With the August SAT coming up, stress levels are rising for many high schoolers. The stress that comes with preparing for the test that seemingly determines college success is very real and valid. This article will alleviate some of that stress and hopefully help you achieve better results!

Tip #1 (important bonus before diving in!): Start early. If you are reading this and planning to take the SAT in August, read this through and start today! Even if you are taking the SAT on later testing dates, still plan to start early for the best possible results (maybe even today, still!).

I must preface with this: there is no magical way to ace the SAT. For real results, you must practice and study. But, these tips will make your studying more effective, and I will also detail tricks for exam day that will give you that extra push you need!

As someone who has taken and retaken the SAT, implementing these techniques helped me improve tremendously for my final and best attempt. So trust me, these are tried and true techniques I came up with from synthesizing all the mistakes I made during my preparations.

I had to learn from my mistakes; hopefully, you will learn as well, so you can succeed without having to make the same mistakes that I did. It would make me so happy if these tips and tricks helped you improve your SAT scores, so feel free to leave a comment if they do!

Image Credit: College Board from Wikimedia

General Tips

Sign Up Early

Seriously, it is easier than you might think to forget and have your nearest testing center fill up. You don’t want to wake up at the crack of dawn to drive hours to get to your testing center just to fall asleep during the test, so make sure you are all signed up! Check out this year’s test dates here: https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/sat/dates-deadlines

If you have any accommodations, make sure to get your accommodations approved ASAP as well; you don’t want to leave anything for the last minute.

Take Advantage of Bluebook Practice Tests

Bluebook and Khan Academy (which I mention in the next section) are two of the best free, easily-accessible SAT prep resources you have at your disposal, so make use of them!

A word of advice: The questions on the Bluebook practice tests are typically easier than the ones you will encounter on the real ones. While they are still helpful to help you get a handle on what concepts you will encounter on test day, don't go in with the expectation that the practice tests are the same as the real deal. This tripped me up a lot when I first started studying for the SAT—I was consistently doing well on the practice tests but not as well on the real exam.

Because of the difficulty disparity, I would say to use Bluebook more to familiarize yourself with the format of the SAT and the types of questions that may come up, rather than to predict your score or the difficulty of the questions you will see on test day.

To maximize the efficiency and efficacy of the Bluebook practice tests, I recommend simulating the testing environment as best as you can. This means:

• Put your phone and other electronics away.
• Don’t skip ahead. If you finish early, check your answers and wait until the clock runs out. The same goes for breaks—use the whole ten minutes.
• Have one piece of scratch paper in front of you—usually, you can request more during the test, but it is a hassle and will waste your precious testing time.
• Prepare the same snacks and drinks you plan to have during the test day. This sounds silly, but I found that this actually worked quite well for me!

After taking a practice test, you can use your “Knowledge and Skills” breakdown as well as incorrect answers to see which areas you need the most practice in. From there, you can target these weak spots by practicing on Khan Academy.

Use Khan Academy

I found the Khan Academy Digital SAT prep questions to be more on par with the level of questions I encountered during the real thing—you can specifically target the concepts or types of questions that are the most difficult for you to prepare yourself for the difficulty level you will encounter on the actual exam.

Here’s the link to the reading and writing course: https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/sat-reading-and-writing

And here’s the link to the math course: https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/v2-sat-math

I would recommend interspersing practice with Bluebook and Khan Academy—as you master more areas and become more prepared using the Khan Academy courses, take another Bluebook practice test to see how you have improved and what areas you still need to work on. Repeat this process as needed! There are six practice tests on Bluebook, which should serve you well.

Image Credit: Andy Barbour from Pexels

Take the Quiz: Which Female Character Trope Do You Belong To?

Whether it's in film, TV, or literature, you've likely come across these female character tropes. Take this quiz to discover which one best matches...

Reading and Writing Tips

Do the questions in this order

1. Vocabulary questions: you either know it or you don't, that said, read over common SAT vocab words!
2. “A student has taken the following notes” expression of ideas questions: These might trip some people up initially, but once you get the hang of it, they are basically free points. Tip: Look for the keywords/phrases in the question. Does it ask you to emphasize a similarity? Does it ask you to use a quote to support a claim? You can immediately eliminate all the answers that don't fulfill the criteria, such as those that don't include a quote!
3. Grammar/sentence structure questions: Again, you either know it or you don't. Tip: Make sure to thoroughly read the passage so you aren't missing anything. Try reading the passage, replacing the blank with each of the answers, and see what works best.
4. Information and Ideas: These types of questions are often the ones that require the most careful reading and analysis, so come back to these after finishing the rest, so they do not take up all of your time in the beginning!

Math tips

• Use Desmos: This is the most important tip for the math section. Seriously, Desmos is such a powerful tool that can help you with almost every problem on the math section of the SAT. It is so easy to forget that it is there, but it truly helps you a lot. Enter in any equations you encounter into Desmos—it can easily help you solve for variables, systems of equations, as well as inequalities. Even if graphing does not immediately give you the answer, it can also be very helpful to visualize what the problem looks like!
• Carefully write down each step, and check over them: Especially for the student-produced response questions! It is so easy to accidentally subtract when you meant to add, so make sure these stupid mistakes aren't messing you up! Also, work back and check with Desmos when possible!
• Use the process of elimination: This also applies to the Reading and Writing section, but is especially effective for the math section. Eliminate any answers that are obviously wrong (such as wrong slope or wrong intercept) and try to work backwards from the remaining answers to see which is the correct one!

-

Good luck on your exams, and remember, the SATs are only one part of college admissions; they truly do not define how well you will do in the admissions process at all, and even less so your academic worth!