Category: SAT

May SAT test results are in. Unfortunately, maybe you – like plenty of other students – woke up Thursday morning to disappointing news. Despite studying hard and doing better and better on your practice tests, you scored low on the real one. How could that happen?

The reality is that this test is a very long, stressful challenge and the experience of the real one is different from one taken at home, even under timed conditions. However, if you’ve made progress in bringing your scores up in home practice, you CAN translate that into real test improvement, too.

When you get the full 10-page SAT score report from the College Board, go over it in depth to analyze your weak areas. If you haven’t already ordered Question and Answer Service from the College Board for the May exam, do so right now. It costs $18 and takes 6-8 weeks to arrive, but it will provide you with a copy of the May exam, the answers, and your specific errors. It’s a tremendous study tool to help you work on optimizing your time, boning up on weaker math skills, honing reading comprehension, etc.

Now, summertime is here and you are free from the stresses and time constraints of other courses and tests and so you can really push your SAT skills. You can take the test again in August or October – even November (which is probably not too late for Early Decision, but call the admissions offices of any schools you are considering for ED to confirm.) For Regular Decision, even December is an option. Check out all the dates here – and remember to coordinate them with any SAT Subject Tests you need to schedule.

Or how about trying the ACT? About 10% of students do better on one test than the other. Maybe the ACT is the one for you. You can take the ACT in September and be done, too. Here’s the ACT calendar.

Having the luxury of multiple additional test dates to retake the SAT or switch to the ACT is just the start, though. If you want to raise your scores, retaking the test alone is not enough.

Plan on a serious, regular regimen of SAT or ACT study this summer, putting in 1-2 hrs of study time on a daily or near daily basis. If you can’t study all summer, make that 2-4 hours a day for at least three weeks, preferably a month. Treat test prep as a full-time course. (It certainly is more important to your admissions than any actual full year course you took in high school!) Make sure to take a full practice test once a week and review your results, analyzing your errors, redoing mistakes or questions you guessed on. The more comfortable you get with the timing and the stamina needed for a full, timed test taken in one sitting, the better you’re likely to do on the real one.

A boy, a test, a watch: That’s the combination that made for success on the ACT – and a deceptively simple business idea.

Students have always struggled with time management on the SAT and ACT, but amazingly – despite the vast variety of stopwatches and timers on the market – no one has made one that was silent and allowable for use on these tests. When high school student Jordan Liss took the ACT, though, he decided to change that.

“This has been my vision since I took the test three years ago,” said Jordan, a student at the University of Michigan. “It’s always been about me knowing how to do it the right way. I knew how the watch had to be designed based on my own test prep, using the training I had, using the textbooks and my test experience.” Like most students, Jordan didn’t start out using a watch to pace himself. He used his cellphone as a timer when practicing at home, but at the test site, no cellphones are allowed. Students may or may not be able to see a clock on the wall, and the proctor won’t be giving detailed timing notices.

But pacing is critical on the exam. The science section of the ACT, for example, has six-seven passages with complex experiments, graphs, tables and text. Students are expected to digest the material and complete thirty-five questions in thirty-five minutes – that’s a brutally slim five to five and a half minutes per passage, including bubbling in the answer sheet. For students caught on a difficult question in an early passage, time is up before they reach the later passages.

Jordan’s watch, Testing Timers, is a terrific tool for SAT and ACT prep and invaluable on the exam itself. With a dedicated model for the SAT and a separate one for the ACT, the watch allows students to choose the test section by name and length, start timing, pause if desired, and go back to regular watch at any time. One of the cooler features of the watch is a digital running stitch border around the digital time that indicates time remaining. For some sections of the test, it is divided by passage number, which is extremely helpful on the ACT, in particular, where speed is a major factor in the test’s difficulty. Jordan says he came up with the unique feature as he was at gym, working out. Describing the epiphany, he says, “I was on the elliptical, wondering how far I was on my workout, when I suddenly realized that’s exactly what I needed for my watch! That was the last thing I put in the watch when structuring the conceptual design.”

One point that Jordan emphasizes is that students should do their timed drills and practice tests using the watch; don’t save it for test day. Before bringing the product to market, he shared it with high school students studying for the ACT and “wasn’t too surprised to hear students talk about raising their scores.” He advises students, “If you practice with this watch and you raise your score, I’m not surprised. Don’t sit in the kitchen eating your dinner, watching TV, using your iPhone to time yourself. Practice like it is the real test; keep pace.”

The Testing Timer watch is a unique and very helpful tool for test preparation and at $40 ($48 for extra time accomodations model) it is reasonably priced. It’s simple to use and the manual is even on the website, always convenient for the wired generation. Check it out and see if it helps your pacing on the test.

One caution: Since the new SAT was introduced in mid-2016, the list of  items prohibited at the test center has gotten longer. It is possible that this watch may be prohibited by a proctor. The ACT is a little less stringent, but in any case, be prepared to put it away if challenged.  It can be used as a simple digital watch when not in timer mode and I have not yet heard any stories of students being prohibited from taking the watch into the test. Still, even if you don’t use it on test day, it remains an excellent training tool for  practice tests and internalizing your pacing strategies for either SAT or ACT.