SAT preparation - a guide that I wished I had

As we come into high school and we start thinking seriously about the preparation process when it comes to applying for college (specifically colleges in the US), sooner or not you will come to the realization that one very important component that you definitely will need to take into consideration is standardized testing - typically, there are are two tests: SAT and ACT. Whereas the ACT is more centralized around American students, for international students (like me) who are interested in applying for these American colleges, you definitely must take the SAT. I do realize that a lot of schools nowadays are test-optional, meaning that students don’t have to take these exams when applying for the colleges; however, I do think that a good SAT score will definitely boost your application at least a little bit, because through this, you are showing colleges that you have the ability in academics, and that you will be able to succeed when studying in these institutions in the future. Because of this, if you are interested in studying in the US for college, definitely get yourself tested for the SAT! With that being said, however, it is not that easy to get a high score on this kind of exam - in order to really ace this exam, it will be a lot of work put into it, whether it is to learn the new concepts or to take a lot of practice exams. Personally, I have taken the SAT before and received a pretty good score in it, and because I’m sure that if you are here, you are somewhat who is very ambitious to get into a good college/university, today I’m going to share with you some tips that I have personally been able to learn from the SAT preparation process, so that these can aid you in the learning and preparation process for this test!

First of all, I strongly stand on the idea that you should start preparing for the SAT early. I do agree that a lot of people recommend you to prepare for the SAT for around 16 weeks or something, but personally I still think that you need to study for a longer period. I’m not saying that you have to prepare for the exam one or two years in advance here, though, but in order to aim for a really good score, you must really be able to familiarize yourself with everything on the SAT, and that doesn’t mean that only studying SAT books work - you will have to use external sources, learn vocabulary from reading books, and all sorts of things. Additionally, I know that high school is a very busy time, and solely dedicating a few months towards practicing for the SAT is just not feasible and effective - learn from a longer period of time, but don’t stress out during the process. What I mean here is that you only need to learn for the SAT around 2 to 3 hours per week but for, let’s say, 35 weeks, rather than cramming yourself with a lot of work in a few months prior to the exam. Some people may argue with me here, but in my opinion, SAT preparation is a pretty much “natural” process, where you can’t really force yourself to get a high score - it is a long process where you accumulate knowledge not only from textbooks, but from the school content and through things like reading as well.

Next, before you even start the preparation process, do a practice test first to see where you are at. For those who haven’t taken a SAT practice test before and is currently either a sophomore or a junior, I can ensure you that all the content that’s on those tests shouldn’t be too familiar to you, because the SAT isn’t really about asking yourself what much knowledge you know, but rather about whether you can master yourself with different skills like reading or doing math. By taking a practice test before learning anything, you can see areas you are weak at and focus on them during your process!

Something that I highly recommend you to do is use trustworthy learning resources - I strongly believe that good learning resources can aid you a lot in your studying and preparation process. There are a lot of good textbooks out there, and additionally, you can use Khan Academy - it’s free, and there are a ton of quality videos and practice questions there for you to explore.

A good portion of the reading and language section is going to be about vocabulary, where you will be asked a lot of questions regarding different terms. Therefore, in addition to learning about reading skills and math skills, teach yourself vocabulary, especially the words that typically appear on the SAT - you can look it up online, apparently! The SAT is well known for including a lot of weird vocabulary terms up there, so if you want to get that high score, definitely study for these terms beforehand!