Summer SAT/ACT Prep Suggestions

Those three blissful months of summer are what every high school looks forward to all year: a hard-earned break from the frenzy of school and extracurriculars and final exams. Standardized test prep is most likely the last thing on your mind when thinking about all your summer plan. For rising juniors who will take the test for the first time, or for rising seniors looking to retest, summer is one of the best times to study and hopefully boost your SAT or ACT score up a few points! After nine months of school, studying for two, three, four hours a day probably does not sound very appealing. Luckily, there are so many other ways to make test prep somewhat more enjoyable!

Make A Plan

With about 10 weeks in summer, there’s a lot you can get done if you make a plan and stick to it. Think about your studying goals and how you want to achieve it. Do you want to study every weekday for a short period of time, or perhaps 2 days of the week for 2 hours each? A good idea to maximize your studying efforts is to focus on your weaknesses. If you know you struggle with the SAT/ACT math section, but excel in English, it would be best to focus more on math prep rather than English.

Study in Your Free Time

Studying doesn’t have to be done by sitting down for long chunks of time with a standardized test prep book. You can study almost anywhere: on vacation, waiting at a restaurant, in the car, etc. Download vocabulary apps, SAT/ACT prep apps, math apps, etc., to practice with whenever you have a few extra minutes. It may not seem like much at the time, but those few minutes over the whole summer will really add up!

Read!

Reading just about anything can really improve your comprehension skills, thus helping you on the Reading portions of the SAT/ACT. Bring a book with you to the beach or read news articles before you go to sleep. This may seem really simple, but it will definitely go a long ways to furthering your reading skills! In addition to the traditional method of studying for a few hours with a test prep book, try some of the above tips to really maximize your study time and ace the SAT/ACT!