You are very well aware that you will have to get a good score in the SAT exam to gain admission into the best colleges. Getting a good score starts with preparing well for your exam, you must start your preparation well ahead and follow the right preparation strategies to get a good score. Here are seven tips to help you in preparing for the SAT.
1. Get into the habit of reading
As you must be aware, the SAT exam places a lot of focus on reading. The reading section consists of five long passages. Though the questions are not difficult per se, reading of five passages could exhaust you unless you have practiced extensive reading before the exam.
If your preparation for the exam involves a lot of non-fiction reading, then you will find this section easy to handle. You can practice by reading newspapers, news magazines, and non-fiction books.
2. Practice your mental math skills
Even though you are allowed to use a calculator in one of the two math sections in the SAT, you are at an advantage if you are good at mental math. This will increase your speed for solving problems and also prevent you from getting stuck in a problem.
3. Brush up your grammar skills
Since half of the verbal section involves grammar, it will help you if your grammar skills are sharp. The good news is learning grammar will be the easiest part of your preparation.
4. Do practice tests that are a mix of all the sections
The SAT exam consists of three sections-Math, Reading, Writing, and Language. During preparation, students tend to focus on only one section. This is a wrong approach to take because it will be more beneficial if you practice doing a little of each section every day. Also, this is how you will tackle the paper on the test day, where you will switch between sections.
The best way to prepare this way is to do practice tests that are a mix of all the sections.
5. Avoid the tendency to cram
It is a bad idea to cram all the information when preparing for the exam. You will retain the information for a maximum of one week. A better option is to schedule your preparation a few times a week and review what you learn. Ideally, you should not do more than three hours of studying in a day. So, when preparing your study schedule, break it up for the week and also through a day.
6. Know your weak areas and focus on them
When it comes to SAT preparation, there are some areas where you are strong and some areas where you are weak. It is a good idea to focus more on your weak areas. You can know about your strong and weak areas if you take a self-diagnosis before you start your prep plan.
7. Do not confine your preparation to fixed hours
To make your SAT prep more efficient learn to use ‘dead time’ for your preparation. Deadtime are those chunks of time in the day where you are basically not doing anything or waiting for someone or your bus to arrive. You can use this time by reading vocabulary flashcards on your phone or practice some mental math. You can take your SAT prep a notch higher this way.
8. Find an SAT study buddy
It may be boring to study alone for your SAT. It is better to do it with a study buddy or buddies with whom you can compare notes, do mock tests together, and even share tips with each other. This will make your preparation interesting and less tedious.
These are some tips you can follow to make your SAT prep efficient and interesting.
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