SAT Prep- Best Advice

by Hisyam.

SAT Prep- Best Advice

The single most important action you can take to prepare yourself to do your best on the SAT is starting your preparation as early as possible.  Most people spend one or two months prepping for the SAT.  Two months is certainly better than not prepping at all.  That said, prepping for six months is a lot better than prepping for two months.

Here are a couple of points to consider.

1. The SAT is a limiting factor in determining what Colleges you are eligible to attend.  While you shouldn’t have a tough time getting into a third tier college with a 00 on your GMAT, you would be hard pressed to get into a TOP  program with a 1800.

This sounds obvious, but the point to consider is that it’s a one way stream.  A high SAT score means a lot of options and a low SAT score means fewer options (not ‘less’ options!!).

2. Anyone, let me repeat, ANYONE can improve their SAT score.

3. The more you prepare, the better you get.  While the SAT is ‘supposed’ to be an aptitude test of skills that are gained over years, experience of thousands of students has proved that more preparation generally equals higher score.

Does this mean you can’t improve your SAT score in two months?  No, not at all.  In fact, you can improve your SAT score 100, 0, 300 points in a couple of weeks of hard work.

The most important part about prepping early is knowing your baseline.  To do this, you need to take a sample SAT.  Luckily there are lots of services out there that allow you to take a SAT practice test to see where you currently stand.  Then, when you see where your strengths and weaknesses,  you’ll know what you’ve got ahead of you in terms of prepping time and effort.  Maybe you only need a few weeks of geometry review to be solid in geometry, but maybe you need a few months to review your grammar rules.  The sooner you get a baseline the sooner you know what you have to do.

Make sure you have time to take the whole test in one sitting, or, at least, each section in one sitting.  And make sure there are no cell phones ringing or people knocking on your door.  Let’s just say no disturbance of any kind.  Use a pen and some paper for scratch notes.  Take it seriously.  Don’t give up or stop half way through.  It’s not uncommon to have a strong resistance to taking standardized tests and/or preparing for them.  Remember this.

Preparing and improving on the SAT is about learning skills.  You can learn skills with time and effort.  So, lower your resistance to taking a practice SAT.  Take the plunge and know, sooner rather than later, what you have ahead of you in terms of prepping and improving.

Finding out where you stand is the first step towards becoming a SAT Winner. You then need to prepare a study plan, identify the best way to learn from your mistakes, go through basic study material, plan your sample tests and much more..

And if you looking at your personal best score, you also need to learn ways to approach difficult problems, to control your tension level when you get a series of difficult questions, cherry pick your study material to get the best for your money and more importantly, your time…  and so on.

It certainly is a tall order, but fortunately, you are not alone in your journey. Have a look at the link below to see how you can learn from the experience of hundreds of students who have gone on to become SAT Winners.

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