I recently read this article. According to a recent poll of college admissions officials, a mere 30 point increase on the SAT can make a difference in the admissions outcome for a college applicant.* In response to that, I’d like to share a few ways that students can easily get 30 points (or more) on the test. In the following post, I’ll discuss how changing your approach to practice problems will get you more points on the SAT and, for that matter, any standardized test.
Most students acknowledge that practice is necessary to do well on the SAT; however, most don’t practice properly. For most students and parents, practice means getting through as many practice problems as possible. While there is value in that, it will be entirely useless unless done properly. Think about it: to do better on the SAT you need to improve a set of skills that you have, not simply rehearse them. If you’re simply repeating whatever you’re doing incorrectly–not consciously honing your skills–you’re just going to become more adept at whatever mistakes you’re making and not going to see the improvement that you want.
There’s a simple fix: think about quality of practice, not quantity. The way to do quality practice is as follows:
1) First practice problems, then practice the test: Don’t get caught up in doing massive amounts of practice problems or full-length sections until you’ve mastered problems one-by-one. Once you get the pieces–the problems–then you can put them together and do full-length sections or tests.
2) Work on one thing at a time: At the outset, isolate the particular topic you’re working on and focus on it. If you’re doing reading comprehension, work on that. If math, do math. Don’t try to do everything together until you’re in the later stages of practice.
3) Content –> Problems –> Content –> Problems: Once you’ve decided what you’re working on, first scan instructional materials on the content. If you’re doing math, make sure you know the basic math concepts. If you’re doing reading comprehension, make sure you understand the basic question types. Any good prep book will give you this information. Don’t spend too much time on the content, just enough to understand it. You’ll really learn the content when you put it into practice, so there’s not much sense in over-working it in isolation. Once you’ve covered some content, jump to problems. When you encounter something you don’t understand in the problem, go back to the content, and so on and so forth, until you understand the content inside out.
4) Repeat problems until they’re perfect (this is the big one): Mediocre students tend to do a practice problem, look at the answer, and then move on. Good students will try to figure out what they did wrong. However, that’s still not enough. Becoming a better test taker requires building skills, and building skills requires correct practice. Merely looking over your mistakes isn’t enough. Instead, you should take a fresh version of the problem you got wrong (one that doesn’t have markings on it) and do it again. You should do this in according to a schedule similar to this:
a) redo the problem immediately until you can do it quickly without pause: If you get a problem wrong, figure out why in the same practice session and then redo it correctly. If you can’t figure it out, ask someone or look it up online (this is where a tutor is very useful). Every incorrect problem is an opportunity to improve, so do not rest until you have figured it out. Then, redo a fresh version of the problem. Redo it until you can do it quickly. Once you can, make note of the problem and move on.
b) redo the same problems the next day: Revisit the problem the next day and do it again. The way that our memory works, it’s most efficient to revisit a problem right before you are about to forget it. For most people, that means the next day. Revisit a fresh version of the problem and do it again, making sure to analyze each step and not simply do the problem by rote memorization. Do it over until you get it correct and can do it quickly.
c) revisit a problem periodically until it’s completely effortless: Once you go a day without doing a problem and get it correct, revisit it after two days, then four days, then a week, steadily increasing the time between iterations. If you ever get it wrong, go back to (a) and start again. Always remember to do the problems mindfully, thinking about the concepts and mechanics, not simply by rote.
5) Once you’re successful doing problems, then put them together: you should only be doing full-length practice sections or tests once you’re comfortable with individual problems. If you do practice sections before you’re ready, you’re rehearsing mistakes and not practicing as efficiently as possible.
Why this works: This method encourages you to actually learn from the mistakes that you make, taking into account that doing well on the SAT is a skill. Imagine if a musician simply ran through a piece of music once before a big concert without stopping to work on any problem areas, or if a hurdler who knocks over all the hurdles never stopped to improve her fundamentals: neither would ever improve. Practicing for the SAT is no different. If you don’t have a method to consciously isolate and fix your errors, you’ll see poor performance continue. Use this method and learn from your mistakes. Though you’ll do fewer problems, you’ll see much quicker and more sustained improvement.
