SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips

Do you have a high GPA, perform well in school, but can’t seem to do well on the SAT / ACT? This is a common pattern, and there are certain strategies that work especially well for you. First, we'll figure out why this is happening to you, and, depending on the reason, suggest ways to improve your SAT / ACT score. Second, we’ll go over what a high GPA but low SAT / ACT score signals to colleges and how to counter that signal.

PrepScholar helps you prepare for the ACT by giving you free ACT resources. Browse through our comprehensive list of real, official ACT practice tests. Find out ACT general info, section strategies, section content, and other resources. To read our free blog resources, you don't need to register or create an account — you can get started today!

As of March 5, 2016, the new SAT is out. This means that those who took the old 2400-point SAT may want to know what their new 1600-point SAT score would have been, and vice versa. This information is critical for when you research and apply to scholarships and colleges that use a different version of the SAT than the one you took. 

Here, we give the official conversions between old SAT and new SAT scores. These conversions come directly from the College Board, and we've made automatic conversion tools to make it easier for you!

Participation rate has a huge impact on state average SAT / ACT scores. In any state, the top students on the SAT/ACT are those most eager to take it, so states with low participation rates have artificially higher SAT / ACT scores.  Here, we use advanced statistical methods to adjust for participation rate to get at the real ranking of states by their real SAT and ACT scores. 

It seems obvious that each ACT / SAT question must have exactly one answer, and this answer must be clearly and objectively correct. However, as we’ll explain below, that simple fact alone disqualifies vast swaths of reasonable questions that you otherwise see in everyday tests at school.  This obvious fact also leads to a little-known secret that, when applied correctly, guarantees the cracking of each question. You don’t have to trust me -- read through this guide and ask any perfect or near-perfect scorer. They’ll agree on the secret.

Do you have great extracurriculars?  Maybe you’re captain of the football team or president of a top debate team.  Your approach to college admissions will be quite different than a typical student’s, and your SAT / ACT prep process should be uniquely tailored to you. In this article, we talk about what unique opportunities you have in test prep and what traps you should avoid.

Recently, there has been substantial coverage about whether colleges discriminate against Asian-Americans in admissions and even test prep.  What does that mean for these students?  How should such students navigate SAT / ACT prep and college admissions?  This article surveys the current state of admissions and gives some tips.

Are you already scoring well on the SAT and getting a 1400 or above (2100 in the 2400 scale)?  This puts you in a special class, and your strategy for improving your SAT score will be very different from the average students'.  Having made the improvement myself, I'll show you how you can aim for a perfect SAT score too.

Did you hear?  The old SAT was given for the final time on January 23rd, 2016.  What does that mean for students still studying for the SAT?  We'll discuss the implications of the old SAT sunset and what you need to do for new SAT prep!

The Class of 2017 is in a tough spot on the SAT.  Should you take the new SAT or old SAT?  If you take the new SAT, you would be the guinea pigs for a totally new system; if you take the old one, you have a tighter schedule.  How does it break down?

 There are numerous and diverse resources for students to prepare for the SAT. Preparing for this important exam has been shown to be strongly correlated with scoring highly and improving scores between test administrations. Because the SAT largely differs in question type and pacing from most classroom exams, students tend to benefit from familiarizing themselves with the test before taking it.

We have all the information you need about SAT Subject Test (also known as SAT II) dates in 2015 and 2016. While the SAT Reasoning Test (aka the SAT I) changed dramatically in 2016, the Subject Tests didn't have any large changes in terms of content. The exam dates of the SAT Subject Tests, however, were affected. Read on to find out more!

Note: This guide covers 2015-16 only; for the current year's SAT Subject Test dates, click here.

Historical test dates for the SAT are important for many accurate records.  However, the College Board at this point doesn't maintain an easy database of SAT dates for 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, and so forth.  We at PrepScholar have done the hard work to dig up the old records. See below!

While the vast majority of articles on our blog are about immediate tips for the SAT/ACT test, from time to time we also feature some latest products we at PrepScholar are coming out with.  This time, we're annoucing our new PrepScholar Tutor product.  It combines the affordability and customization of PrepScholar Automated Prep with varying levels of premium tutoring, giving you many advantages of each.

What are the best books for the SAT critical reading section (which used to be called the verbal section)?  Here we review a few of the top books that we feel helps students the most.  We discuss which skills you should be learning from books, and which you should instead be learning from flashcards or practice.  You can get these books online, or better yet from the library.