SAT and ACT FAQ

Here are some frequently asked questions that I receive from parents and students when they asking about taking the SAT and ACT tests:

1) What are the biggest pitfalls students make when taking or preparing for the SAT
Not practicing enough…with the SAT, practice does make perfect. The more the student gets the hang of the type of questions the SAT asks, the better he/she can do. The SAT is known to keep math questions and sentence completions literally the same or just slightly changed! With the grammar section, the more you memorize the rules, the more your score goes up. Do all the early easy questions first and then spend the latter of your time on the harder questions at the end. The last one can be the most difficult either because the vocab is more challenging or because it may just take longer to do that math problem. However, a point is a point. Do the easy ones, and skip the last ones if you run out of time.

2.)Might be the same but for the ACT tests
Again, practice helps with doing this test as well. While the math is not arranged easiest to most difficult, the questions from 1-15 are Alg 1, 16-30 Geometry, 31-45 Alg 2, 45-60 Alg 2-Trig. When you don’t know the question, ALWAYS guess. You shouldn’t skip ANYTHING on the ACT as you don’t get marked down for guessing. The grammar seems to be easier for students on the ACT than on the SAT. It’s just reading a section and correcting the grammar; on the ACT, however, they give you options on how to correct the sentence instead of just circling what you think is wrong on the SAT’s sentence error section.

You’ll need to take a look at the Science section on the ACT as it is a completely different section that the SAT does not give. You don’t need to have an outstanding background in chem, bio, or physics….you just need to be able to read the experiments and know what’s going on in the tables. Quickly skim the table/experiment horizontally and vertically to know what’s going on. The hard part about the Science section is not the questions, but finishing in time. You have 35 minutes to do 7 experiments which is a 5 minute experiment!

The ACT essay is optional, is given at the END of the day, and is 30 minutes in length. The SAT essay is mandatory, is given first thing in the morning, and is 25 minutes in length.

3.)The home page. I would like to put a few little 4 to 5 sentence paragraphs on there that might be the questions and answers to the most common questions you get from students and parents before they hire you.
The most common question is where can my student improve? Each student needs to look at his/her PSAT scores to see where the most help is needed. In the Critical Reading section, is it the vocab, the short readings, the long readings? Is it understanding them or just finishing them in time? Start making flash cards for SAT words. Practice timing yourself on the readings. Practice taking tests!

In the Math section, is he/she missing the early easy ones and making silly mistakes or is it just the medium-hard questions that he/she misses? If it’s just the hard ones at the end, perhaps skip the last 1-2 questions. Your student may be in pre-calc/calc by now which has nothing to do with the SAT math. Perhaps he/she just needs to brush up on the Algebra and Geometry which is the math given on the SAT.

In the Writing section….YES your student can ALWAYS improve this section by understanding the rules to grammar. Your student needs to know where to find a double negative, subject-verb agreement, common English idioms, adverbs, when to use I/me, the “W” rule (when-time, who-people, where-place), etc. Once students know the rules to grammar (the test uses about 20-25 rules) they can really bring up their Writing score! The Writing section is 2/3 grammar, 1/3 the essay.