testimony as well as our biggest asset. It delights us as well as alerts us to be extra cautious while scaling up to preserve the customer orientation even as the numbers increase.

Rigorous recruitment process has really helped, being there for the teachers has really helped, liberal compensation policy has really helped and above all, our passion for what we do has really helped. From the content team to web team to teachers to accountants to marketing - the sincerity of effort borne out of passion to make a mark has been a constant thread throughout and this has been our most powerful propeller.

The second year begins with new challenges. Growth is happening, we need to manage it and expedite it. Robust systems and structures need to be put in place to handle the demands of increasing scale. Systems need to be up and running to make activities less individual dependent and more scalable. New opportunities for greater growth need to be generated and exploited and the pursuit of defensible differentiation needs to be taken up in right earnest.

Opportunities, challenges, excitement - that’s what the second year of an entrepreneurial company entails.