SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips

You may already know a lot about some of the big, popular, national scholarships - programs like the Gates Millennium Scholarship, the Coca-Cola Scholarship, McDonald’s Scholarships, and so on. If you’re interested in applying for scholarship money, it’s definitely easiest to start with awards that you already know about.

But if you only focus on these big awards, you could be missing out on a lot of cash. Local scholarship awards may be smaller than the most famous scholarship programs, but there are so many awards out there that it would be silly not to look into local options.

Here, I’ll talk a bit about how these local awards differ from the national ones and why it’s important that you consider these smaller scholarships. Then, I’ll talk about how you can find scholarships in your community. I’ll end with tips and strategies for submitting the best possible applications for local scholarship awards.

Keep reading if you want to win the most local scholarship money possible!

The SAT has had a complete makeover. Just a quick glance will show you that it barely resembles its previous self. Many students, luckily, will find its transformation quite attractive.

This guide will help you catch up on the changes with a comprehensive overview of the new SAT format. Read on to learn about the test’s new design and scoring, followed by some tips on what these changes mean for test-takers. To begin, let’s go over the overall structure of the SAT.

The new SAT challenges students to understand the reasoning behind each answer they pick. Command of Evidence questions are a manifestation of this mission. In order to answer them, you have to carefully evaluate your thought process and the evidence presented by the author of the passage.

This article will focus on the evidence questions on the Reading section of the SAT; we have a separate article on Writing questions. In this guide, I'll tell you exactly what these questions test, what kinds there are, and how you can learn to answer them correctly every time!  

In writing, transitions are important because they help establish logical connections between ideas. On the SAT Reading and Writing section, questions about transitions are an important component of the test. In this article, I explain the types of transition questions on the SAT and provide detailed advice on how to correctly answer these questions.

There are so many different types of financial aid out there, with some serving you better than others. This guide will demystify everything you need to know about the types of aid available to students.

I’ll start with the various options available to you and include examples that you can check out for yourself. Then, I’ll tell you exactly where and how you can get your hands on this financial aid money. Finally, I’ll explain which types of aid you should take advantage of - and which types you should stay away from.

Let's get started! 

You likely had your first taste of working with fractions sometime in elementary school, though it's probably been a while since you've had to deal with how they shift, change, and interact with one another. To refresh, fractions and ratios are both used to represent pieces of a whole. Fractions tell you how many pieces you have compared to a potential whole amount (3 red marbles in a bag of 5, for example), while ratios compare pieces to each other (3 red marbles to 2 blue marbles) or, more rarely, pieces to the whole amount (again, 3 red marbles in 5 total).

If this sounds complicated to you right now, don’t worry! We will go through all the principles behind fractions and ratios in this guide. If this seems easy to you right now, definitely check out the practice problems at the end of the guide to make sure you have mastered all the different kinds of fraction and ratio problems you’ll see on the test. The SAT likes to present familiar concepts in unfamiliar ways, so don’t let your mastery of fractions lead you to make assumptions about how you’ll see fractions and ratios on the test.

No matter how comfortable you are (or are not) with fractions and ratios right now, this guide is for you. Here, we will go through the complete breakdown of fractions and ratios on the SAT—what they mean, how to manipulate them, and how to answer the most difficult fraction and ratio problems on the SAT.

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. 

What are "vocab in context questions" and what are the best ways to approach answering them? In this article, I'll go over the basics of what vocab in context questions are, then transition into more in-depth discussions of each of the two types (complete with examples, both official and homemade).

Finally, I'll end with suggesting strategies to use when tackling these types of questions.

At long last, you get your SAT or ACT scores back, and now you have to make an important decision—do you retake the test and aim for a higher score? What are your chances of improving your score?

The answer can get complicated, depending on how many times you've taken it before and what your score target is. Read on to develop the best testing plan for yourself.

Starting in March 2016, there will be a newly redesigned SAT. The new SAT only has two sections: Evidence-Based Reading and Writing and Math.

While most people are focused on the changes to the Reading and Writing section, there have been a few changes to the SAT Math section that are important to know. What are these changes? How will your SAT study strategy need to change? I'll delve into that and more in this guide.

The ACT Reading section is challenging for many students because of the intense focus required to answer questions accurately in such a short time frame. Quickly getting to the root of each question is tough, but it's definitely a skill that you can learn with practice. This guide will present an example-driven step-by-step process for interpreting ACT Reading questions and give you the inside scoop on some of the sneakiest tricks the Reading section has up its sleeve. 

The night before the SAT can be stressful, to say the least. Maybe you’re not sure about the best way to prepare yourself during these final hours - all you know is that you want to do the best you can on the exam.

Well, we’ve made it easy (and stress-free) for you to do what you need to do the night before the test. Here, I’ll lay out everything you should and shouldn’t do before you head to bed in order to ensure your best possible score. Follow these tips - including everything from logistical concerns to exam prep strategies - to wake up confident, refreshed, and ready.

Let’s get started!

Getting ready to apply to college? If you are, I’m sure you’ve heard of the ACT and/or SAT. If you’re unfamiliar with the basics of the ACT, make sure to learn about what the ACT is before continuing reading this article. Just how important is the ACT for your college applications? It is one of the most important pieces of your college application (if not THE most important piece).

In this guide, I'll explain why test scores are a key part of your application and how to determine the ACT admission requirements for your target schools.