Dr. Steve's General SAT/ACT Prep Advice Thread

Test Preparation
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<p>I’ve decided to start a discussion consisting of the advice that I give to my own students to prepare effectively and efficiently for the SAT and ACT. My expertise is in math, so that will be my main focus (although I have experience with the ACT science section as well). It would be great if some experts in the verbal sections would chime in and discuss whether my advice is relevant to the verbal sections as well. </p>

<p>Please feel free to agree, disagree, and share your own experiences. Try to keep the following in mind:</p>

<p>(1) Let’s keep things civil. If you disagree with someone (especially me), be nice about it. My ego is very fragile, and I thrive on the validation of others. :)</p>

<p>(2) Keep in mind that just because something works for you, it does not mean that it will work for everybody. Also, just because something works, it is possible that other methods work as well. For example, an argument should never go like this: “I disagree, because I did ‘blah, blah, blah,’ and I scored 800.” Additionally, keep in mind that many methods of preparation may ultimately work, but some are more efficient than others. Finally, for motivated students with a high level of mathematical maturity almost anything will work (even bad preparation methods) - this can lead to average students being at the receiving end of bad advice.</p>

<p>(3) Be careful who you are taking advice from. If you are currently scoring 400 in math, you may not want to take advice from someone currently scoring 700 in math. If I give a specific piece of advice that is targeted to a specific score range I will always mention the score range I am speaking to. You should try to do the same. I realize that this forum is full of high scoring students, but I want the lower scorers to feel welcome as well. More importantly, I do not want lower scoring students to get advice that is wrong for them.</p>

<p>(4) Let’s try to keep specific prep books out of this discussion. There is already a thread where people endlessly debate which books are better than others. This often leads only to more confusion since it’s difficult for most people to separate good advice from the bad, and most people don’t realize that this advice is dependent on your current score. Also, this is a discussion that I am not allowed to participate in. Maybe we can make exceptions for the College Board’s Official Study Guide (the Blue Book) and the Real ACT Prep Guide (the Red Book). Everyone should have a copy of one of these books (the first if you are taking the SAT and the second if you are taking the ACT), so feel free to mention these books, but only when necessary.</p>

<p>I look forward to sharing my ideas, as well as hearing everyone else’s. </p>

<p>I think I will start from the beginning - how to decide whether to prepare for the ACT or the SAT - to be posted shortly.</p>

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<p>thanks for making the thread again ^o^ </p>

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<p>Additionally, I agree with Dr. Steve’s point on #2. As he has said… peoples’ strategies don’t always prove as best fit for everybody, so try your own plan and maybe implement a bit of their advice in to yours</p>

<p>I’ve seen numerous threads, such titled: “please help me with my SAT prep schedule!!”. Now don’t get me wrong… when I first joined CC, similar to everybody else (including Dr. Steve), I never read stickies/other threads before asking my own questions; my questions obviously turned out to be the repetitive ones…</p>

<p>So please take this thread’s advice into consideration :(|) </p>

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<p>Should you prepare for the SAT or ACT? Here is all of the most important information you should know to help you decide…</p>

<p>(1) You can take either the SAT or the ACT - the choice is yours!
(2) The best way to decide which one to focus on is to take an official practice test for each one, and then use a score comparison chart to see which one you are better at.
(3) The SAT has a required essay section that must be completed at the beginning of the test, and is factored into the overall score. On the ACT the essay is optional, it appears at the end of the test, and it is not factored into the final score.
(4) The SAT has a total testing time of 3 hours 45 minutes. The ACT has a total testing time of 2 hours 55 minutes (or 3 hours 25 minutes with the optional essay).
(5) The SAT is graded out of 2400 points, the ACT is graded out of 36 points, and conversion charts for comparing scores are easy to find.
(6) Th ACT has a science section which requires very little actual science knowledge, and is mostly about reading comprehension and interpreting data.
(7) The SAT has 10 free response questions, and a guessing penalty for multiple choice questions. The ACT has neither of these.
(8) The SAT has trickier questions, whereas the ACT is more straightforward but contains some more advanced topics.
(9) The ACT tests trigonometry (including laws of sines and cosines) and logarithms. Additionally, the ACT places a greater emphasis on basic algebra skills, arithmetic and geometric sequences, complex numbers, and rational functions.</p>

<p>I realize that I didn’t include the differences between the verbal sections on the 2 tests. Any verbal experts out there want to add that information?</p>

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<p>What do you suggest a weak math student do to increase his/her score?</p>

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<p>Can you say more about how new ACT is different than old ACT? Are there differences in the Math section or was this mainly change in the Verbal section? My student says at least one difference is some additional short answer type questions which is throwing her.</p>

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<p>@redbluegoldgreen As far as I know there have not been any changes to the ACT for a while. The ACT will be moving to a digital format in 2015, but know changes are being made to the format of the test. The SAT will be going through a major change in 2016. </p>

<p>Perhaps you are not referring to the question types, but a specific questions that seemed unique to one particular test? I don’t believe there has been anything out of the ordinary in math. Perhaps some verbal tutors out there can comment on this?</p>

<p>@sweetcupcake It would help to know the following:</p>

<p>(1) are you referring to the SAT or ACT?
(2) what was the last math score you received on an actual exam or official practice test?</p>

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<p>SAT and 56 on sophomore psat</p>

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<p>@sweetcupcake I’ll talk about preparation in more depth in the future, but for now here are a few key points:</p>

<p>(1) Most likely you are still getting some Level 3 problems wrong. Your main emphasis right now should be on practicing Level 3 and 4 problems.</p>

<p>(2) Quality over quantity: Keep redoing the problems you get wrong every few days until you can get each one right on your own. </p>

<p>(3) Technique over individual solutions: Try to solve each problem up to 4 different ways:</p>

<ul>
<li>using an SAT specific strategy</li>
<li>the way you would do it in school</li>
<li>the easiest way for you</li>
<li>the quickest way you can think of</li>
</ul>

<p>Again, I’ll talk more about preparation when I have some more time, but this advice should be good enough to get you headed in a positive direction.</p>

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<p>where can i get specific level 4/5 problem practice questions?</p>

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<p>@College123college I can’t answer questions regarding practice materials in this thread since it would violate cc rules. </p>

<p>For the rest of you, I’ll get back to adding important information to this thread as soon as I get a bit of breathing room in my schedule.</p>

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<p>@DrSteve I am only good at math. I took the feb ACT amd scored:</p>

<p>C: 29
E: 29
M:35
R: 28
S: 25</p>

<p>I find it hard to improve and I really want to go to Cornell, international, can you help?</p>

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<p>Some colleges may require ACT takers to take the optional writing section.</p>

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<p>@manas1997 My expertise is mostly in math (which you seem to be doing very well in. I can offer some advice for the Science section however:</p>

<p>(1) Use the passages to look up answers to questions - DO NOT read the passages before the questions. This wastes too much time. In fact, in many questions you will not have to read the passages at all. Often you will just have to look up the answers in the appropriate charts, graphs, tables, figures, etc.</p>

<p>(2) Always save the “arguments” passage for last. This is the wordiest passage which has two or more people giving two opposing viewpoints. This passage can suck your time away quickly if you’re not careful. Again, do not read the passage first here - use the passage to look up the answers, but always start with the questions.</p>

<p>(3) Third, pacing is important. Do not get hung up on one question. If you’re spending more than a minute on a question it may be time to move on and come back to this question later.</p>

<p>(4) Note that there is no guessing penalty on the ACT, so make sure that you answer every question even if you have to guess (just fill in the ones you didn’t get up to right before time is up).</p>

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<p>@DrSteve , ty will try!</p>