My kids didn’t try the CB but they liked the linked KA prep. And yes, I know it’s the same content, which is why I like it.
You can set the days of the week and length of time with want to practice (they only did 20 minutes but consistently) and give you skills based on previous tests taken. There is a mastery progress bar for each skill so they looked at it as a game… trying to level up.
Is the KA prep updated with the content from the digital tests? Or has the math not really changed that much? I know the Reading and Writing seems really different.
Yes and yes.
Does your child have a CB account yet? When he or she logs into College Board My Practice (not the same as the regular CB website), it provides a link right on their test score to KA. Here is a screenshot of practice test 5, which was recently added.
Yes? Or at least I’m guessing so, since she took practice test 1, and it gave her a score. I’ll tell her to look, thank you!
Update: Kid got a 1560 (800 English, 760 Math) on the June 1 sitting of the SAT. Scores just came out today.
She never ended up doing any prep besides taking all six practice tests in the Bluebook app, then going back and figuring out what she missed. Her practice tests were 1490, 1500, 1570, 1580 and two at 1590. Those lowest scores were actually test #5 and #6 – so I don’t know if they were harder, or if she was sick of taking them, lol. She also watched some YouTube videos about Desmos tips and tricks, etc.
In any case, she is thrilled to be DONE. She’ll probably do a bit of practice before the PSAT in the fall (she’s a rising junior) in an effort to get National Merit. And there’s tiny part of her that wants to win the “Star Student” award we have in GA – highest score in one sitting from each high school wins it, and the student gets to pick their favorite teacher and both are treated to a nice lunch, name in the paper, etc. She’s only motivated because she wants to pick her band director, lol – this score might be enough, but it might not.
IMO, #5 & #6 are the most difficult practice tests. No question. I believe they are actual tests from March, but I can’t be sure.
Hmm. I’m confused, because you mentioned this up thread –
That’s my impression based on student feedback. They seem to think it’s harder. I’m going by student results on their practices. My previous post was from early April.
Ah, understood. Thank you!
Currently scoring mid 1500s. What specific things should I do to score 1580+ consistently?
Pay attention. The only thing that happens between a 1550 and a 1600 is silly mistakes. But any score in that range will have the same exact impact.
I have a question 
My D26 is having trouble with time management on the SAT math section. She had her first SAT sitting this December and scored 720 on the math section, which is consistent with the practice tests she’s taken. She showed me her practice tests, and all the answers are correct, up to the end … and then there are some questions at the end where she didn’t have time to solve the problems and just took a wild guess. Those are usually the only ones she got wrong.
Generally, my D does seem to have time management issues. She excels in her classes because she does very good work… but it’s still pretty typical for her to lose track of time on a test, and have to make some guesses at the end. To her credit, she has improved a lot since last year when she would often leave a chunk of each test blank at the end. She’s doing a better job this year managing her time on tests and studying at home. But time management is still her weakness.
Any tips? (other than “practice more”?)
My son was running out of time on the English section. We determined the type of questions he could do fast and which took longer. The far ones were all at the beginning of the section so now he starts at question 14 or so which is where the longer time questions start. He does those to the end and then goes to the beginning of the test. He went from having 2-3 questions as complete guesses to finishing. He’d been getting 690/700 on practices and got a 730 in November.
I don’t know if the same is set up in a similar way, but maybe doing problems that take longer first would help.
So my kid took the ACT, but I think the advice from our tutor still applies here: really drill the easy questions to ensure she can get through them as quickly as possible and have more time for the hard ones at the end. The tutor had my kid do a lot of practice sets on easy questions to build up speed. You want to practice the hard ones, too, obviously, but to the extent that the issue is time not comprehension, simply having more time should help.
My kid went from a 33 to a 36 on the math ACT, fwiw.
My daughter struggled with time at first because she was used to solving out all her problems/showing all her
A few sessions with a tutor helped her figure out when to plug in the answers, quickly eliminate wrong answers, etc. Basically she had to learn to shift from “solve the problem” to “identify the correct answer”
Thanks everyone! Great advice to share with my D 
I agree, there is a transition from “solve and explain everything and show your work” to “knock them all out as fast as possible” 
My #1 strategy with students is to always eliminate 2 wrong answers. So rather than a wild guess, students can almost always get rid of two wrong answers. They have a 50% chance of getting it right then.
Along with that, students shouldn’t allow themselves to get sucked into hard questions at the expense of possible easier ones. Sure, eliminating two is usually easy, but even that can take too long sometimes. As soon as they realize they are spending too much time, they should guess if they have to, mark it for review, and move on to questions they might have a better chance of getting right. If there is time left, they can go back to questions marked for review. The key is to always choose an answer. An omitted answer is always wrong.
Basically, maximizing time answering questions is something that comes with practice. Rather than just practicing math, she can practice maximizing her time.
Very helpful comments/ discussion above. I think above responses and techniques suggested to @tamagotchi maybe helpful for my S26 as well (if he listens/ adopts any).
Wonder how common it is for students to complain about getting out of energy and loose focus (and become ‘slow’) by the time they reach Math section module 2? That has been the experience for my S26. He is 16 yrs and 3 months old. I am mentioning age to see if people think age is correlated in any way with getting tired and loosing focus faster. He generally finds it hard to maintain his focus in his classes as well though (maybe most teenagers do:)).
For further context, S26 is academically strong and I think a decent test taker though he hates SAT, does limited preparation - hates practicing in general once he understands a math concept. Now Math is supposed to be his strength (he is doing calc bc now and wants to do MVC and perhaps Lin. algebra next year). So I think he should be scoring close to 800, but had 720 in Dec 7 sitting (770 in RW), and had to guess some questions as he ran out of time.
Any thoughts/comments are greatly appreciated.
This is probably true for 90% of my students. These tests are long. Kids also, IMO, have a harder time focusing now than they did even 5 years ago. My opinion is that students should not have their phone anywhere near them when they take a practice test. There are other ways to set a timer.
