After 10 years teaching an SAT prep course for students in the greater Charlotte region, Dr. Al Benthall has turned his side hustle into a virtual offering he says has the potential to reach thousands.
Benthall, an associate professor of English at Belmont Abbey College, is a certified ACT and SAT tutor and began Benthall Test Prep in 2010. During that time, more than 2,000 high school students from Charlotte and surrounding areas have taken his in-person prep course, some successfully raising their test scores by up to 200 points.
But Benthall knew he could do more, and in 2018, he began working on a new venture — SAT Solved — that would make his prep courses accessible to students across the country.
"The question became, 'How do I take my teachings outside of Charlotte?'" he said. "That took me on this 18-month journey to create (SAT Solved)."
Benthall created more than 1,500 videos, answering every question on each of the SAT's 10 test variations.
"It started as me making strategy videos on how to solve SAT problems, but I realized that you have to give them videos explaining the questions they miss," he said. "These videos give feedback on what they missed and how to get it right the next time."
He then put those videos online and created a six-week course that follows the same path as his in-person sessions. It's half the price of his live instruction courses and provides each students with a virtual orientation, weekly strategy modules and homework assignments.
"Aside from making it accessible to every student in the country and the world, it's helping people to see (testing) is that great differentiator," he said. "Now you have this online course that acts as a private tutor."
SAT Solved launched in September, and though Benthall said Covid-19 was not the intended focus of the program, the pandemic has proven the need is significant.
"The goal was to reach as many students as possible, and it was just incredibly timely that the crisis happened as we were rolling this out," he said. "Now that Covid is here, we're seeing that it's more important than ever because the virtual environment has become so vital to students."
Benthall said it's often assumed that in-person learning is better than virtual instruction, but in a situation like this, online is beneficial. Students can pause and rewind the videos, and they have access to SAT Solved for a full year, which allows them to retake the course as many times as they want during that time.
"Once students master the process, they actually learn faster and better, and it sticks," he said. "The nice thing about it is, this is a self-paced course. They can take the test, regroup, work on sticking points and take it again.
"I wanted to give them that full bag of tools to keep going higher and higher," he added.
