SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips

It's 17-19 days after your SAT test date, so you log into the CollegeBoard website, eager to see how you did. You look at your essay score and see...“9.”

You check for more detail in your score report and see that Grader 1 gave you a 5, Grader 2 gave you a 4...and that's it.

So how are SAT essays graded, and how can you use this information to your advantage? Read on to find out!

Rumor has it, the longer your SAT essay, the higher your score. Could this be true? Does essay length affect your score?

Let's unpack this belief and talk about the best strategies for scoring high on the SAT essay.

Are you planning on buying a book to help you prep for SAT Writing?

In this article I will discuss the top prep books for SAT Writing on the market today, and why you should or should not buy them.

These books can be found at bookstores, the library, or online. If you make use of all these books and practice effectively, you'll be sure to improve your SAT writing score.

A lot of students immediately think of vocabulary when they hear the word SAT. But are SAT vocab words really that important for doing well on the test? Kind of. If you’re aiming for a high score, you’ll definitely want to spend some time learning key SAT words.

In this guide, we give you a comprehensive list of 262 of the most common SAT vocabulary words. We also explain how vocab is tested on the SAT, what types of questions you’ll see, and how to get the most out of your vocab prep.

Pronoun agreement errors are an especially confusing type of ACT English question because people often misuse pronouns, especially when you speak. In fact, I just made a pronoun mistake: can you spot it?

Take a closer look at the second half of my first sentence: "people often misuse pronouns, especially when you speak." Who is "you" referring to here: "people." However, the correct pronoun for the third person plural is "they." The correct version of the sentence is "people often misuse pronouns, especially when they speak."

On the ACT English section, you'll be expected to spot these kind of errors in a variety of different contexts. I'll go over both the basic rules for pronouns and the common mistakes you'll see on the test, so that you can approach the test with confidence.

In March 2016, the SAT underwent a complete redesign, concentrating more on testing reasoning skills than on obscure vocabulary knowledge.

So how do you study for the SAT now that there just aren't that many practice tests available? After all, there’s nothing quite like taking actual official SAT tests to get you ready for the real thing. The good news is that many of the questions that appeared on the old SAT format are still completely relevant and a great resource for practicing your skills!

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."

Heed the wise words of Dr. Seuss, and get reading! The more you practice reading SAT passages, the better you'll perform on the SAT Reading and Writing section. This article goes over everything on the SAT Reading and Writing section so you know exactly what to expect.

Even though the English language is complex, the digital SAT tests a specific set of grammar rules. Furthermore, it tests these rules the same way, over and over again.

In this complete guide, we've compiled a comprehensive list of SAT grammar rules you need to know to ace the digital SAT Reading and Writing section.

There are no more sentence completion questions on the SAT, so your vocabulary knowledge will be tested with questions that fall under the umbrella of the Words in Context subscore. In this article, I'll give you the inside scoop on what these questions are, what forms they might take in both the Reading and Writing sections, and which strategies work best for solving them accurately.

This complete guide includes everything you need to know about SAT Writing. As experienced tutors, we’re all too familiar with the shortcomings of most test-prep materials, so we've created our own free guide to SAT Writing, which we believe is the best available (even compared to expensive books from big-name companies!).

To create this guide, we carefully analyzed real SATs, read the best SAT books we could find, and thought carefully about what you actually need to know to succeed on SAT Writing. Rather than trying to condense all the info we came up with into one page (which would be insanely overwhelming!), we’ve created this article to serve as a table of contents and take you through the different parts of the SAT Writing section.

A solid vocabulary is essential to getting a high SAT score. But what methods can give you the quality SAT vocab practice you'll need to succeed on test day? After all, just reading a lengthy list of vocab words doesn't necessarily mean you'll know how to use them in a sentence or be able to remember what they mean on during the exam.

We explain how important vocab is on the SAT and how it’s tested. More importantly, we give you our top four vocab study methods as well as our picks for the five best resources to use for quality SAT vocabulary practice. Read on to learn what these are!

Are you planning to take the SAT? Wondering how to handle the vocabulary questions? We will explain how the new SAT tests vocabulary and what that means for your study plans. Read on for an exclusive guide to new SAT vocabulary!

Are you scoring in the 600–750 range on SAT Writing? Do you want to raise that score as high as possible—to a perfect 800?

UPDATE: This article discusses a previous version of the SAT. If you are looking to get a perfect score on the digital SAT, check out my guide to getting an 800 on SAT Reading and Writing.

Are you struggling with SAT Writing + Reading scores between 300 and 500? You're not alone—hundreds of thousands of students are scoring in this range, too. But many don't know the best ways to break out of this score range and score 600 or higher.

Here, we'll discuss how to improve your SAT Writing score effectively, and why it's so important to do so. Put these principles to work and I'm confident you'll be able to improve your score!

UPDATE: This article discusses a previous version of the SAT. If you are looking to raise your score on the digital SAT check out my guide to getting an 600 on SAT Reading and Writing.

Questions that fall under the umbrella of the Command of Evidence SAT subscore appear on both the Reading and Writing sections of the SAT. This article will focus exclusively on Command of Evidence questions in the Writing section, including examples from practice tests, answer explanations, and test-taking tips that are specific to these types of questions. Head over to this article instead if you're looking for a detailed discussion of Command of Evidence questions in the Reading section.