How to Study for the SAT

The first step to any effective study plan is to schedule and plan! Here are some tips:

• Take a test first without studying. This will give you a gauge for how much you have to study and approximately how much time you will want to study!

  • I would recommend at least three months of studying (again, why taking an August SAT may be so optimal!).

  • After taking this test, create a calendar with the days and topics you’d like to study. Try to give yourself ample time to do this - perhaps a math topic or two a day and a test a week.

• Learn some pre-calculus if you haven’t taken it!

  • I personally found that taking the SAT math section was a lot better after I had taken pre-calculus. If you took precalculus in your sophomore year, brush up on those skills - if you didn’t, don’t be afraid to learn through Khan Academy and other learning platforms. We are also happy to provide a deep dive into each concept that Khan Academy might not cover to a deeper extent.

Studying the content is another story - here are our tips:

• Use Khan Academy - but make sure to understand the questions and what you’ve done right/wrong. It’s not just exposure to the questions that’s important, but the fundamental concept (so if you were to get the same question but with different numbers, you know what to do!).

• Other underrated resources include:

  • The Organic Chemistry tutor (math review section)

  • SAT Panda Math book

• Practice, practice, practice! This is so overstated but the best way to get familiar with something is to practice. Take a practice test in test conditions (i.e. with the recommended break times) but most importantly, reflect on what you’ve gotten wrong - don’t let your score define you but take a deeper look at what you got wrong/the areas of problems you got wrong: then target practice!

  • You can find a bank of past practice (and actual tests) online (besides the Kaplan and Official College Board tests) that you can use! Here is one I found by googling “real SAT tests”: https://www.mcelroytutoring.com/lower.php?url=44-official-sat-pdfs-and-82-official-act-pdf-practice-tests-free

  • Try to stay mostly within official/actual approved tests (SAT “QAS” tests are good too!) because Princeton Review and other books tend to differ from the actual test, especially in the reading/writing section.

• Make a document of all the questions you got wrong. – put the question, the official answer, explanation and what you wrote! Try to understand where you went wrong and what you should have done instead – you can use different colors to note the right answer vs. your answer.
  

  • You can revisit this document every couple of weeks to remember what you used to struggle with (and after target practicing, you have improved on!)

• For the reading section, understand the question types and what you are struggling on. There are a few types of questions - namely compare and contrast, comprehension, vocabulary, and logic oriented questions. After you’ve taken some practice tests, look at which type of question is hardest for you and practice looking through that.

The SAT is very subjective (everyone has different strengths and weaknesses)! Keep in mind that your study plan should also be personalized and RRA is here to help! Many students will take the SAT two or three times, so there’s absolutely no pressure to get 1600 on your first official try.

Other students will find that taking the ACT may be more helpful, so check that out if you are struggling! Likewise, many colleges (like Columbia, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Princeton) will only look at superscores (ie the highest scores from each section regardless of test dates! This is known as the College Board's Score Choice option).

Enjoy the process and your improvements and make sure to get lots of rest during and after! Join us next week for tips on how to plan for college applications over the summer!