SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips

Here at PrepScholar, we get a lot of questions about every aspect of the ACT. To help, we've compiled this ACT FAQ to address all of your questions about the test – whether you haven’t even cracked open a prep book to study for it yet or if you’ve taken it four times and are wondering which scores to send to colleges.

Read on to get the answers to all of your burning ACT-related questions and links to the best articles on our site to help you prepare for the ACT.

If you’re currently applying to college or getting ready to apply to college, you’ve probably heard of the SAT and/or the ACT. You may already know that the SAT is a standardized test which high school students take before applying to college, but how important is the SAT in college applications? It’s hard to overstate the importance of the SAT. Your test score will be one of the most important parts of your college application (if not the most important part).

In this guide, I'll explain why test scores are a key part of your application and how you can determine the SAT admission requirements for the schools you're interested in.

There are a lot of benefits to having a job while you’re a college student (besides just the extra cash, of course). Some of the most convenient jobs available are located right on campus.

In this article, I’ll do a deep dive into the benefits of having a job in college before talking about exactly what you should look for to find good jobs for college students. Then I’ll get to the good stuff: a list of the best jobs out there and how to get one for yourself. Read on to learn more!

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.

Interested in volunteering? Volunteering is a great extracurricular activity that looks good on college applications. Volunteering shows colleges that you dedicated your time and effort to helping others!

Not sure what volunteer opportunities are available to you? There are a lot to choose from! In this article, I’ll tell you what volunteering entails, list the types of volunteer opportunities for teens, and give a brief description of each. 

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.

Winter has come in the form of Storm Jonas, affecting much of the East Coast. Governors of Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Washington DC declared a state of emergency, and hundreds of SAT test centers closed.

Did YOUR January 23rd SAT test center get closed because of the storm? How do you maximize your score up until your February 20 makeup exam? Find out here.

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 College Board had some issues with the new PSAT, including late score reports from their Fall 2015 test. Here, we’ll talk about whether these problems will affect you, and we’ll point you in the right direction if you still have issues getting your scores.

PSAT scores are especially important to high school juniors who are hoping to qualify for the National Merit Scholarship. If you're a high school junior, you’ll want to make sure you read our NMS score section - we’ll answer all your questions about National Merit Semifinalist cutoffs.

Finally, we’ll talk a bit about what this means for the College Board in general. This isn’t the first problem that they’ve had with their standardized tests in recent years - could this delay in score reports speak to more serious problems with the maker of the SAT? Read on to find out!

March 5, 2016 shall be a monumental day in SAT history. The format of the SAT will officially change for the first time since 2005. Each section of the test, including SAT Writing, will undergo significant changes.

In this article, I'll explain the content and format changes to SAT Writing and provide guidance for how to prepare for the SAT Writing and Language section. If you follow the advice in this guide, you'll be prepared to get an amazing score on the SAT Writing in 016 and beyond.

Extracurriculars are a significant part of your college application, and just participating in an extracurricular is not enough. Colleges don’t want participants. Colleges want leaders. If you want to stand out, it’s not sufficient to be the president of a club. Colleges want leaders who take initiative and get their goals accomplished.

How can you become a successful leader in your extracurricular? What are good leadership activities for high schoolers? In this article, I’ll guide you through the whole process of becoming a successful leader: from deciding where to focus your efforts to implementing your plan to describing your achievements on a college application.

If you took the ACT with Writing in September, October, or December of 2015, you may have been taken by surprise by the change in the essay prompt (compared to previous ACT Writing tests). And when you got your scores back...well, you may have been even more confused.

While the change in the ACT essay format was announced ahead of time, the full explanation of how the Writing scores would be normalized was not made clear until after the first administration of the new ACT Writing test. Because of this, ACT, Inc. faced a bit of controversy about the scoring of the new Writing test. Now they've returned to a 12-point scoring scale, with a more transparent calculation system. Read on to learn what all this means for you.

Change is scary, and the SAT was already kind of scary in the first place, so you might be feeling apprehensive about the new test. Good news: It's possible that the new SAT will be easier for some (or even most!) students. In this article, I'll go through some predictions about which aspects of the new SAT have the potential to make it a less challenging test and which types of students are most likely to benefit.

Significant changes are coming to the SAT in 2016, but the effect they'll have on the student experience is debatable. Is the new SAT harder? It's impossible to tell for sure without any data on new score patterns.

In the meantime, we can make a few predictions for how the changes to the format and content of the test could increase its difficulty. In this article, I'll give you an overview of the changes to the test, list some factors that might make it more challenging, and suggest study strategies for students who may struggle on the new SAT.

It can be hard to tell what counts as a good score on the ACT, especially for high-achieving students. In this article, I'll explain what competitive ACT scores are for an honors student and what that means for you.

But first let's define our terms!