SupportED Learning Podcast
On a mission to speak with global education experts on how we can revolutionize the education system, especially in the dawn of AI.
SupportED Learning Podcast
Episode 65 - SAT Hackers Founder: 1300 To 1500 In Six Weeks, Desmos Strategy Nobody Teaches - Mobin Naybin
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode of the SupportED Learning Podcast, Dr. Joe sits down with Mobin Naybin, a computer engineer turned test prep specialist and founder of DSAT Hackers, a platform built entirely around the digital SAT.
Dr. Joe and Mobin Naybin discuss what "hacking" the SAT means in practice and why it comes down to pattern recognition rather than gimmicks, why students should never deliberately underperform in the first module and how a careless early miss can cost more than a hard question, how to tell which math problems the built-in Desmos calculator actually speeds up and which ones it slows down, the mistake-tracking system he uses so students stop repeating the same errors across practice tests, and the situations where he tells families his program isn't the right fit and refunds them.
This episode is especially useful for students already scoring in the 1300s who want to push higher, families comparing digital SAT prep options, and anyone whose practice test scores have stopped improving.
📲 Connect with them: https://dsathackers.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mobinsatprep/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@dsathackers
📲 Learn more about us: https://supportedtutoring.com/
Facebook: Dr. Joe
Instagram: @dr_joe_ap_exams
Thanks for tuning in to the SupportED Learning Podcast with Dr. Joe. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe for more insights on education, critical thinking, and AI integration in learning. Visit our website at supportedtutoring.com
Remember to share this podcast with fellow parents and educators who are passionate about reimagining education for tomorrow's world. Until next time, keep supporting learning!
You're listening to the Support Ed Learning Podcast, where we challenge the status quo of education and reimagine what learning should be. I'm Dr. Joe Sebastian, and in every episode we dive into critical thinking, balloons taxonomy, educational innovation, and how AI is shaping the future of learning. Whether you're a teacher, parent, policymaker, or lifelong learner, you're in the right place to rethink, reshape, and revive education. In the next hour, Mobin Nabin is going to walk you through how students are scoring 1,500 plus on the digital SAT in as little as six weeks, using calculator hacks, pattern recognition, and strategies that most test prompt companies don't even know about yet. If your kid has taken the SAT, you need to hear this. Welcome back to the Supported Learning Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Joe Sebastian. Families often ask me how to navigate the maze of college admissions without spending thousands of dollars or wasting years of time. And it usually involves finding the people that have figured out the strategies, the secrets that schools aren't teaching you. And that's why I'm thrilled to have Mobin Nabin here today. Moban is a computer engineer, turned test prep specialist and the founder of DSAT Hackers, a platform built entirely around cracking the code of the College Board's digital SAT. So we're going to dive into what actually changed when the SAT went digital, why most students are still preparing the old way, and specific strategies MOBIN uses to get students to score 1,500 plus consistently. Mobin, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00Welcome, Dr. Joe. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. And joining from halfway around the world as well. So that's awesome. So you have taken a pretty interesting journey, I'll say the least, that most families dream of their kids going into computer engineering into a STEM field, but you leverage that into the brave world of entrepreneurship and have become the DSAT hacker and started a test prep company. So how do we get there? How does that learning journey happen?
SPEAKER_00Well, um, so so from childhood I've been always like building stuff, building um inventing and working on some projects by myself. And I was like from the very early beginning, I was I had that engineering mindset that I was I've always knew that I'm gonna be an engineer because I love building stuff, and I knew that engineers like build um cool stuff, they're solving problems. I love solving hard problems and building. And the computer engineers are the ones that build and solve problems. Like I uh I went to the computer engineering because I love the building software and um solving problems using building software. So that's how I went to the computer engineering, but then after getting into the college, I realized I could also build businesses, which is another interesting field. So I didn't have the intention to build DSAT hackers or the platform, and it just came randomly, but I realized I love this more than the computer engineering, so that's how it switched my uh career from computer engineer to an entrepreneur.
SPEAKER_01So build building things is kind of what was the the gateway to it.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes. Building from from being an engineer, solving problems, building, to building businesses and uh basically switching to test prep. And the test prep hadn't I had no intention about building a test prep platform. It just very naturally came to me, and uh and that's how it happened.
SPEAKER_01So when the college board switched to a digital SAT, you saw something that other people missed. What was it? What made you say this changes everything?
SPEAKER_00So there are quite a few things that change when it's changed from the old paper to the digital SAT. Uh one of the main things was the English section. The passages, the passages has changed a lot. In the old paper SAT, we had these long five passages and then ten questions per each passage. And the student had to read the questions and see which part of the passage is going to answer the question. But once we switched to the digital SAT, then we got these shorter paragraphs per each question, which got it a little bit makes it a little bit easier for each for the student to because the student knows where the answer is. It's in that one short paragraph. But then they have to the questions got a little bit harder to understand and comprehend. That's the that was the main thing that happened in the English section. But overall, I I think the English switched to a much easier way. And in the math, we got the Desmos in the math, in the math section. And both both students had the module one and the module two for use the desmos. And also the test became adaptive. These were the three main things that it was like, yeah, this changed the whole game.
SPEAKER_01So when people hear DSAT hacking, they might get a little nervous. They might like, are we gaming the system? Explain what hacking the SAT actually means to you.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, definitely. We actually had a few few parents reaching out to us being a skeptical about the hacking thing, or there was like, there was there was a parent who reached out to us and they were thinking, should we give our children to hackers to test to prepare them for the SAT? I was like, no, we're not doing anything. Uh but the hacking behind the digital SAT goes back into basically recognizing the patterns and getting the studying for the preparing for the SAT in an unusual way that gets the students the best result, which I believe is the best way to study for any test. That's how we hack the SAT basically, in a way that others, other students are not usually used to. I didn't find the patterns and the type of questions to get the best results in the shortest time, which we have like we have we have some results that is unbelievable. That's how I believe we hack the SAT.
SPEAKER_01So it's really about the pattern recognition and being able to not necessarily gain the system, but understand that this is there are things that the test is telling you and how to answer the questions. Yes. Yes. So with it being adaptive, it literally changes based on you, how your answer. So for parents who don't understand that, like what does that mean? Can you break it down on how it is adaptive? And it's an adaptive algorithm. So how does the strategy change as students get into it?
SPEAKER_00So adaptive means that the exam changes based on how the student performs in the test. So there is two models in each section, English, two models and the map, two models. And based on how the student performs in module one, the module two becomes harder. So they they've designed basically for each student, they've designed two versions of the test. If they perform better in English section, the module one, the module two goes into the hardware version, and the same in the math. If the module one in the math section, they perform answer most of the questions correct, or a certain number of the questions correct, then they switch to the hard questions in the module two.
SPEAKER_01So what is your strategy versus the first module versus the second module? Like does it change at all? Does it do students need to approach it differently? Um, like walk me through that process.
SPEAKER_00So now, first of all, in when we say adaptive, this doesn't mean that students should miss some of the questions to get the easy module in module two and then get do all those questions correct. That's completely wrong because here the way that they're giving points and scoring the questions is each question has a different point system. Like some of the easy questions, they might weight 20 points up to 30 points. So if you miss an easy question in module one, you can use 20 to 30 points. And if you miss a hard question, you're gonna be using losing 10 points in the test. So the strategy that we use for um module one is just get all the questions correct. Focus on all the questions to not get any any mistake in module one, because that's gonna cost you one mistake, can cost you one um still a mistake, I would say, because their decursions are easy, can cost you 20 to 30 points. So the strategy is module one, focus on getting all the questions correct. They're gonna usually students finish the module one on time and then they have some extra time left. Um so never skip that. Always like review the module one and go over the questions again and get all of them correct. And once we're in the module two, we focus on doing the easy questions and the medium questions, and the hard questions are already towards the end of the math section. And in the English section, the questions are usually struggling with the hard, long passage questions in the English section. So we try to skip those first to the other questions, the grammar ones especially, and then come back to those latest. Because now at the module two, the hardest questions has the least points. So you want to get the easy and mediums, all of them correct, and then focus on the hard questions.
SPEAKER_01So you're a big proponent of the Desmos built-in calculator. Tell me how you've integrated that into your test prep while most companies kind of still don't even know what that is or haven't really moved in that direction.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So I see I see most companies are still using the old paper SAT uh material. They're not using the Desmos. And I've had we've had students who've been doing tutoring and they've never heard of the Desmos before. So using Desmos, students can almost solve all of the algebra questions just through the Desmos. Some of the questions they don't even need to uh touch the pen. Just using just plug it into Desmos. They can get it in a few seconds rather than it would take them like a few minutes if they were going to solve it on the paper. But in the meantime, there are some questions that look decimal, but you will waste time if you use Desmos. So you need to know which questions to use Desmos, which ones not to use Desmos, but most of the algebra questions you can solve, you can use Desmos on the questions. And it's super important to learn the strategies on how to use it. It's gonna save a lot of time. And some of the students don't even know like the concepts uh behind the questions, but they're still able to solve the question uh using Desmos, which is which is a good strategy, I believe.
SPEAKER_01This episode is brought to you by Supported Tutoring, where we don't just help students get better grades, we help them become critical thinkers. Whether it's mastering AP exams, maximizing college applications, or building lifelong learning habits, our expert tutors focus on critical thinking, confidence, and real growth. Head to supportedtutoring.com to find the support your student deserves. So you're promising a 1500 in six weeks? Like, how does that happen? How um obviously audiences might be skeptical, like that's a big promise. Like, how do you deliver on those those promises? That's really, really impressive. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, so obviously we can't promise 1500 for every single student. Each student has a different situation. Depends on um the student's starting point where they start to be able to get the 1500 by in in six weeks. Usually the score that we're looking for is 1300 range. We've had multiple students who uh went from 1300 to 1500 plus within a month. So the score that we're looking for is going to be the 1300-ish range that we can get there. And what happens in those six weeks is first is we we go over a deep diagnosis of the student to see the problems, the weaknesses, the times where the time is being wasted and everything like that. And we see the type of the questions that the student is missing as well. And by type, I mean not the topics that they're weak at, but the type of the questions that they're missing, because we solely focus on the patterns, the recognizing the type of the questions. So once we got those, in those six weeks, we lay down some, um, we lay down them a study plan based on their schedule and the weaknesses that we got from there. And then through the one-on-one classes that we do in those six weeks, we get them to the promise score. Plus, we've generated uh mock exams in our platform that are harder than the real SAT. And the questions are very, very similar to the real test. So the basically students are practicing with college board is using to make the next SAT. So they kind of see the same similar questions in their exam as well, rather than doing uh random questions on the internet, KanyCad or watching random YouTube videos, they practice with what actually matters, and that's what makes them to be able to go from 1300s, 1250s, to 1500s in six weeks.
SPEAKER_01What's the biggest mistake you see students making when they prep for the digital essay?
SPEAKER_00Not saving their mistakes. Always remind this to students, not saving their mistakes. See, most students, a lot of students are taking MAC exams, practice tests, and then they do a little of studying, and then they take another practice and they get the same score, and they wonder why they got the same score. Their score didn't improve because they didn't shake the mistakes that they made in the practice test, they didn't save their mistake, they didn't review their mistakes, and they end up missing the same questions. What we've done is like we've built a notion mistake tracker for our students that they can any question that they miss, they can take a screenshot, plug it in, label the question by mistake type, group them, write why why did they miss the question, the correct answer on everything, so they can save all of the questions that they missed, and by the end of the week, they have a stack of missed questions grouped by the mistake types and the topics. And uh they get to review these questions constantly to make sure that they're not uh missing the questions again. This is super, super important, especially within a preparation of one to two to three months of preparation, get a list of the 200 uh questions probably that they've missed before. And by the end of the, like towards the exam, once we open this notion mistake tracker, they can see all of these questions. And two to three days before the test, we highly recommend them to go over and solve all the questions back again that they've missed in the previous league. Yeah, this is this is a tool that we use. We can actually share this notion mistake tracker with anyone who can if if they if they DM us in Instagram, it's mobile sat prep, we can share this for free.
SPEAKER_01What about families? What do you what do you see the biggest mistake parents making when selecting or or the the basic the questions they ask you when choosing an SAT prep option? What are the what are families constantly getting wrong about prep for their kids?
SPEAKER_00One of the main things that they're getting wrong is they think their child doesn't have time to enough time to prep for the SAT or they're waiting for the best perfect moment to start the SAT preparation. That is yeah, that is the main thing I would say. Time the time and the schedule.
SPEAKER_01So let's talk about I guess AI, because it is becoming everywhere. How do you see AI changing test prep, especially the SAT? Is there a risk of using it in AI tools as a crutch instead of actually learning? What are you seeing on your end?
SPEAKER_00Well, inside the SAT test exam itself, the real test, we don't see AI impact in that. But for preparation itself, I've seen and I've used some tools, SAT prep tools that are using AI. Um I think it's a good tool to be used, but in the meantime, it's not the best one because it can't really show you the best way to solve the question. Let's say if it can't show you, for example, how to solve the question with Desmos, if the question is desmosable. But it's still a good tool to have if you have any questions just to refer for the AI. Or maybe you, for example, you can you can give the list of the questions that they've missed and ask the AI to generate you similar questions to what you've missed before and do those questions. Like you can use it like this way, which is good, but you also be you should be aware of the strategies while using the AI to know if it's using the best strategy.
SPEAKER_01Who is this not for? Like if there is a student that comes to you and when do you say that this approach isn't right for you?
SPEAKER_00So the approach that we're following is can work for most of the students. But if your student is reaching out to us and the parents have um the expectations are not logical. Like if the student is in the thousand SAT score and they're aiming for 1500, they've got two months left, and they can't study one hour a day, then it's not right for the student, that kind of a student. We focus on getting the results rather than making money, basically, most which most companies do. They might be interested to invest, they might be ready to go inside a program. But if I see that the student is in that situation, we're not gonna get a good result, we just be upfront. Or we even had students who join the program, and after joining the program, we see that it's not the right student and we're not gonna get a good result. We just refine, just stop the program, basically, not to get not to waste the parents' time and also their investment, but also not have a bad result at the end of the at the end of the day. We we really focus on the results that we get rather than you know here.
SPEAKER_01The process, I gotcha. All right. Let's shift gears, let's shift gears to lightning round to kind of round this out. Basically just some rapid fire questions, first thing that comes to mind, okay?
unknownCool.
SPEAKER_01All right. Uh most overrated SAT prep strategy right now.
SPEAKER_00Most overrated SAT strategy, memorizing bull caps.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00One thing parents overthink about the SAT finding the best moment to start, finding the perfect time, SAT prep time is what they were thinking. Yeah. One thing parents underthink. One thing parents underestimate is how different the SAT is from the school classes. Their child might have good grades in the school, but that might not match their SAT score.
SPEAKER_01Right. If you could whisper one piece of advice to a 10th grader about to start SAT prep, what would it be?
SPEAKER_0010th grader who wants to start this AT prep, I would say take a diagnostic test, see where you're standing right now before doing any prep. If you score below 1300, go over Khan Academy, uh uh watch the topics, YouTube, you liking the topics, learn the fundamentals, and learn this, learn the desmos. If you score above 1300, then go over the hard math questions, do mark exams that represents the real SAT that matches with the real test. Uh learn desmos and save your questions. Save them as questions. That's what I would say for a tenth grader. That's how you guarantee you're gonna get 1500 if you just implement that.
SPEAKER_01Best free resource for digital SAT prep that most people don't know about best free resource is gonna be the College Board question Mac after questions. Yeah and then one sentence you wish every parent heard about the college admissions game. Start early. Awesome. All right. And uh Mobu, before we wrap, what's the one thing you want people to remember from this conversation?
SPEAKER_00One thing to remember from the conversation is I would say starting starting early. Um don't overthink about the timing. You can also start with 30 minutes a day for DSAT prep. And the earlier you start, the better result we're gonna get. It's not about how intensive you study, it's about how consistent you study for DSAT.
SPEAKER_01All right. Love it. Good note to end on. Mobin, thank you so much for your time. I really do appreciate you coming on. For families listening and uh want to learn more about DSAT hackers and everything you all offer. Where can they find out more information?
SPEAKER_00Well, they can check out our website, dsathackers.com, or DM us on Instagram, Mobin SAT Prep. Um and they can also email me directly at mobin at dsathackers.com.
SPEAKER_01All right. We'll put all that information in the show notes and in the YouTube description below, too. So Mobin, thank you so much for joining us.
SPEAKER_00I appreciate it, Dr. Joe. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01It's pleasure to be here. Absolutely. Well, good luck on the upcoming SATs, and uh we'll catch you next time on the Supported Learning Podcast. Thanks for joining us on the Supported Learning Podcast. If today's conversation inspired you, challenged you, or sparked a new perspective, be sure to subscribe and share with a fellow change maker. We'll be back soon with more voices, more insight, and more ways to elevate the future of learning together. Until then, keep learning and keep pushing the conversation forward.