We don’t get this question a lot. It’s quite unfortunate. A lot of students think that since they know how to study for a test in school, they therefore know how to study for their standardized tests. However, these two types of test are very different, and so studying varies. Students should be asking how to study for standardized tests!
Students will often try to study for a standardized test in one of two ways:
1. Memorize:
Students will rely on good memorization skills a lot in school. Quite often, school tests are just a matter of remembering facts or math formulas. However, on standardized tests, there isn’t a whole lot that can be memorized. Standardized tests force students to think in new and creative ways, taking old pieces of knowledge and applying them in unique situations. Simply memorizing a math formula won’t help if you can’t understand a story problem and figure out which formula to use and a new way of using it.
2. A million practice questions:
Students tend to quickly realize that memorization won’t help very much on the ACT and SAT and they move on to doing copious amounts of practice questions. This isn’t a bad thing! However, those practice questions need to be done in the right way. Simply doing the questions, marking the wrong ones, and moving on to the next set is going to ingrain bad habits and won’t lead to learning.
So then how should students practice to see the best results?
Practicing on accurate materials is just the first step! Students who want to improve need to realize that doing a practice test is only the beginning of the learning process. The part that really helps students do better in the future comes after the practice test. Instead of merely marking the wrong questions, calculating a score, and moving on, students need to engage with the questions they missed.
Some students will merely read the explanation for the question they missed, think “oh, that’s how you do it” and leave it at that. That may help a bit, but the best value comes from truly wrestling with questions. Before you look at the explanation, go back and try to figure out the question yourself. Ask yourself why you got it wrong. Was it a simple mistake? Why did you make that simple mistake? If you don’t know why, then you can’t avoid that same mistake in the future! Were you distracted? Did you misread the question or the answer? Did you make a small calculation error? How can you ensure those things don’t happen in the future?
Or was it not a simple mistake? Is there something bigger going on? Did you lack key knowledge to answer the question? Could you not think your way through a puzzling math question? If that’s the case, come back to that question often. Plan on solving it once a week for a few weeks until it feels comfortable. Go find more questions like that one and do them over and over as well. Through this process you will get better!
So what are you waiting for? Go get started! Even just a few practice questions each day can help, though including full length practices every week or two is going to be best. Make sure you check out our resources tab to find all the ACT and SAT practice resources you need!