SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips

If you want to do well on the SAT or ACT, keeping track of time and how many questions you have left is extremely important. 

Sections are 35-60 minutes long on the ACT and 25-65 minutes long on the SAT. One of the leading reasons students perform poorly on either test is that they run out of time. And one of the leading reasons students run out of time is not because they're not aware of how much time is left.

We'll go over the best way to keep track of time on the SAT/ACT in this article, including what timekeeping devices are and are not permitted on test day.

You're serious about studying for the SAT. You have a year or more to study, and you want to put a real effort into it.

Is studying this much worth it? What are the payoffs? And most importantly, what's the best way to study for the SAT / ACT on the year-or-more level? This post answers those questions!

"Before anything else, preparation is the key to success."

While Alexander Graham Bell may not have been referring specifically to the SAT or ACT, his words ring as true for these tests as for anything else. Scoring highly on the SAT/ACT is all about preparation, and luckily you have plenty of time to prepare if you start early. If you haven't started already, let's discuss some reasons why it's useful to start prepping as a freshman and the best ways for doing so.

The SAT Reading section presents you with challenging tasks. Not only will you have to sustain your focus over a long 65-minute section, but you'll also have to search actively for evidence in each passage to back up your answers.

The test may be time intensive and full of tricky "distractor" answers, but you can learn to avoid the common pitfalls with the right approach. This guide will discuss the best strategies for reading the passages effectively and achieving a high score on the new SAT Reading. To start, let's go over what the redesigned passages are going to look like on your test.

If you've only got a month before test day, don't freak out! Although it's not a ton of time to prepare for the SAT, it can be enough if you use your time wisely.

In this guide, we share with you our best advice on how to study for the SAT in a month. We'll begin by analyzing the feasibility of studying for the SAT in a month and then go over the critical steps you must take in order to get your plan going. Finally, we’ll leave you with 12 high-impact tips you can use during your studies and on test day to help you get the SAT score you need for college!

NOTE: This article largely assumes you’ll be conducting a self-guided study plan. Those who'd prefer a helping hand should take advantage of our expert SAT tutors as well as our completely customizable SAT prep course!

Standardized tests have a reputation for presenting questions in formats that are tricky and confusing. Wouldn't it be great if there was a way to get past all that and take a shortcut to the correct answer? This article provides expert SAT hacks to help you solve SAT questions that might otherwise leave you stumped!

No doubt you’ve heard one piece of advice more than any other when it comes to test-taking: “If you need to guess on a multiple choice test, always pick C.”

But is the popularity of this strategy an indication of its efficacy? Do you have a better chance at gaining points if you guess C on your SAT questions in comparison to any other guessing strategy? And if not, what can you do to improve your odds when guessing?

Let’s look at the facts.

The SAT is one of the most important tests you’ll take in high school. When you take a test in class, there are clear guidelines for passing and failing - wouldn’t it be nice to have the same thing for the SAT?

Here, I’ll talk about exactly what it means to pass the test (spoiler: it’s different for everybody) before giving you tips and strategies fo how to pass the SAT and get the score you need.

Getting your SAT/ACT dream score will likely take a considerable time investment. The vast majority of high school students have to spend many hours of studying before they're able to get their desired score. However, your time is limited. You have school, homework, studying, and extracurricular activities. How will you be able to put in the necessary test prep time on top of your other responsibilities?

In this article, I'll let you know how you can balance SAT/ACT test prep with school. If you follow my advice, you'll be able to effectively incorporate test prep into your schedule.

With the guessing penalty eliminated for the redesigned SAT, you should guess on any question you can’t answer, because you won’t be penalized for wrong guesses. However, that doesn’t mean that guessing completely randomly is a good idea. You should always use the process of elimination as much as you are able to increase your chances of getting the right answer.

Since the SAT has just been redesigned, you might feel like there aren’t very many practice questions around for you to use. The College Board has released four free practice tests, but once you get through those, what should you do?

You might be wondering if you can use old SAT practice tests to study for the new SAT. The answer is yes, you can! I will show you how.

Read on to see why you would want to use old practice tests, what practice tests won’t do for you, and then a how-to guide on the most effective way to use old tests to prep for each section. Finally, I’ll also briefly discuss using the ACT for new SAT prep, since the tests are surprisingly similar.

We've all experienced nerves before an important evaluation, but for many of us the anxiety is much, much worse than a few simple jitters. 

By all accounts, a significant percentage of students experience some level of test anxiety, ranging from significant but livable symptoms to the most severely debilitating manifestations.

Dealing with any level of test anxiety during the SAT or ACT is, at its best, the opposite of fun. This guide will explain what test anxiety is, why it happens, and what you can do to manage it. 

Are you preparing for the SAT by taking practice tests? Awesome! You’re on the right track! How can you ensure that you’re getting the most out of each practice test you take? You need to make sure you’re taking each practice test under realistic testing conditions. What’re you doing (maybe subconsciously) that’s ruining your realistic testing conditions?

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.

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.