As high school students receive their PSAT scores, teachers and staff give their students their best study tips and strategies for preparing for the SAT.
“Read as much as possible,” Assistant Principal Joseph Manento said. “Any books that they enjoy reading helps studying in their English classes.”
Reading books allows students to get faster at reading text and comprehend the text better. Teachers recommended to read books students enjoy so they don’t feel as though they’re being forced to read.
“Well, the first thing we do is we always have our kids sign up for Khan Academy. If you want to improve on the math portion of the SAT, you really should enroll in the Algebra 2 class in Khan Academy,” math teacher Bronze Bruland said. “Khan Academy has a grant to work directly with College Board, so whatever’s on Khan Academy is going to be on the SAT.”
Teachers often recommend Khan Academy because it gives students problems that will be similar to those on the SAT. Enrolling in Algebra 2 classes on the website covers most of the topics that will be on the math section.
“Anytime students are in an English class, math class, or reading class, the curriculum really addresses the standards that are the same on the ACT and SAT,” guidance counselor Linda Sharp said. “Students are being prepared for it through their coursework.”
The notes and classwork that teachers give students will provide them with more materials to study. Writing notes will also permit them to retain the information better.
“The first tip is to use all their close reading strategies that we’ve worked on throughout the years in intensive reading,” English teacher Robert Prange said. “We always want them to focus on looking at the questions before they read.”
Doing this helps students understand what the passages are about. In addition, it also allows students to look for the answer while reading the text.
“You can do overall reviews but they’re not as good as targeted reviews,” Bruland said. “They’re really not as good as learning how to just quickly move back and forth between things in your mind.”
Students can find reviews for both subjects on the Internet, which will allow them to do overall reviews and targeted reviews. Teachers and staff recommend that students do targeted reviews, so they only study what is necessary.
“You eat an elephant one bite at a time,” Bruland said. “There’s no way that you can adequately prepare for something by just doing it the day before or the week of, you need to actually do it consistently over a long period of time.”
