Veteran educator Michael Romano says effective test preparation isn't simply about learning more—it's about being able to access what you know when it matters.
PALO ALTO, CA, August 12, 2026 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Standardized testing has changed dramatically over the past three decades. The SAT has been redesigned repeatedly and moved to a digital format. The ACT continues to evolve. College admissions policies have shifted, and students now have access to more educational technology and information than ever before.
But after nearly 30 years working with more than 4,000 students, Mr. Test Prep founder Michael Romano believes one thing hasn't changed:
Knowing the material and being able to access it when it counts are two different things.
That distinction has increasingly shaped the approach at Mr. Test Prep, the Palo Alto-based test-preparation practice Romano has developed over nearly three decades of SAT, ACT and PSAT coaching.
"Students don't necessarily need somebody giving them another mountain of work," Romano said. "They need to understand what they don't know, learn it, develop better ways of approaching the test, and then be able to bring all of that with them when the test begins."
An Unlikely 1600
For Romano, the distinction between what someone knows and what they can access in the moment is personal.
As a high school student, Romano had done well on the SAT, but his score was far from perfect. Nearly a decade later, his life looked very different. A Duke University graduate, he was working as a singer-songwriter—not immersed in academics, standardized testing or test preparation—when he sat for a full SAT as part of the qualification process to become a professional test-prep instructor.
He hadn't prepared for it.
But almost immediately, something clicked. Romano found himself deeply absorbed in the test—relaxed, focused and moving through the questions with an unusual sense of effortlessness.
He earned a perfect 1600.
The dramatic improvement over his high-school performance was striking. There had been no months of preparation to explain it, no recent academic training and no intensive study of the SAT.
What had changed most noticeably was his state.
"I didn't suddenly know a decade's worth of additional SAT material," Romano said. "I was just completely there. Everything seemed available when I needed it."
That experience stayed with him. And after nearly three decades working with students, it has helped shape one of the central ideas behind Mr. Test Prep:
What you know matters. But what you can access when it matters may determine what you actually do.
Beyond Knowing the Answer
Over the years, Romano began seeing versions of the same phenomenon in his students.
Some students knew far more than their scores suggested. Others performed beautifully in practice but struggled when the stakes increased. A student could understand a difficult mathematical concept yet lose points by spending too long on a single problem. Another could answer correctly, second-guess the answer and change it to the wrong one.
The challenge wasn't always knowledge.
Sometimes it was access.
That observation gradually expanded Romano's definition of test preparation.
Students still need to know the math. They need to understand grammar and reading. But they also need to make decisions under time pressure, recognize when to move on, recover quickly from mistakes, maintain attention, manage uncertainty and trust the work they've already done.
Those principles are reflected in the structure of Mr. Test Prep. Students receive individualized coaching within small-group online sessions, learn directly from the questions they miss and take full-length practice tests to identify what needs attention. There is no required homework, and families pay session by session rather than committing upfront to large packages.
The target is deliberately uncomplicated:
"1600 is the best you can do. Let's see how close we can get."
A Changing Role for the Test-Prep Coach
Artificial intelligence has made explanations and academic information more accessible than at any point in Romano's career. He believes that makes diagnosis, judgment and coaching more—not less—important.
"Information isn't scarce anymore," Romano said. "A student can get an explanation of almost anything in seconds. The challenge is knowing what you need to work on, learning from what you're getting wrong, and then being able to use what you know when the moment arrives."
For Romano, that is also why test preparation can be about more than a test.
Attention. Preparation. Decision-making. Learning from mistakes. Recovering when something goes wrong. Performing when something matters.
Those aren't merely SAT or ACT skills.
After nearly three decades and more than 4,000 students, the objective at Mr. Test Prep remains simple:
Help a student discover what they're capable of—and get as much of it as possible to show up when it counts.
Mr. Test Prep has been an educational consultant for over 26 years. One of his strategies is to increase his student's self-confidence thereby Elevating More Than A Score!
Website: https://mrtestprep.com
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