There are several ways you can improve your SAT or ACT scores.  At Top Test Prep, we have improved SAT and ACT scores by isolating the following common issues: timing and test anxiety.  We’ve found ways to help you prepare for these exams and battle these major issues.

How to Improve your SAT or ACT scores:

(A) Timing: The biggest that most students have for either exams is timing.  Learning how to pace yourself for these exams is crucial.   One recommended strategy to use for the SAT and ACT exams is to take practice tests in real, timed conditions.  Often times students take “practice” SAT/ACT exams in pieces instead of in their whole parts.  First, always take the exams at the same time and day of the actual exam.  If you’re taking these SAT/ACT exams on a Saturday at 10am, I would highly encourage you to do all of your practice exams during the same time period.  In addition, if you’re having trouble keeping pace with the time allotted – usually 20 to 25 minutes for the SAT and 35 to 60 minute section on the ACT – try taking the exam under faster conditions.  Both strategies will give you an advantage over other students.

(B) Exam Anxiety: Taking these exams could be the biggest day of your life.  You are bound to be nervous and anxious to complete the exams so that you can move on to bigger and better things like college.

I would recommend you do the following before exam day to calm your test exam anxiety:  (1) Don’t try to rush your studying to the last minute.  Instead, complete your test prep studying a full day prior to exam day.  This will give you some time to relax and not worry as much.  (2)  Don’t have too much caffeine before the exam.  Drinking too much coffee might off-set your heart rate and could cause you unnecessary anxiety.  (3) On test day, if you can get up early enough, go for a quick jog in the morning.  A short 20 minute jog will get the blood flowing in your body and will allow oxygen to travel with it.  Exercise can help you perform better on the exams, and will keep you happier.

Overall, if you can conquer both SAT/ACT exam timing issues and anxiety, you’re half way through the battle of improving your test scores.  Our SAT tutors and SAT prep program can help you, as well as our ACT tutors and ACT prep programs.

Give us a call at (800) 501-PREP if you have more questions.

Best regards,

Ross Blankenship

President, Top Test Prep

Tags: ACT Prep, ACT exam, SAT Prep, SAT exam // Add Comment »

For the students out there taking the January 23 2010 SAT Exam (and the SAT overall), I would like to give a few key tips to prepare for this SAT exam.  As you probably know, the SAT exam is broken down into three parts: Writing, Math, and Reading.

In preparing for this exam, I’ll suggest one simple thing you can do for each section to get prepared.  Though there are many strategies which we use at Top Test Prep to help students, these will give you some quick tips to share with your friends.

For the SAT Writing sections:  Consider reading through the “sentence error” sections of the SAT writing and looking at the whole sentence instead of the sentence in parts.  Instead of stopping each time you read an “incorrect” error in a passage, read the entire sentence first and then assess the answer choices for the right answer.   Often times students taking the SAT exam fail to consider the sentence on the whole and instead fragment it into parts.  Our natural speech pattern recognizes errors, assuming a basic understanding of the English language.  If you do have a basic understanding on nouns, adjectives, possessives, conjunctions, articles, adverbs, etc, you will be able to read a sentence and hear it for its whole part – hopefully hearing what sounded best between the answer choices.

For the SAT Critical Reading sections: Consider looking for the author’s attitude and tone when analyzing and preparing to answer SAT critical reading questions.  Once you have read a reading passage in the SAT, go back through the passage and circle words that suggest how the author feels about a certain thing or issue.  Often times students read SAT critical reading sections and forget to look for the big picture.  Remember:  the SAT authors aren’t trying to test you on your ability to remember minute details, rather they want to make sure you can read a passage and understand the tone, rhetoric (argument), and outline of the main body.

For the SAT Math sections:  If you only have a couple weeks left to prepare for the SAT, spend time on only two key main subjects within the SAT math section like solid Geometry or coordinate Geometry and any algebra that is required to answer these SAT math/geometry questions.  Or if you have more time to prepare for the SAT, take the all-inclusive SAT math formula box, and try to develop your own questions that are applicable for the SAT math section.  After all, they say the way you know a problem or issue best is if you can explain it to others.   Try these questions which you have developed, on your friends and see if your answers and methodology make sense.

I hope these SAT preparation tips help you in preparing for the SAT Exam.  At Top Test Prep, we pride ourselves in provides excellent SAT tutoring and test prep for students.  Top Test Prep also has an excellent ACT prep program as well if you are taking the ACT exam.

My best wishes for you and get in touch if you need more help improving your test scores.

Ross Blankenship

President

Top Test Prep

(800) 501-PREP

Tags: SAT Prep, SAT exam, Test Prep, private tutoring // Add Comment »

1. Spot errors by listening for them.

In the error identification section, your goal is to identify grammatical or structural errors in a given sentence. The upside: you don’t need to know how to correct these errors. All you’re required to do is recognize when an underlined portion is wrong, or when there are no errors. Pronounce the sentence in your head and listen for anything that sounds off. If it sounds off, it probably is.

2. Remember that this is a test of written English.

Though tip #1 generally holds true, there are things we can get away with in spoken English that are not appropriate for written English. Some questions will spell out a common mispronunciation – such as “could of” in place of “could have” – that might sound right, but isn’t correct in writing.

3. Watch out for “I” versus “me.”

People often confuse the two, or assume that using “I” is always correct. Not so. Here’s a tip for figuring out which one to use: take out the other person or people, and see how you’d write the sentence if “you” were the only person. For example, if the sentence is : “My parents lent Sarah and I their station wagon,” take out “Sarah” and see how you’d rewrite the sentence if you were the only borrower of the station wagon. You will realize that “I” sounds wrong – that the correct phrasing should be “Sarah and me.”

4. Check for subject/verb agreement.

Ask yourself whether the subject is singular or plural, and whether the correlating verb is conjugated accordingly.

5. Check for verb tense agreement.

Ask yourself, “When did the event described take place?” in order to check that the verb is in the proper tense. If one event in the past happens before another event in the past, the earlier event will require a past participle such as “had talked” or “had eaten.”

6. Be able to recognize sentences that are too “wordy,” expressing an idea in too many words.

One example of wordiness on the SAT may be an adjective that is unnecessarily modified, such as “completely silent” or “very unique.” The words “completely” and “very” are not needed here: you are either silent or not silent; you are either unique or not unique.

7. Keep in mind that the essay portion of the SAT may be compared to your admissions essay.

Admissions officers may compare the two in order to verify that your style and writing level are similar for both essays. In some cases, a good SAT essay may give your application the edge you need to take you from borderline to admitted.

8. On the essay portion of the SAT, aim for clarity and good organization.

Apply all the rules for essay-writing you’ve learned in school. Organization and paragraph-parsing are key. It doesn’t matter what you know in a certain subject area; it matters how well you are able to express your opinion or to relate an experience relevant to the given prompt.

9. Proofread your SAT essay for grammatical errors.

Be as vigilant about checking your own writing for errors as you are on the error-ID portion of the exam. Small errors can add up, lowering your score.

10. Give your SAT essay a title.

It never hurts to title an essay. A title can intrigue your reader and summarize the main theme, giving your essay a feeling of completeness.

___________

Our SAT tutoring and SAT preparation can help you get into top colleges and improve your scores.

Amary Wiggin is an academic tutor and blogger for Top Test Prep. She graduated from Harvard in 2009.

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Whether you’re taking the SAT in December for the first time or the umpteenth, you still have about a month left to prepare. Here are some tips for getting the most out of these remaining few weeks.

1) Go over those vocab flash cards one last time. By now you’ll probably – hopefully – be familiar with them – so familiar, in fact, that it takes you far longer to say the definitions than to remember them. Still, it never hurts to review, review, review, and along the way, to remember all the synonyms surrounding a given word.

2) Go over the toughest practice problems, the ugly ones that really gave you trouble. Get a handle on them. Don’t just understand why you got each one wrong: understand the thought process required for solving it, and seek out other problems like it.

3) Get a good night’s sleep … for the two weeks leading up to the test. Studies have shown that sleep deprivation, even for a single night, can affect your performance on tests for over a week afterward, even if you got enough sleep during the nights in between.

4) On test day, wake up early enough to eat a healthy breakfast. Eat whatever works best for you: something filling and nutritious that sits well and will last you through the test. Eating a special meal can help set the day apart, putting you in the zone and revving you up for the day’s challenges.

5) It’s not too late for private SAT tutoring. You still have a whole month to sit down with an SAT tutor and address your weaknesses. An SAT tutor can help motivate you to study and provide you with tips and assignments that will build your mental endurance and efficiency. You can study alone, or you can study with the guidance of an SAT success story … your choice!

Amary Wiggin is an academic tutor and blogger for Top Test Prep. She graduated from Harvard in 2009.

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1) Use a dictionary.

No matter what you’re reading, take the time to look up words you don’t know. Not only will this improve your vocabulary (it’s the best way to do so), but it will improve your reading experience. You’ll understand the text better without relying purely on context (or skipping over the phrase with the unfamiliar word).

2) Use a thesaurus.

How many ways can you say “aggressive”? “Belligerent,” “pugnacious,” “combative,” “bellicose” … you get the idea. Memorizing synonyms as a group will help you remember what each word means. For every standard vocabulary word, there are several synonyms that stand a chance of showing up on the test.

3) Read something challenging on a regular basis.

Consider getting a subscription to a respected magazine, something that will catch your interest and stimulate your vocabulary at the same time.

4) Buy SAT flash cards.

Standardized tests tend to recycle vocabulary. Having mastered 100 or more of the most common words on the exam will give you confidence when one or two of those words shows up on your test.

5) Complete practice exams under timed conditions.

Get accustomed to the amount of time you’ll have to complete the test. You’ll get faster, which will give you more time to focus on the tough questions. Study all the words you missed on the practice exams (see number four).

Get aggressive about studying! (But not too pugnacious.)

Amary Wiggin is an academic tutor and blogger for Top Test Prep. She graduated from Harvard in 2009.

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Top Test Prep has PSAT, SAT, ACT, LSAT, GMAT, MCAT and GRE programs to help students improve their scores.

We have several private SAT prep and ACT tutors for schools like Walt Whitman, Wootton, Walter Johnson, Winston Churchill, and Bethesda-Chevy Chase, and many more in Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia.

call (800) 501-PREP to find out more information, or locally (301) 654-2141.

Top Test Prep’s private tutoring headquarters is in Bethesda, MD.

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Our recommendation is to take the SAT and ACT exams sooner than later.  We’ve posted the SAT exam schedule and the ACT exam schedule and test dates below.  Mark your calendars for these exams, and let us know if you need private tutoring for the SAT and ACT.

The SAT Exam schedule and test dates are as follows:

October 10, 2009,

November 7, 2009,

December 5, 2009,

January 23, 2010,

March 13, 2010,

May 1, 2010,

June 5, 2010.

The ACT Exam schedule and test dates are as follows:

September 12, 2009,

October 24, 2009,

December 12, 2009,

February 6, 2010,

April 10, 2010,

June 12, 2010.

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