A little background about me

I'm Michael. I graduated last May from Columbia University with a degree in Economics. During my time in school, I tutored privately as well as volunteered my time serving as a mentor for high school students in Harlem through a fantastic program called Peer Health Exchange. One of the most amazing things I found when working through this dichotomy of social strata was that what mattered most for students' success, be they in a rich private school or a disadvantaged public school was their motivation and confidence on their exams.

For all the hype about higher-education, what college taught me best was not facts and information, but effective ways of organizing and parsing information. The workload every day at Columbia was more than anyone could ever hope accomplish in a 24-hour period, so I developed ways to prioritize and condense what I had to know so that it was much more manageable. By graduation-time, that was probably my best skill.

As the end of the year approached, I had less and less time for the tutoring. In the last two weeks of school, the mother of one of the kids I tutored asked me if I could do several sessions in a row in order to help her son get ready for the AP exams he had to take at the end of the year. Between finals and preparing for graduation, I had to tell her I didn't have any spare time. She asked me if maybe I might be able to write down some of the testing techniques that I used at Columbia and she could purchase them for me.

It became clear to me that the techniques I had developed over 6 years of education were not only effective, but in demand by others to learn as well. The edition I sent to her was expanded, amended and built on until I arrived at the final edition I have now. It took almost 5 months to produce, but I think it was worth it.

I'll be updating this blog with segments from the book, as well as things which I didn't include in there. For the full exam study tips and study skills guide, visit http://www.examstudytips.com