Everyone knows that the SAT is one of the most important tests to see if you are college ready. It’s an exciting marker in your life, but the reality of having to take the test can really put the pressure on some students. However, with enough preparation, you can pass the test with a decent score. If you want to get a really great score, you’ll want to find some ways to broaden your math and reading skills. The SATs will really test your reading and language skills. Indeed, there are a number of things you can do to prepare. Also, when you are taking the test, you want to be sure to keep some things in mind. Here are five easy and effective ways to improve your SAT score.
- Hire a Specialized SAT Tutor
One way to boost your score is to hire a tutor to get you through the prep process. However, you don’t want to just hire just any tutor – you want a tutor that specializes in helping individuals with standardized tests. You can look online for a tutor in your community, or you may be able to ask your academic advisor in high school.
- Make Sure That You Time Yourself
When you do prep with a tutor, you may be required to time yourself to complete mock SAT tests. Timing yourself will help you finish the test more quickly. Moreover, it will help reduce the stress you may feel from being timed. The last thing you want is to be in the actual test room and feel the clock really bearing down on you.
- Read and Then Skim the Reading Portion
Once you are in the SAT test room and you are actually taking the exam – particularly the reading part of the exam – it can help your cognition abilities to skim the material after you give it a read. Many people just read the passages provided and then spend a long time trying to figure out what they just read. If you read with intent and then skim, you’ll have a much better idea of what you read and you will be able to write about it, thus shaving precious minutes off your exam time and boosting your score.
- Memorize the Formulas
As far as the math portion of your exam is concerned, you want to be sure that you memorize some of the formulas that are going to be on the SAT. If you don’t memorize the formulas, it will be a lot more difficult to get a good score on the math portion of your SAT, and your overall SAT. Whether you are attending USC Online or Pepperdine, scoring well on the math portion of your SAT will be hugely important.
- Start to Test Your Vocabulary
On top of everything, you want to be sure that you start brushing up and testing your vocabulary. This will be essential, because the verbal portion of your SAT will have a lot of words that you may not understand. In the end, you don’t want to stumble on this part of the exam, because it could tank your total score.