About Shelby Joe

Shelby Joe 周 is the Founder of Piqosity. He has more than 20 years of experience in education as an entrepreneur, professor, and tutor. Shelby earned his BA in Political Science from Rice University. Born and raised in Mississippi, he now resides in Houston but has also lived in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hamburg.

Introducing Animated Video Lessons

Several weeks ago we made a major update to Piqosity which introduced in-app concept review lessons across our ISEE, ACT, and SAT preparation courses. That initial batch of more than 100 lessons was mostly text and image-based. Today's update brings the first 20 videos--approximately 2-hours--on a broad range of math topics ranging from fundamentals like [...]

By |2020-11-12T09:30:16-06:00November 11th, 2020|Piqosity News|

Major Fall Update Introduces Concept Lessons

Early Friday morning we pushed a major software update to Piqosity which introduces Concept Lessons. These lessons allow students to brush up on tested academic concepts directly within the Piqosity application. For example, if an ISEE student doesn't quite understand the probability, they can now read a lesson walking them through the topic. Now [...]

By |2021-09-28T12:45:53-05:00October 16th, 2020|Piqosity News|

10 ISEE Practice Tests Available Now

Piqosity now offers a market-leading 10 full-length ISEE practice tests each for the Upper, Middle, and Lower level ISEE tests. No other content publisher comes close to offering this amount of ISEE practice tests*. Piqosity's tests are level-specific, meaning that there really are 10 tests for each level of the ISEE for applying to [...]

By |2023-01-11T14:36:30-06:00September 8th, 2020|ISEE Test Prep, Piqosity News|

How the Non-Profit ERB Test Administrator Got into For-Profit ISEE Test Prep Sales

On June 24, 2020, the Educational Records Bureau (ERB) announced an exclusionary marketing arrangement with the private, for-profit test prep company Test Innovators. Test Innovators charges $380 for access to the only official, full-length ISEE practice test. Piqosity believes that this exclusive dealing arrangement is unethical and potentially unlawful. A not-for-profit, supposedly independent arbiter [...]

By |2021-09-28T13:12:54-05:00August 31st, 2020|ISEE Test Prep, Piqosity News|

Author McSwazey’s “Legacy Unbroken” and “Law of Averages” Adapted for ACT and SAT Prep

Our ACT and SAT practice tests contain adaptations from contemporary literature. Two of these adaptations are from a young, Houston-based author who goes by the pen name McSwazey. For SAT Reading Test practice, we adapted a passage from his second and newest story Legacy Unbroken. This riveting science fiction story chronicles a son's quest [...]

By |2021-10-26T05:41:49-05:00August 19th, 2020|Piqosity News, Teachers & Tutors|

Free Retired ISEE Test Practice Questions

Linked below are the 2018/2019 versions of ERB's official "What to Expect on the ISEE" PDF guides for the ISEE Upper, Middle, and Lower Level independent school entrance exams. These documents contain a near full-length ISEE practice test plus approximately 30 sample questions from a "retired ISEE test." These now retired official guides from ERB [...]

By |2021-09-28T13:51:38-05:00August 14th, 2020|ISEE Test Prep|

Pursuing a Dream – Why I Founded Piqosity

A native Mississippian and 3rd generation Chinese-American, Shelby Joe explains his motivation for founding Piqosity. Shelby Joe (4th from left) with his Rice University students at the Great Wall of China. I started Piqosity, because I’m passionate about learning and about helping students and their educators achieve their aspirations. Shelby's Grandmother [...]

By |2020-09-16T17:44:55-05:00August 11th, 2020|Piqosity News|

Piqosity Asks ERB to Properly Disclose Payments from Test Innovators

On June 25, 2020, ERB announced an exclusionary marketing agreement with for-profit, Seattle-based, tutoring company Test Innovators. Piqosity was appalled by this unprecedented arrangement between a non-profit education consortium and a for-profit test-prep company and sent an open-letter to ERB’s President, Dr. Thomas Rochon.  Dr. Rochon responded on June 29, 2020. However, he fails [...]

By |2021-09-28T12:51:38-05:00July 20th, 2020|Piqosity News|

ERB Responds to Piqosity on Exclusionary Arrangement with Test Innovators

On June 25, 2020, ERB announced an exclusionary marketing agreement with for-profit, Seattle-based, tutoring company Test Innovators. Piqosity was appalled by this unprecedented arrangement between a non-profit education consortium and a for-profit test-prep company and sent an open-letter to ERB's President, Dr. Thomas Rochon.  Dr. Rochon responded on June 29, 2020. The full text of [...]

By |2021-09-28T13:46:14-05:00June 30th, 2020|Piqosity News|
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