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With our juniors having recently taken the PSAT and our sophomores having taken the Pre-ACT, you may be wondering in what ways you can improve your knowledge and test-taking skills. These tests are extremely important for college applications and receiving National Merit, so spending vast amounts of time preparing is crucial.
For standardized tests in general, there are numerous ways to prepare for the testing day. The best way to start is to go to the test’s official website and find out the exact format of the test. In order to create the most effective study plan, you should take an official practice test and try your best to simulate the conditions of the actual test day. Using your results from the test, you can see exactly which subjects your strengths and weaknesses lie in. The best way to improve upon your weaknesses is to use official practice materials like the Official ACT Prep Guide, but a cheaper alternative would be using popular internet resources such as Khan Academy’s Test Prep which is just a Google search away.
Once you begin to feel confident in your knowledge, you should take another practice test, but this time you’ll want to focus on test-taking strategies as well. By far, the most crucial component of taking standardized tests is time management. Time is your biggest limiting factor for success, and you need to constantly make sure that you’ll have enough time to complete the rest of the questions with, hopefully, some extra time to spend reviewing your answers. Since you can’t let the stress and pressure of the time limit affect your psyche and spirit, you need to maintain your calm and focus by breathing properly and steeling your mind. If you ever find yourself confused on a lengthy question, you’ll find that highlighting key information and summarizing passages will greatly help your comprehension of the material. On the contrary, if you're struggling with multiple answer choices, analyze them one by one and use the process of elimination to find the best choice. Subject-wise, familiarize yourself with a graphing calculator for math, review key grammar rules for writing, and increase your words read per minute for reading.
After finishing this practice test, it's vital to realize what more you can achieve before the testing day, so set both high and realistic goals for yourself. You don’t want to over-exert yourself. From this point on, alternate your studying and practice tests to maintain accurate goals and progressively strengthen your skills and knowledge. In total, your study regimen should be 15 hours spaced throughout the month, but you can adjust for your specific goals and time restraints. Before the testing day, make sure you get plenty of rest and eat well, but most importantly, be confident and maintain your cool! These tests won’t define your future successes, and you will always have other chances.