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Award-Winning Exam P - Probability Tutors

Kevin

Certified Tutor

7+ years

Kevin

Bachelor of Science
Kevin's other Tutor Subjects
AP Statistics
AP Calculus BC
AP Calculus AB
Statistics Graduate Level

I am interested in working for Varsity Tutors because I enjoy helping others learn new concepts and progress in whatever they are struggling with. I have significant experience tutoring with a variety of age levels and would be delighted to have an opportunity to work with students through this oppo...

Education

Stanford University

Bachelor of Science

Test Scores
SAT
1560
ACT
35
Fernando

Certified Tutor

8+ years

Fernando

Bachelor of Science, Biomedical Engineering
Fernando's other Tutor Subjects
Applied Mathematics
AP Statistics
Statistics Graduate Level
Multivariable Calculus

I am a math and science enthusiast first and foremost. Officially though, I am Harvard Biophysics graduate student. I enjoy problem-solving, discussing science, and sharing my expertise with others.

Education

Johns Hopkins University

Bachelor of Science, Biomedical Engineering

Test Scores
ACT
32
Chase

Certified Tutor

Chase

Bachelor of Science, Mathematics
Chase's other Tutor Subjects
Applied Mathematics
AP Statistics
AP Calculus BC
AP Calculus AB

I am listening to and learning about him or her as an individual. I can also discover what motivates the student during this conversation and plan for how to frame future tutoring sessions in terms of what the student already knows and enjoys.

Education

Western Governor's University

Bachelor of Science, Mathematics

Test Scores
SAT
1520
Noah

Certified Tutor

9+ years

Noah

Current Undergrad Student, Actuarial Science
Noah's other Tutor Subjects
AP Statistics
AP Calculus BC
AP Calculus AB
Pre-Algebra

I am Noah and I'm an actuarial science major at Illinois State University. I'm pretty good at math and science. I also have experience teaching English abroad.

Education

Illinois State University

Current Undergrad Student, Actuarial Science

Test Scores
ACT
33
Kate

Certified Tutor

Kate

Masters, Environmental Engineering
Kate's other Tutor Subjects
AP Calculus BC
AP Calculus AB
College Algebra
Pre-Calculus

I'm available to tutor biology, chemistry, physics, math from Algebra up through AP Calculus, SAT test prep, and French. I've been tutoring students in science and math for 7 years. I also spent 8 months working and studying in France, and have tutored high school and adult students in French. When ...

Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Masters, Environmental Engineering

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Bachelors

Test Scores
SAT
1580
Jai

Certified Tutor

9+ years

Jai

Bachelors in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Jai's other Tutor Subjects
Calculus
Algebra
Electrical Engineering
ACT Writing

I'm a recent Stanford graduate (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science), and have been working at a major Management Consulting firm for a few years now. I personally scored a 2360 (out of 2400) on the SAT and 35 on the ACT and was successful in gaining admission to several top universities. I'...

Education

Stanford University

Bachelors in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Test Scores
SAT
1590
ACT
35
Jessica

Certified Tutor

Jessica

PHD, Medicine
Jessica's other Tutor Subjects
College Algebra
Calculus
Algebra
Honors Chemistry

I am a licensed physician from Florida who is currently changing careers. I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2009 and have extensive tutoring and editing experience. While a student, I became a certified writing tutor through the Critical Writing Department. Since I completed my writ...

Education

Nova Southeastern University

PHD, Medicine

University of Pennsylvania

Bachelors, History

University of Pennsylvania

undergraduate

Test Scores
SAT
1540
Rhea

Certified Tutor

6+ years

Rhea

Bachelor of Science, Biology, General
Rhea's other Tutor Subjects
AP Statistics
AP Calculus BC
AP Calculus AB
Pre-Algebra

I am a current student at the University of Chicago. I am working towards a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences, and I am on the pre-medical track. I am extremely passionate about tutoring, and I have several years of experience tutoring students in my high school's learning center in various...

Education

University of Chicago

Bachelor of Science, Biology, General

Test Scores
Perfect Score
SAT
1550
ACT
36
Jeffrey

Certified Tutor

6+ years

Jeffrey

Doctor of Philosophy, Mechanical Engineering
Jeffrey's other Tutor Subjects
Pre-Calculus
Geometry
Calculus
Algebra

I am enrolled in the Mechanical Engineering PhD program at Rice University which will begin Fall 2020, and I am hoping to return to academia as a professor after earning my PhD. In the meantime, I am looking to share my passion for gaining knowledge, specifically in STEM, by educating the up and com...

Education

University of Notre Dame

Bachelor of Science

Rice University

Doctor of Philosophy, Mechanical Engineering

Test Scores
ACT
34
Erika

Certified Tutor

Erika

Master of Public Policy, Public Policy
Erika's other Tutor Subjects
Pre-Algebra
Middle School Math
Calculus
Algebra

I am available to tutor middle and high school math, history and test prep. I have tutored math and history in the past and I previously taught a test prep course at a school in Hanoi, Vietnam. I have a lot of experience teaching all the need-to-know tricks to doing great on the SATS/ACTS! When I am...

Education

Harvard University

Master of Public Policy, Public Policy

Test Scores
ACT
32

Meet Our Expert Tutors

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Sharon

Pre-Algebra Tutor • +29 Subjects

I am a graduate of the University of Chicago, and I will be starting a graduate program at Columbia in August. I am about to complete a year of service with City Year, an education non-profit that places young adults into under-served schools. As a City Year member, I worked full-time in the classroom with middle-school students who were in approximately the 10th percentile for math (meaning they score lower than 90% of students). One-fourth of those students were able to grow around 15 percentile points by the end of the year! Hobbies: reading, cooking, gardening, music, art, nature, books, writing

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Matthew

Pre-Algebra Tutor • +39 Subjects

I'm a highly creative person who works best with visual thinkers. Very recently graduated from Stanford University, I majored in Human Biology with a concentration in Bioinformatics and Stem Cell Science. Technical though my background may be, I am currently gigging as a singer/songwriter/composer in NYC and tackle even the most hard-science of problems with a top-down, big-picture, holistic approach. If you have a propensity to look at problems in a cross- or inter-disciplinary manner (or want to learn how to do so), I'm the tutor for you!

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Tiffany

Pre-Algebra Tutor • +56 Subjects

I am available to tutor a broad range of subjects, I am passionate about test preparation, Accountancy, and Algebra.

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Quinn

Calculus Tutor • +17 Subjects

I am willing to address any issue with an open mind and I try to develop strategies that play to a student's strengths. I would like to think I am very approachable and personable, and I have had very positive experiences with many students in the past using this philosophy. Outside of academics, I love playing basketball and watching sports, as well as chilling with friends, listening to music, and keeping up with politics and current affairs.

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Charles

AP Calculus AB Tutor • +25 Subjects

I am a junior Mechanical Engineering major at Yale, and I hope to become a Naval Aviator after college. I am also a varsity sailor, and enjoy playing music with friends when I can get some free time. I have been tutoring my fellow students throughout my entire academic career, and I would best describe my tutoring style as one that adapts to each students' needs. For example, I have always tried to frame questions in a different way so that the student can better understand the question. Some students need visual representations of numbers and systems to understand them, and others benefit more by understanding the concepts behind each formula. I prefer to tutor in math and physics, and especially with real world application problems. I hope to help students improve their standardized test scores and their understanding of the math and sciences so that they can achieve their academic goals! Hobbies: art, books, running, reading, music, writing

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Tony

Calculus Tutor • +28 Subjects

I am a recent graduate of Yale University and incoming first year medical student at Columbia University. Originally from the DC area, I have always had a passion for science and medicine and pursued a degree in Biology while at Yale. During the 2008-2009 academic year, I tutored science, math, English, history, and Mandarin Chinese part-time with a DC-based tutoring company. At Yale, I worked as a freshman counselor to provide academic and career advice to incoming freshmen. I have taken both SAT and MCAT test prep classes and am familiar with both tests as well as the preparation necessary to score well. My personal career goals include attending medical school to pursue either immunology/infectious diseases or psych/neurology, teaching biology at the university level, and working in public/global health with either the CDC or the WHO.

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Samuel

AP Calculus AB Tutor • +29 Subjects

I am a freshman at Caltech majoring in Applied and Computational Mathematics. My favorite subject to tutor is math because I find it very rewarding to simplify complex topics to aid in understanding. I have lots of tutoring experience. In high school, I ran and taught an SAT prep class and was vice president of my school's NHS chapter where I ran our tutoring program, and I, myself, tutored. I also was a teaching assistant in the summer of 2020 for a class in discrete mathematics through a program called PACT (Program in Algorithmic and Combinatorial Thinking). I love learning and hope to make the process enjoyable for you!

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Annie

Pre-Algebra Tutor • +28 Subjects

I am currently a second year medical student. I was a Physiological Sciences major at UCLA (class of 2015), and pursued research during my gap year between undergrad and medical school.

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Sami

Pre-Algebra Tutor • +19 Subjects

I am a Duke University graduate in Economics and Computer Science. I am currently pursuing an MBA degree at the Yale School of Management. I have worked in the financial field, both at a management consulting firm and a fortune 500 company. My hobbies include playing and coaching soccer. Hobbies: reading, writing, art, books, music

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MaryAnn

Calculus Tutor • +21 Subjects

I am a published author who has enjoyed “coaching” our daughter, as she navigated through high school, college and graduate school. I mentor college juniors who are seeking careers in financial services, and I serve as a peer resource to professionals who are transitioning from private industry to the nonprofit sector. Hobbies: reading, cooking, writing, books, music, art, travel

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Frequently Asked Questions

Students typically find conditional probability, Bayes' theorem, and moment-generating functions (MGFs) most difficult on Exam P. Many struggle with translating word problems into proper probability notation and identifying when to use different probability distributions (binomial, Poisson, normal, exponential, etc.). Additionally, multivariate distributions and the relationship between joint, marginal, and conditional distributions often trip up test-takers who haven't developed strong intuition for how these concepts connect. Personalized tutoring helps by breaking down these abstract concepts with targeted practice on the specific problem types that appear on the exam.

Exam P requires solid calculus skills, particularly integration, differentiation, and working with limits—these are essential for deriving probabilities from probability density functions (PDFs) and cumulative distribution functions (CDFs). You should also be comfortable with algebra, summation notation, and basic combinatorics (permutations and combinations). Many test-takers underestimate how much calculus appears on Exam P; if your calculus is rusty, a tutor can help you refresh those skills alongside probability concepts so you're not held back during exam prep.

Most candidates spend 100-150 hours preparing for Exam P, though this varies based on your math background and starting point. With personalized tutoring, you can compress this timeline by focusing intensively on your weak areas rather than reviewing material you already know. A typical tutoring plan involves 2-4 sessions per week over 3-4 months, combined with independent problem-solving between sessions. Your tutor can assess your current level and create a customized study schedule that targets the specific topics where you need the most help.

An excellent Exam P tutor should have passed the exam themselves and ideally hold an actuarial credential (ASA, FSA, or equivalent), which demonstrates deep mastery of probability theory and its applications. They should be able to explain not just how to solve problems, but why certain probability techniques apply in specific situations—this conceptual understanding is crucial since Exam P tests both computational skills and theoretical knowledge. Look for tutors who can identify your specific misconceptions (like confusing independence with mutual exclusivity) and have experience teaching the exam's most notoriously difficult topics like MGFs and multivariate distributions.

Exam P word problems are deliberately written to test whether you can identify the underlying probability structure rather than just recognize a familiar problem type. A question might describe a real-world scenario (insurance claims, equipment failures, customer arrivals) without explicitly telling you it's a Poisson process or exponential distribution—you have to recognize the pattern. Many students struggle because they've memorized formulas but haven't developed the intuition to match problem descriptions to the right distribution. Tutoring helps by walking you through the problem-solving framework: identifying what random variable you're modeling, determining its distribution, and then selecting the appropriate formula or technique.

MGFs are one of the most abstract topics on Exam P, and many students treat them as a black box. The key is understanding that an MGF is a tool for extracting moments (mean, variance, higher moments) from a distribution—it's not just a formula to plug into. A tutor can help you see why MGFs matter: they make it easier to find the distribution of sums of random variables, they help prove that two distributions are identical, and they reveal properties of a distribution that aren't obvious from the PDF alone. Working through derivations of MGFs for common distributions (exponential, normal, Poisson) and seeing how to use them to find means and variances builds the intuition that memorization alone can't provide.

Effective Exam P practice involves more than just solving problems repeatedly—it requires deliberate, targeted work on your specific weak areas. Start by identifying which topics consistently trip you up (through diagnostic quizzes or tutoring sessions), then focus intense practice on those areas before moving to mixed problem sets. Use the official SOA sample questions and past exams as your primary practice source, since they reflect the actual exam's difficulty and style. A tutor can help you analyze your mistakes to identify patterns: Are you misidentifying which distribution to use? Making integration errors? Misunderstanding conditional probability? This diagnostic approach is far more efficient than grinding through hundreds of generic practice problems.

Multivariate distributions require you to juggle joint PDFs, marginal distributions, conditional distributions, and independence simultaneously—it's easy to get lost in the notation and lose sight of what you're actually calculating. A tutor can break this down systematically: starting with simple two-variable problems, building your intuition for how marginalizing works (integrating out one variable), then showing how conditional distributions follow from the definition P(X|Y) = f(X,Y)/f(Y). They can also help you recognize which Exam P problems are testing your understanding of these relationships versus which are just computational exercises. With guided practice on increasingly complex problems, multivariate distributions shift from feeling abstract to feeling like a natural extension of single-variable probability.

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