Test preparation site helps students improve academically

By Kayle Dembowski
Western Herald

In today’s competitive job market, a college student’s grades and test scores could significantly impact their future career. As a result, the Web site Knewton.com is making a difference by helping students improve academically so that they may have a more successful future.

Knewton started back in the spring of 2008; Knewton’s CEO, Jose Ferriera, first thought about starting a company 15 years ago. Despite Knewton’s current success now, the company had a rough start back when they were first getting things up and running.

“It’s always very difficult to launch a business, especially in this economic environment,” said Knewton representative Chris Rosenbaum. “With that said, we have been able to attract a tremendous wealth of test-prep expertise, and very eager and helpful investors.”

Currently, Knewton focuses mostly on standardized test prep but hopes to expand to cover other educational forums. Some standardized test preps Knewton offers include the GMAT and the LSAT, and in the works are test preps on the ACT, SAT and the GRE.

“Knewton has developed and pioneered the test-prep industry’s only adaptive learning engine which harnesses the power of web-based technology to identify and address the individual pedagogical needs of each student,” Rosenbaum said.

Rosenbaum also went on to explain what makes Knewton different from other student help and test prep guides.

“Other test prep courses may be able to identify, for example, that a student needs help with geometry. But Knewton’s adaptive learning engine is able to actually pinpoint areas of difficulty to say, ‘You’re in full command of the fact that all radii in the same circle are equal, but you do need strategies for 3-4-5 right triangles. Oh and by the way, here are 10 questions on 3-4-5 right triangles.’ That’s adaptive learning, and it’s an extremely powerful tool that’s not available anywhere else,” Rosenbaum said.

Another benefit Knewton has is actual teachers to help students.

“Knewton has assembled the best master teachers in the country. We’ve hand-picked the brightest, most experienced instructors from other test prep services, and we’re using the Internet to share their expertise with the greatest number of people,” Rosenbaum said.

In relation to college and WMU student’s, Knewton can be a successful tool to academic success.

“Our students have shown great improvement; the early returns have been extremely positive,” Rosenbaum said. “We just heard from a student whose score improved 140 points on the GMAT. That’s an improvement of more than 25 percentiles – or 25 percent of that student’s competition for grad school admissions.”

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=3882

Posted by HeraldAdmin on Feb 10 2009. Filed under Local, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Cody Kimball
Web Manager: I'm a Communication Student at WMU, a SCUBA Diver, Boater, Ordained Minister, Notary Public, Web Designer, Film Maker, DJ, and of course a Journalist. Born and raised in Port Huron, MI and a graduate of SC4. http://www.codykimball.com