2) Prioritize! With only a little time before the test, you must tailor your efforts to the areas where you are most likely to see improvement.  Don’t get stuck on a particular concept if you are having difficulty with it.  You can always come back to it later.  You want to be able to answer as many different kinds of questions as possible.

3) Improve your vocabulary. At this point you should be hitting those word lists with considerable intensity.   Keep words you don’t know with you at all times (flash cards, iphone apps, etc.).   Learn a new word while you’re in the car, waiting in line at Starbucks, or, dare I say, in the bathroom.  Think how many words you could have learned in the time it took you to send those 863 texts today.

4) Make sure you get enough rest and proper nutrition in the weeks leading up to the test.  You cannot catch up on weeks of sleeplessness in one or two nights.   Determine what snacks to bring to the test (Think banana, nuts, protein bar, not candy bar, soda, chips).  Practice your breathing and relaxation before test.  If the adrenalin rush during the SAT turns to panic, stop what you are doing, start taking deep breaths, and relax your muscles.  This will help you calm down and get the oxygen to your brain that it needs to perform.

5) Get help. If you are clear that you are not going to perform the way that you want to, it is not to late to hire an SAT tutor.  One or two months, while not ideal, is certainly enough time for someone to assess your progress, teach you tips and tricks, and develop a plan to maximize your efforts and your score.  There are hundreds of test prep companies and individual tutors in New York City.  If you don’t know where to start, inquire at school or ask friend who’s been through it.  Of course, we are partial to the talented group of test prep tutors that we’ve assembled at Partners With Parents.

The next and final chance to take the SAT this school year is June 5th.  The registration deadline for that exam date is May 5th.  If you haven’t started preparing, what are you waiting for?  It’s not too late to let us help.

Freshman Year

RELAX!  You’ve got lots of time.  You shouldn’t be thinking about formally preparing for the SAT much at all.  If you must, you may consider the following activities as your early SAT prep: reading books, learning new words, paying attention in math class, writing persuasive essays, taking a Latin class.

Sophomore Year

It’s a good idea to take the PSAT in October of your sophomore year.  If, and only if, you know that you experience crippling anxiety when taking standardized tests, then one or two tutoring sessions are fine to alleviate the stress.  Don’t go overboard.  The PSAT is the Preliminary SAT.  Taking it in your sophomore year is essentially practice for the practice.  The reason for taking it is simple:  there are precious few opportunities to experience real testing conditions.  The more comfortable you feel in that kind of environment, the better you’ll do when the SAT rolls around.

The other thing that really makes sense sophomore year is to put a little extra emphasis on vocabulary.  Get an SAT vocabulary list and start learning 5 new words a week.  Finding a list of Latin roots (assuming you are not taking Latin) can help immensely.

If you think you might be eligible for a National Merit Scholarship (which is only open to juniors who take the PSAT/NMSQT), then it can make sense to start working with a tutor during the summer after sophomore year.  The scholarships are highly competitive. Among other things, you need to be at the very top of your class, demonstrate leadership and community service, and essentially show that your PSAT score was not a fluke by performing comparably on the SAT.  Although the award is a lot of work for $2500, it sure does impress college admissions officers.

Junior Year

This is the time to start SAT tutoring in earnest.  If you are like the vast majority of our students, we recommend starting with an SAT tutor in the fall, and using the PSAT in October to gauge your progress and motivate/scare yourself into working harder.  Remember, it’s better to have started early and have too much time than the alternative.

At the beginning of the junior year, it is a good idea to set a target SAT score.  You need to be thinking about where you’d like to go to college when deciding your target score.  While you don’t have to finalize a top 10 list, you should get an idea about the range of SAT scores for accepted applicants at the schools that interest you. Your target score should put you in at least the 50^th percentile of accepted applicants’ scores. (If you attend an elite independent high school in NYC, you will likely need to aim for the 75^th percentile rather than the 50^th, due to the degree of competition from your peers.)  Of course, to strengthen your chances of getting into your first choice school, it’s better to aim for the top end of the range. . . if it’s doable.  Once you are consistently reaching your goal in practice, formal test prep should be finished.  You might be the kind of student that is highly motivated by knowing that you can stop once you reach your target.

The SAT is offered in March, May and June.  Generally speaking, we recommend taking the test as soon as you are meeting your target goal.  If you’re ready in March of junior year, then go ahead and take it.  If you’re unhappy with your performance, you’ll be able to take it again in May or June.

Remember, if you are taking multiple AP tests & SAT Subject Tests (SAT IIs), make sure you spread them out so you don’t get overwhelmed (or at least so you get less overwhelmed).  You really don’t want to be taking the SAT, two AP exams, and an SAT Subject Test in the same week at the beginning of May!

Senior Year

If your scores aren’t where they need to be after the June exam, plan on summer tutoring and taking the SAT again in September.  The final exam date in November, just before college applications are due, is cutting it really close, but it’s nice to know it’s there as a final option if early results aren’t what you hoped.

The devastation caused by the earthquake in Haiti, coupled with the preexisting lack of infrastructure, have created the kind of unfathomable humanitarian perfect storm that prompts us to remember just exactly why so many schools have adopted a community service component to their curricula.  Just as we owe it to our children to ensure they have enough number sense to understand their taxes and balance their checkbooks, we owe it to them to ensure they have enough social sense to rise to the occasion and make good choices in both the preservation of our world and in the event of a crisis or human suffering.  Each of us may not be “our brother’s keeper,” but in a shrinking world where everyone knows someone who knows someone in six degrees of separation from Port-au-Prince, it’s clear that all our destinies are inextricably linked and that serving the community matters all the more.

It is important to realize that test preparation cannot merely begin at the registration deadline, which is usually less than a month prior to the test date.  To ensure a confident, level-headed approach on test day, the material must be examined and taken seriously well in advance.  Standardized tests are not measures of any innate intelligence or ability; in a sense, performance on these exams is just an indicator of how well you perform on these exams. This is why our schools and universities rarely make test scores their first criteria in decision-making.  Meaningful preparation that results in actual mastery of the material usually raises a student’s score substantially.

As you look ahead to your child’s exam schedule in the upcoming year, don’t miss your registration deadlines, but be sure you don’t forget to accommodate the learning process that comes far prior to registration, either.  Make a study plan a year in advance that includes understanding how the test works.  Take a practice test each month in real test conditions to develop ease with test-taking itself.  Break down the test into discrete concepts and commit to learning one each week – triangles this week, probability next.  Learn a new word or two each day.  There are hundreds of resources for each standardized test at your disposal – books, word lists, worksheets, computer programs, etc.  This kind of preparation will leave many students well-prepared for test day.

If you know your child faces a struggle with a standardized test, professional test prep is always an option.  We all know this is a huge industry, with thousands of classes and private tutors in New York City alone.  One piece of advice: Research your options and know how much you are willing to spend in total.  It can get very expensive.  Another piece of advice: If you know you are going to have a few sessions with a tutor, do the majority of them months in advance.  That way, you’ll know where you stand and have the time to address areas of weakness.  Then you can have the last couple of sessions right before the test date for lingering questions and final preparations.  For self-disciplined learners, a good tutor will be able to identify gaps in knowledge and create a plan of action that the student can follow independently.  For those students who need more attention, there are rigorous programs that provide step-by-step instruction over the course of months.

The bottom line: Make a plan!  Get familiar with the test as well as the dates that serve you.  If you don’t feel confident with some of the content, target those areas for extra attention.  Seek outside resources. (You might as well start by checking out free or low-cost options before jumping right in with tutors who charge hundreds of dollars an hour.)  Practice, practice, practice!  Then, the night before the big day, relax a little.  If you’ve done a thorough preparation, the confidence will be there, and the results will come.