This week, we announced that our eReviewBook test prep apps are available on the Amazon Kindle. The apps cost $2.99 each and are designed to help students study for standardized tests, such as the SAT, ACT, GRE, GMAT, MCAT, LSAT and TOEFL.

What’s really exciting about our apps is that they are designed with the student in mind. With BrainMatrix, students can modify content in their Kindle, and personalize it to their needs. This allows students to actively participate in their learning, rather than just memorize content that’s been handed to them.

The eReviewBook apps are available on Kindle, Kindle Keyboard and the new Kindle Paperwhite. In addition, we’ve got more exciting news about eReviewBook in the near future. Stay tuned…

A new report by College Board has some good news and some bad news when it comes to financing college and grad school. The good news: tuition increased at 4.8% for 2012-2013, a smaller increase than that of recent years. But the bad news: the rapid growth in federal aid has ended.

The report indicates that two-thirds of full-time undergrads receive grants (an average of $5,750 for public schools) to help pay for college. For two years, the net price that students have had to pay has gone down because of the availability of aid. However, that trend has now reversed itself.

Between 2008-2009 and 2010-2011, federal grant aid doubled from $26 billion to $52 billion. But last year, it dropped down to $49 billion.

As more and more students head to college while families are trying to tighten their purse strings, finding financial aid is paramount. So how can you get the aid you need?

• Make sure you fill out your Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form completely and on time. This will help you access federal grants and state aid.
• Choose your schools carefully. Some public schools (such as those in Massachusetts or Texas) will provide scholarships and even free rides based on state tests, class rank, SAT/ACT scores, or a combination.
• Look for scholarships specific to your academic area. Certain aid may be available based upon your major or study area in school.
• Keep up your grades. While many scholarships or grants are need-based, many others are academic-based, so studying hard and maintaining good grades and test scores will help you immensely.

An article in the Wall St. Journal earlier this month discusses what business schools are looking for in applicants. While here at BrainMatriX, we’re interested in helping you improve your test scores, in the end, the GMAT or GRE is just one component of your overall application. So what is important?

Focus: What do you want to do with your business degree? Are you pursuing a degree because you have a clear focus as to what you want to use it for, or are you looking to get a degree just because you can’t think of anything better to do? Having focus and clear goals is of utmost importance.

Realistic expectations: A business degree can certainly facilitate opportunities for you, but an MBA is no guarantee that you’ll get your dream job or even an incredibly lucrative one. Make sure you correctly understand how a degree will help you, and how the option you’re choosing (full-time, evening, etc.) will fit into your current lifestyle.

Academic performance: Your undergraduate (or other graduate) grades are important. If you’ve been out of school for a while, employment successes take center stage. Schools want to know that you’ve been productive and making the most of the opportunities that you’ve been given.

Recommendations: Admissions officers want to hear from people who know you and either your academic or work success. Make sure you have recommenders with a personal knowledge of you and your accomplishments.

Test scores: Test scores matter, but they alone won’t get you into a school. Many business schools now accept either GMAT or GRE scores. Check individual admissions requirements – if schools accept both, see which one you test better on. With regards to scores, you want to put your best foot forward so that schools don’t see a bad test score that could create doubts about the rest of your application.

Vocabulary is a critical component of most standardized practice tests – are you adept at learning new words?

Many students use flashcards to boost their vocab knowledge. This is generally useful; though oftentimes, when students learn this way, they can confuse definitions. Here are a few tips to make the most of your vocab study:

• Learn “groups” of words at the same time: One day, you can learn all your words that have to do with speaking or not speaking (loquacious, verbose, garrulous, reticent, taciturn, etc.). The next day, you can learn words about being nice or not nice (amiable, affable, bellicose, curmudgeon, etc.). The idea here is to make associations between similar words and learn about how these words relate to each other rather than learning each one in a vacuum.

• Learn about words in context: Develop phrases that will help you remember the definitions of words (“Mercurial Molly” if your friend Molly is a particularly erratic type), or create sentences that give away the meanings of words (“The research findings were based on spurious data, so we couldn’t rely on their accuracy.”) This way, you learn about the proper way to use words, develop associations beyond simple definitions and can figure out the meaning based on your phrase or sentence even if you forget the proper definition.

• Give yourself enough time to learn vocabulary: If you know you’ll be taking a test in six months, start studying two or three vocab words each day. You’ll invest minimal time so it won’t seem burdensome, yet by the end of the six months, you’ll have 360 to 540 words under your belt. Given that tests have high frequency words, you can learn a lot of relevant test vocab in this time. If you don’t have much time before your test, focus more on word roots. This won’t give you exact definitions of words, but it will give you a general sense of more word meanings.

Whatever method you use, the key is to make it your own. Figure out how you work best (visual, auditory, etc.), use that to your advantage, and in no time, you’ll be an astute logophile!

There’s some good news and some bad news according to new data just released by College Board. The good news: a record 1.66 million students took the SAT in the class of 2012. That certainly is encouraging, as it indicates greater exposure to the test by kids who otherwise wouldn’t have taken it.

However, that’s where the good news ends. The bad news is that only 43% of students who take the SAT are considered “college ready.” Those students, defined as those who had an aggregate score of 1550 or higher, are those predicted to have at least a 65% chance of achieving a B- or higher GPA in college.

Also discouraging: SAT scores are slowly but steadily falling. The class of 2012 scored a 496 in critical reading (down 1 point from 2011), a 514 in math (no change) and a 488 in writing (down 1 point). These scores are down even more significantly from 2008 scores (down 4 points in CR, no change in math and down 5 points in writing) and are both at low points – the reading score is at a 40-year low and the writing score is at its lowest point since it was introduced in 2005.

Getting students to raise their reading and writing scores is no easy task, especially given that students are about seven to eight times more likely to watch TV in a given day than they are to read a book.

So how can students boost reading and writing skills?

The most basic (and obvious) answer is to get students reading. If they don’t like books, encourage them to read magazines. If they don’t like magazines, encourage them to read news online. The point is that they should be reading something every day and thinking critically about it.

It’s also important to determine what learning style works best for students. Some kids are audio learners, others are visual learners, and still others are kinesthetic learners. Some students learn best with pen and paper, others on technology devices. If students are being taught to in a way that is not optimal for their learning style, they will likely not be engaged.

Students (and teachers and parents) should figure out that best learning style and use it when possible in study. At BrainMatriX, it’s what we call mastering your material. Instead of being taught to, students need to interact with material and make it their own. Once that happens, they can retain information more quickly and easily, and see test results start to go up.