Wondering how and when to start studying for your SAT or ACT? Susanna answers all your questions in today’s video. These tests are often intimidating and it can be difficult to know how to start when preparing for them. Learn what your timeline should be when preparing and what your different options are for studying based on your budget.
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Transcription:
Today we’re going to talk about test prep options. You actually have quite a few options to prep for the SAT and the ACT. You can take a class at your local library, you can do self-guided prep with a book, you can do a small class of prep at a local test prep institution or Kaplan or Princeton Review, or you can get one-on-one tutoring. I sort of listed those in order of cost.
Libraries tend to offer things that are free or very low cost, which is great, and your school might offer those as well, so really look into those. You could get a book at Barnes and Noble for around 35 dollars, and a lot of those have a CM-ROM, which will have practice tests on it that you can do to prep for the SAT and the ACT. So that’s a great way for you to prep for those tests, but it’s really difficult because the material is super boring. I’m not gonna lie, I’m not going to candy coat that. It is some really dry stuff. Getting through it on your own is obviously one of the most cost effective ways to do it, but it’s so, so, so difficult to actually pull that off because the material is so dry.
Often kids prefer to be with other students studying, usually classes have kids in groups of 6 or 8 and that works really well. Those could be offered locally at Princeton Review or Kaplan, again, but those are a little bit on the spendy side, so check at your local options because there will be test prep places near you that offer these things as well.
You can do one-on-one tutoring, and obviously that’s quite expensive. It’s also very effective because you can’t tune out, you can’t zone out, and you’re the only kid in the class so you have to answer every single question. It’s a bit intense.
Remember, you need to do the homework. Whatever your test prep, whatever you choose, you have to do the homework. Your score won’t just go up because you enroll in the class and take the class. You actually have to do the homework. It is really boring, it’s like getting your wisdom teeth out or going through Drivers Ed; it’s a teenage rite of passage. But you should prep for these tests in some way, shape, or form because you don’t want to send in your raw scores against everyone else’s prepped scores. I would recommend about 8 to 10 weeks before the test, even up to 3 months, some kids need 6 months of prep to really get their best scores.
Good luck!
