How to start studying for the SAT or ACT: Back-to-School test prep tips
The start of the school year comes with so many new classes and assignments and extracurricular activities that test prep can often get pushed to the side. Why prioritize doing a practice test when the SAT or ACT is months away and you have to read 30 pages of The Great Gatsby by Wednesday?
And yet, you don’t want to get to the Saturday before the official test and panic because you haven’t even logged in to your testing account!
Here are tips for how to incorporate SAT or ACT test prep into your busy school year schedule:
- Do a little with consistency rather than a bunch all at once
Higher Scores teachers recommend penciling in 10-30 minutes of test prep 2 or 3 times per week, rather than four hours once per month. The primary goal of test prep is to build test-taking muscle memory so that, when you’re under the pressure of test day, your instincts kick in properly. You can always review subject matter the week of the test, but answering a few practice questions per week (AND reviewing why you got the answer right or wrong) will go a long way.
- Plan ahead now
As your calendar starts getting booked up with tournaments and after school rehearsals and so much more, take a look now for any gaps in your schedule where you can pencil in some more intensive test prep time. Taking a full-length practice test requires about 3 hours at once, plus some down time to rest your brain and review results. Book in those time slots for test prep now so that you don’t schedule something later and end up without any time to study.
Also, while you’re looking at your schedule, start strategizing about which test dates work best for you. You’ll want the week before to be a little quieter so that you can review before the big day; plus, you don’t want to be carrying a ton of extra stress into the exam room. Then, you can make your test prep plan around that test date.
- Incorporate test prep into the school work you’re already doing
Practice noticing the difference between how your teacher writes questions and how the SAT or ACT writes questions. These tests have a very particular style, and the more you can spot the patterns in how they phrase things, the easier it will be to predict what kind of answer they will want.
Practice the pacing and guessing strategies you’re learning in your test prep course on the multiple-choice tests you take in school. Try answering questions in order of easiest to hardest; see if any of the questions provide you information about how to answer the others; choose B or C when you really aren’t sure or are running out of time; etc.
Practice your reading strategies with any boring nonfiction or textbook reading you have to do for class. Make your homework more interesting by isolating two paragraphs at a time and attempting to summarize them in your own words, picking a sentence that you think exemplifies the main point of the text, identifying the point of view or purpose of the author, etc. No need to write it all out, but doing these little exercises will train your brain to do them automatically so that, on the official test, it comes naturally.
Practice using the Desmos calculator for your math homework. For now, only the Digital SAT uses the Desmos calculator, but in 2025 the Digital ACT will start incorporating it as well. If you plan on taking the SAT, understanding the Desmos calculator is crucial to your success on the Math portion of the test. There are so many hidden tricks that make complex problems much easier and help you save time for other problem solving, but you have to know what they are. If you can get comfortable with this tool in advance, you’ll have a huge advantage over other students on test day.
And remember: Taking an SAT or ACT test during the school year is not an easy feat, so whatever study schedule works for you is the best one.
If you’d like help with a test you’re taking next week or next year, we’ve got courses that suit your needs.
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Have a great school year, and happy testing!
