You tried tutoring. You tried prep books. You bought the course your friend mentioned. And here you are, still looking, still worried.
90 flashcards. Everything you need to know to ace SAT and ACT grammar. The last thing you will ever need to buy.
Author of these cards, my name is James Treadway, I graduated from Harvard in 2008, and I've tutored the SAT and ACT for over 20 years. These 90 physical flashcards contain everything you need to know for SAT and ACT grammar, according to my 5,000+ hours of tutoring experience. No app. No screen. Just the cards, a kitchen table, and ten minutes a day. You will feel the difference before the first week is over.
Maybe the biggest thing I've learned in 5,000+ hours of test prep tutoring: the grammar sections of these tests are NOT hard. They're the same 30 or so patterns, repeated on every single test, wearing different sentences.
If you're reading this now, you have already done a lot of things right.
You aren't the kind of parent who does nothing. You signed up for the prep course; you hired the tutor; you bought the Kaplan and Princeton Review prep books; you downloaded the apps. In one way or four, your teen has been "doing test prep" for months.
And the score has not moved, or it's moved just a little. And you're sitting there thinking, "Is this it? Is this as high as it'll go?"
I hear this every single week. And I want you to know before we go any further: you have not been doing the wrong things.
All those courses and tutors are teaching your teen strategies. Smart strategies! But strategies that fall apart the second the timer starts and anxiety kicks in.
Strategies require thinking. And on test day, thinking is the first thing to go. What does not go away? What your teen has memorized. That is the difference between strategy and mastery. And that is what the flashcards are for.
"The flashcards put me at such an advantage during the Grammar section. My friend sitting next to me just looked so stressed and she's been tutoring for four months. They really burned everything into my mind."
"My daughter said your flashcards were the best and what raised her score the most. I bought her all of the SAT materials out there. The Shark Tank guy's course, all the workbooks on Amazon we could find."
Why Most Test Prep Does Not Move the Score
99% of test prep is what I call the Pretend Test Prep Trap, and nearly every student I meet has fallen into it.
It works like this: take a practice test, review wrong answers with a tutor or on your own. Take another practice test, review wrong answers. Repeat for three months. It feels productive. It looks productive! But here is the truth: nothing deep is changing.
And that's why your scores aren't really moving! Practice tests measure what a student already knows. A wrong answer briefly reviewed gets forgotten three weeks later. The missing piece is the systematic drilling of a knowledge base, and that's where physical flashcards come in. Simply taking tests and looking at wrong answers does not change whom you are as a test-taker. But memorizing, in your bones, the strategies and grammar rules that would have ensured you got a question right, is what changes whom you are as a test-taker.
90 flashcards. That is it. The entire SAT grammar section and the entire ACT English section are built on the same 30+ patterns. I spent years looking for a resource that had put all of them into one place, finally realizing that it didn't exist! So I built that study resource myself in this flashcard box.
The committee of parents meeting at seven on Tuesday.
- A. are
- B. is
- C. were
- D. be
B. is
Committee is a collective noun acting as one unit, so it takes a singular verb. This one pattern accounts for a handful of questions on every single test.
One card. One rule. Drilled until your teen knows it without having to think.
Your teen will see that exact pattern five times on test day, wearing five different sentences. After three weeks with the cards, she will not think about the answer. She will know it and move QUICKLY through the question.
Ten Minutes a Day. No Screens. Three Weeks.
Here is what a day looks like with the cards. And I want you to notice how small this is, because that is the point!
Morning (4 minutes): Five new cards at the kitchen table. Your teen reads each one out loud, flips it over, checks the answer. No screen. No app. No notifications pulling him away. Just a card, a question, and an answer he can hold in his hand.
Afternoon (3 minutes): On the way to practice, you read yesterday's five cards back to him. He gets four out of five? They go to the back of the deck. Misses one? It comes back tomorrow. That is spaced repetition. No login required.
Before bed (3 minutes): Quick pass through all ten cards from the day. Not on a screen. Not timed. Just a quiet review so the brain files the answers during sleep.
That's it! Ten minutes total. Every card, twice a day, for three weeks. By the time your teen finishes the deck, he has seen every question pattern on the test forty times. The answer is no longer something he thinks about. It is something he knows.
And he did it himself. Without a tutor. Without an app. Without anyone he has to depend on next time. WITH a real sense of completion each time a card, then a section of the cards (they're numbered and color-coded by topic), and soon the whole deck, are memorized.
"Just wanted to let you know my score. I got a 35. I studied for about 3-4 days leading up to it for like 2 hours a day. It worked!"
"It was just big jumps. Once I started to see which rules were being tested, I was able to jump all the way up."
You might be wondering whether your teen would actually stick with ten minutes a day. That is the right question. And it is exactly what happened with Patrick...
From 22 to 35 on ACT English: Patrick's Story
Patrick was a sophomore and he came to me scoring a 22 on ACT English. That is 48 right, 27 wrong. Not terrible. But not where he needed to be.
I gave him the cards and showed him the method. And his first two weeks? Nothing. No score movement at all! He soon admitted he was cutting corners on his daily memorization.
But then he tightened the screws a bit. He started actually doing the method. Five new cards a day. Reviewing yesterday's cards. Running through the pile of already-studied cards before bed. The way the cards were designed to be used.
28 by April. 32 by May. A 34 and then a 35 in June.
Patrick's advice to other students: "Just keep doing them. Even if you are only getting three or four of the 90 cards correct early on, you can still make progress."
He's right. The beginning is the hardest part. You are getting most of them wrong at first. It feels like it isn't working! And then it starts to click. And it keeps clicking. And by week three you are looking at the test thinking, "I know this. I actually know what to do."
Hear It From a Parent
Courtney Bash on what the cards did for her son. Three kids, one deck of cards.
Flashcards: a Metaphor for How Success in LIFE Works
As a tutor for two decades, I started to notice how success in anything follows the same pattern. You encounter something hard. You struggle with it. You want to quit but find a way not to. And then one day it clicks. Not because you got smarter. Purely because you put in the reps.
That is what the cards teach. Not just grammar rules and test-taking techniques, but the actual experience of sitting with something difficult, getting it wrong, getting it wrong again! But then getting it right. That feeling of "I could not do this last week and now I can" is the most powerful thing a teenager can experience.
Every parent I work with wants their kid to develop that mindset. The skill of pushing through when something is hard. The flashcards teach grammar rules and test-taking, but what they really teach is how to grapple with something you do not know yet. And that skill follows your teen through life.
Let's go, baby! That is what we are here for.
Here is Everything Inside the Box
- 90 flashcards numbered and color-coded by theme. The definitive list of grammar rules for a perfect SAT/ACT score.
- Every question type on the SAT and ACT grammar sections, with the exact 1-to-3-step thought process for each.
- Test anxiety toolkit: techniques to bring the best version of your teen to test day.
- Optional 1-on-1 tutoring with experts who know the cards inside and out. Accountability, personalized guidance, and Q&A. The flashcards build the foundation. The tutoring accelerates it.
- Free Zoom onboarding call to get oriented on how to memorize the cards and apply them.
- Money-back guarantee: Spend two weeks memorizing these cards every day exactly as we lay out, and we guarantee at least a 10-point ACT English rise or 100-point rise in SAT Verbal, or a full refund.
"Elle is very happy with the cards and your approach. She told me that she wished she had done this all along."
"My son studied these cards over the course of the week leading up to the June 3rd SAT and his verbal score increased 110 points! We are so thrilled!"
What is Actually on the Cards (and Why It Matters on Test Day)
I am not going to give you vague promises about "comprehensive coverage." Here is exactly what is in the deck and why each piece matters.
The comma splice rule. Accounts for 3 to 5 questions on every SAT. Most students have never heard the term. They will recognize it on sight after two days.
Subject-verb agreement. The single most repeated grammar trap on the ACT English. Your teen will see it five times on test day. Five chances to gain points.
Nine pronoun rules that trip up even strong readers. Including why "between you and I" is wrong on the SAT, even though most adults say it.
Why your teen keeps losing points on questions she thinks she answered correctly, and the two-second recognition check that prevents it.
Parallel structure hiding inside every "list of three" sentence. After enough reps, the wrong answer physically looks wrong.
Misplaced modifiers. Seven cards that teach your teen to spot an error worth 10 to 20 points per test.
Transition word questions are the easiest points on the test. Six cards turn them into free points your teen collects in under fifteen seconds each.
That is eight examples out of ninety. The other eighty-two are in the box.
Students who memorize these 90 rules average a 9.5-point jump on ACT English and 100-point jumps on SAT Verbal. That is not a hope. That is the number.
Your Money-Back Score-Raise Guarantee
Use our memorization methods (they "work like magic," as one student put it) to study the cards, and take real SAT/ACT practice sections, for a total of 60 minutes per day over two weeks. Do that, and if your ACT English does not rise by at least 10 points, or your SAT Verbal by at least 100 points, then we will give your money back. No questions asked.
For context: the industry average result from SAT tutoring is a 30-point gain. We guarantee one hundred. And when a parent asks for the refund, we pay it. No argument, no delay. That is how confident we are in these cards and our method.
Also includes a 14-day "just changed my mind" return. No restocking fee, no hassle. You only pay if it works.
Meet James Treadway, Founder of Growth Wise, Creator of these Flashcards
After graduating from Harvard in 2008, Peking University in 2010 (Masters in International Relations), and the London School of Economics in 2011 (Masters in International Affairs), I realized that teaching was actually my greatest calling.
I especially loved test prep, as opposed to academic tutoring, because of the pressure to perform. I'd always been an athlete, and I tutored the SATs like a sport: there were a set of skills that had to be drilled and mastered, and the student's mindset was one of them! I wasn't just there to assign practice tests and talk to students about wrong answers.
I wanted to INSPIRE students to show up at their highest potential, and at the same time, I made it my mission to find them the very best materials and methods out there. I read Erica Meltzer's brilliant workbooks, along with other resources like Mike Barrett's Black Books and Anthony Greene's online course. But I couldn't find all of the rules a student needed to know in one place, along with the best test-taking strategies and even mindset hacks that existed. So I realized: I had to make that prep tool myself!
I built the flashcards so that every student could have the same advantages that my private tutoring students had. The same 30+ grammar rules. The same test-taking techniques. The same mindset hacks. Without the $600/hour price tag that I charged.
"My student had scored a 26 on her first ACT English Section. Eleven practice sections and 80 memorized grammar flashcards later, she was scoring a perfect 36 on ACT English."
Parents and Students Are Seeing Real Results
"She told me that she wished she had done this all along."
"There was a total difference in my score before using the cards versus after. My score continued to increase the more I used them. Definitely the best SAT/ACT flashcards out there!"
"I recommend these to my students taking college entrance exams and I've heard no negative criticism of them from anyone."
"After learning the grammar rules on these cards, my son's score improved significantly."
"Phenomenal and comprehensive study tool. Thoughtfully designed and user-friendly."
Start Raising Your Teen's Score Today
The product of 5,000+ hours of SAT/ACT tutoring by a Harvard graduate. Every grammar rule, question type, and critical test-taking technique. Compiled in one place so that your teen doesn't have to.
100-Point Score-Raise Guarantee
Study for 14 days. If the score does not rise, you get every dollar back. No questions asked.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the money-back guarantee work?
Study the cards using our memorization and practice methods, for 60 minutes per day, over 14 days. If your ACT English score does not rise by at least 10 points, or your SAT Verbal by 100 points, then contact us for a full refund. No questions asked. We also offer a 14-day "just changed my mind" return. No restocking fee, no hassle.
Aren't flashcards old-school? Why not an app?
Old-school is why the flashcards work. Your teen already spends hours each day on screens, most of that time scrolling social media and messaging with friends. That is not the same place you want to be studying for your SAT! Physical flashcards give your teen's eyes a break and their brain a chance to focus. No YouTube, no Snapchat, no text notifications interrupting. You get to fail and retry rapidly with flashcards, which is how real learning takes place. As one student put it, the process "works like magic." Even though the test is digital, the best prep process often is not.
Will these help with both the SAT and ACT?
Yes. The 90 cards cover every grammar rule tested on both the SAT Verbal and ACT English sections. The question-type training applies to both tests as well. Same cards, both tests.
What if my teen is already doing test prep?
Even better. The more grammar rules, test-taking techniques, and mindset hacks they know while they do their other test prep, the better they will score! The flashcards build foundational knowledge base that practice tests and most tutoring sessions cannot build on their own. Think of it this way: the flashcards give your teen the grammar rules. The tutor helps apply them. The practice tests measure progress. It is the complete system. Many of our best success stories come from students who were already in other programs and added the cards.
Do you offer tutoring with the flashcards?
Yes. After purchase, you can book a free Zoom call with us to get oriented. From there, optional 1-on-1 tutoring is available with tutors who are experts in the card system. They will hold your teen accountable and give personalized guidance. The flashcards build the foundation. The tutoring accelerates it.
How quickly do students see results?
Once the first 20-25 cards are memorized and 2-3 practice grammar sections have been completed, scores should already have begun to rise. Susan's son went from a 29 to a 34 after just one week of studying. Mila scored a 35 after 3 to 4 days of focused practice. Patrick went from 22 to 35 over a semester. Every student's timeline is different, but the method is the same.
We are thinking about going test optional. Is it even worth trying again?
"Test optional" does not mean "test blind." Schools still see the score if you submit one, and a better one always reflects well on the applicant. Before you close that door: three weeks, ten minutes a day, money-back guarantee. When the score moves, your teen has options that did not exist before. If it does not, you get every dollar back.
Will my kid actually use these?
This is the question every parent is really asking. And the honest answer is: some teens push back at first. Most do. That is normal. But "break the seal" - follow our memorization methods a few days in a row, and within a week, they will see progress. They start getting cards right that they used to get wrong. And that changes everything. The feeling of "I can actually do this" is more motivating than any parent lecture. Start with five cards a day. That is it. Five cards is not a fight. It is a conversation starter. And once your teen gets three in a row right, something shifts.
You Already Know What Happens If Nothing Changes.
Every month you wait is another practice test your teen takes without the right foundation: without the grammar rules memorized, the test-taking techniques drilled, the mindset hacks known and used. Another month of "pretend test prep" that feels productive and barely changes the score.
Or you try the cards. "X" number of minutes a day (whatever works for your teen). And either the score moves or you get your money back. That is the whole deal.
Imagine the morning the score comes back. You open the SAT or ACT portal before she wakes up. The number is different! Not just a little bit different. A hundred points on the SAT-different. You sit with it for a second before you tell your teen. And when they see it, the look on their face is not relief. It is recognition. They knew those answers. The school they wanted is no longer a "reach." The text you have been afraid to hope for arrives in December: "Mom, I got in."
- Ninety SAT and ACT grammar flashcards. Physical cards, not an app.
- The answer and the rule written on the back of every card.
- Free shipping. The box arrives in 2 business days.
- The 100-point SAT verbal, 10-point ACT English score guarantee.
- Fourteen days to decide. No questions. No restocking fee.
The parents who find these cards stop looking. They know.
P.S.
Your child is not a bad test taker. She is a well-prepared student who has been given the wrong tools by an industry that profits from complexity. Every tutor, course, and prep book taught her content that wasn't actually that valuable. None of them taught her to recognize a question pattern in two seconds flat.
That is what the cards do. 30+ grammar rules. No screens. No tutor. No dependency. Just your teen and the deck. And the quiet confidence that comes from knowing she earned it herself.
The score that comes back three weeks later does not just change a number. It changes which schools say yes. It changes the letter that arrives in December. That is what 90 cards and 10 minutes a day can actually be worth.
Ninety cards. $149. Ship in 2 business days. 100-point guarantee. No screens. No dependency.