Every student has a performance profile…and most test prep ignores it
Bara Sapir, founder and CEO of City Test Prep, brings more than 30 years of experience in test preparation, mindset coaching, and reducing test anxiety. A trailblazer in integrating mindful and holistic techniques into the learning process, she has transformed the way students prepare for exams and reinvigorated how they learn. By focusing on the four pillars of learning (content mastery, proven test-taking strategies, time management, and an optimal mindset), students develop a stronger understanding and practical skills that lead to improved performance and higher scores. Bara’s expertise is widely respected in the field and frequently highlighted in major media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, Poet&Quants, CosmoGirl, CNN, Forbes, and Positive Thinking.
Most test preparation starts with a simple assumption: if students study the right material and practice enough questions, their scores will improve.
Sometimes that’s true. Often, it isn’t.
After decades of working with students preparing for high-stakes exams, one pattern keeps emerging. Students with similar academic ability can perform very differently under the same testing conditions. One stays calm and focused. Another rushes, freezes, second-guesses, or runs out of time, despite knowing the material just as well.
That gap is not about intelligence or effort. It’s a performance issue.
Every student brings a performance profile into the testing room: a predictable pattern of how they process information, manage time, respond to pressure, and regulate attention and emotion. Yet most students, and much of the test prep industry, treat preparation as interchangeable, offering standardized solutions to highly individualized systems.
That mismatch is costly.
What is a performance profile?
A performance profile isn’t a personality test, a learning-style label, or a diagnosis. It’s a practical snapshot of how a student actually performs when the stakes are high.
In our work at City Test Prep, we’ve seen that performance patterns tend to cluster across four interdependent areas:
- Content mastery & gap awareness: What a student knows, what they think they know, and how accurately they can assess and use that knowledge.
- Test-taking strategy: How a student approaches questions, handles uncertainty, identifies patterns and shortcuts, makes decisions, and recovers from mistakes.
- Time management & cognitive pacing: Whether a student rushes, stalls, over-invests, or loses track of time, and how mental energy fluctuates over the course of a test.
- Mindset & emotional regulation: How pressure affects focus, confidence, working memory, and resilience.
No student is uniformly strong or weak across all four. Most have asymmetric profiles. These are the clear strengths paired with specific vulnerabilities.
Ignoring that asymmetry leads to blunt interventions by the self-studying student or the well-meaning test-prep coach: more practice for students who need regulation, more strategy for students who already overthink, more content review for students whose real issue is execution.
A quick self-check: your test performance profile
Before choosing prep, it’s worth pausing to ask how you actually perform under pressure.
Instructions: Check the statements that feel true more often than not during timed, high-stakes tests (not untimed practice at home).
1. Content mastery & gap awareness
☐ I’m often surprised by questions I miss
☐ I feel confident during practice, but scores don’t reflect that
☐ I’m not always sure whether mistakes are content or execution
☐ I review errors but don’t always know what to change next
2. Test-taking strategy
☐ I overthink questions that seem tricky
☐ I change answers frequently, even without strong new evidence
☐ I get stuck between two (or three) choices
☐ I spend too long on hard questions and miss easier ones
3. Time management & cognitive pacing
☐ I often run out of time
☐ I finish but feel unsure about many answers
☐ My pacing is uneven (fast early/slow late or vice versa)
☐ My focus drops before the test ends
4. Mindset & emotional regulation
☐ One difficult question or section affects the rest of my test
☐ I test worse than I practice
☐ Pressure causes me to rush or second-guess myself
If several items cluster in one area or across multiple areas, that’s not a failure. It’s information.
Why not all test prep works the same for every student
If students differ in how they perform, it follows that not all test-prep formats will work equally well for every student.
Yet students typically choose prep based on convenience, price, reputation, or marketing, not based on how they’re likely to perform under pressure.
Self-study, group classes, tutoring, and tech-based programs all place different demands on attention, self-regulation, feedback processing, and real-time decision-making. When there’s a mismatch, progress slows, scores plateau, and students often blame themselves.
They conclude they “lack discipline,” “need more practice,” or “just aren’t good test-takers,” when in reality the prep format is amplifying their weakest performance tendencies rather than strengthening them.
Optimizing test prep: Finding the best fit
For students with limited time, ambitious score goals, or a strong academic foundation, the most effective preparation is often the most targeted.
At City Test Prep, this has meant starting with performance diagnosis, not by assumptions. When prep is guided by a clear understanding of how a student performs, wasted effort drops dramatically. Students stop reinforcing strengths they already have or drilling content that isn’t the real issue.
That’s why customized prep can feel more expensive up front but often delivers a higher return on investment: fewer hours, faster gains, and more reliable performance under pressure.
Importantly, optimization doesn’t only mean doing everything one-on-one. Many students benefit from hybrid approaches. Using self-study material or group resources to cover fundamentals, then layering in targeted coaching as needed, including focused tools or techniques to fine-tune pacing, execution, and mindset.
When time is limited and budget is a concern, sequencing can be intentional, using a hybrid approach to combine breadth with precision.
Diagnose before you decide
Most prep decisions are made without a clear understanding of how a student actually performs.
Practice tests show what went wrong. They rarely explain why.
A performance-focused diagnostic can reveal patterns that weeks of practice obscure: where performance deteriorates under time pressure, whether errors stem from content gaps or execution breakdowns, and which prep formats are most likely to help.
When students understand their performance profile, prep becomes strategic rather than reactive. They stop asking, “What should I use?” and start asking, “What do I need, and what will work best for how I perform?”
Prep formats are not neutral
Each prep format rewards certain traits and exposes others. Understanding that interaction is often the difference between steady gains and stalled progress.
| Prep Format | Works Best For | Common Risks |
|---|---|---|
| Self-study (books, async online) | Independent, self-regulating students | Avoidance, misdiagnosed weaknesses |
| Large group classes | Students who benefit from structure and pacing | Limited personalization |
| Small group/cohort models | Social learners with shared momentum | Individual blind spots |
| Hybrid models | Students who want coverage plus refinement | Poor sequencing if unintentional |
| 1:1 customized Prep | Students with time limits, score ceilings, or performance breakdowns | Inefficient if not well diagnosed |
The takeaway is not that one format is best. Fit matters.
Preparation to accommodate the learner
The most effective test prep adapts to the learner, not the other way around.
When preparation aligns with a student’s performance profile, effort translates into results. When it doesn’t, even motivated students plateau.
Optimizing test prep isn’t about doing more for the sake of doing: it’s really about choosing approaches that accommodate how a student actually performs, leading to greater confidence, more efficient preparation, and better outcomes, including higher scores.
