An Organized SAT Preparation Guide for the SAT Exam

Introduction

Annually, the SAT is taken by millions of students throughout the world. This examination is an aptitude SAT test that students are expected to qualify to be able to be admitted into a college in America.

This test is taken in English, a language well-known by most people across the globe. However, there are issues that a student, especially one of Indian origin, tends to face during the SAT prep & while appearing for the SAT exam.

Problems faced by Students due to lack of organized SAT Prep Guide

Indians are known across the world for their exceptional intelligence. Hence, students aspire to study and subsequently work in the US. However, to do this, they must sit for a common aptitude test, which is the SAT subject test. That’s why an organized SAT prep guide is very important to work on the student’s weaknesses & overcome the challenge of the SAT exam. So, let’s begin.

SAT’s Exam Syllabus

To achieve a good SAT score, you must go through the SAT exam syllabus, which evaluates a candidate’s ability on a variety of fronts. It primarily focuses on knowledge or skills acquired at the school level.

This is just an overview of SAT Syllabus to know more you can check out our complete SAT Syllabus blog, where you can understand the complete well organised manner.

Related Blog: SAT Exam : Complete Guide For Indian Students To Appear

SAT’s Sectional Difficulties faced by Students

First, let’s understand SAT’s sections. SAT is divided into four sections.

These sections are

1. Reading SAT Section
2. Writing and Language SAT Section
3. Mathematics SAT Section
4. Optional essay SAT Section

Each SAT section poses a challenge in its own way. In the following portion, we will try to discover what complications the SAT syllabus can throw at Indian students. It contains sections from English and Math, which can be tricky and difficult.

Reading Section

SAT’s this section demands a student to know a lot about the English language. It consists of 52 questions that need to be answered within a time frame of 65 minutes. For students who are not native speakers of the word, this is a pretty tight schedule that needs to be well organised.

Reading, comprehending, and answering takes a lot of their time. Many students find it challenging to combine all three with perfection, in less than two minutes per question. The reading section of the SAT exams is infamous for making many good students struggle hard to score well.

Language and Writing Section

If the previous section looked tough, this one would appear as a monster! The SAT involves this section consisting of 44 multiple choice questions that students are required to solve in 35 minutes. That is not even a minute per question. Again, the hold over the language comes into question. Although intelligent students, the ability to fathom a question with perfect understanding is a rare quality. Needless to say, this anomaly seldom occurs among Indian students.

Mathematics Section

Indians have innate knowledge when it comes to Mathematics. Indian students are automatically inclined towards the subject. Often, even at their worst, they seem to perform better than students of other countries. Although the Mathematics syllabus for SAT exam is comparatively easier, what becomes threatening are the two different sections of Maths incorporated here. The first part requires the students to solve the questions without using a calculator. Now, this is a cakewalk for the Indians as they are used to calculating mentally. The questions do not pose many difficulties to an average Indian student. This section has 20 questions that need to be solved in 25 minutes. Although this is relatively easier, the issue with time management remains.

Related Blog: SAT Scores Now Accepted by India’s Leading Universities

The second part of the Mathematics section is embraced by the questions that students are allowed to use calculators to solve. The SAT exam syllabus is devised to compel the students to use a calculator. This sounds easier, but this poses a greater threat. Using calculators can be immensely time-consuming as all the numbers are to be typed into the device, manually. A quick revision is required to ensure that all the data entered are accurate. Upon receiving the result, a close introspection is expected to make sure the answer acquired is correct. All of this takes up unnecessary time. With 38 questions that need to be completed in 55 minutes, this can become a significant burden for the students. Students are advised to use calculators as rarely as possible. This saves them valuable time.

However, on the whole, the Mathematics section is not as hard as the sections involving rigorous usage of the English language.

The Essay Section

The essay section is an optional section for which students are given fifty extra minutes. People with a flair for writing usually do well here. Many believe that the SAT exam papers become easier to solve if a student attempts the essay portion. Fifty minutes is a lot of time to work on an essay and to pen it down in its entirety. Hence, students often find this to be the easiest after Mathematics.

A broad analysis of all the sections can allow you to determine where you are lacking, and can accordingly help you assess your performance all across.

If this article has helped you plan ahead for the SAT exams 2020, be sure to share it to help others who might be looking to take the exams.

Know the SAT’s, Exam pattern

After understanding the SAT syllabus now essential to understand the pattern of SAT’s, according to this you will be able to create your own SAT study plan.

Note: The SAT Optional Essay of 50 minutes is no longer a part of the test now.

6 best SAT study tips to achieve a good 1600 SAT score

The main section, which will give you an overview of your SAT study. Generally, students start their SAT preparation without a study plan, this lets them guide them to unprepared situations which creates organized chaos.

Tip #1. Familiarity With the SAT Paper Pattern and the Questions on the Test

The SAT exam is a 3-hour-long test. The two broad categories you are tested on are the Math section and the Verbal section.

Tip #2. Join An Online SAT Prep Course

To ace the SAT, you need a guide and mentor. SAT Online coaching (at least till the pandemic is under control) is a must. Whether you take up a one-to-one course or go for a batch is completely up to you.

Tip #3. Never Deviate From the Techniques or Strategies Learned

During your SAT preparation classes, a lot of techniques and approaches will be taught to you. And every question type will have a distinct way to solve quickly and accurately.

Tip #4. Take A Lot of Full-Length Practice Tests

Your test of endurance in the 3-hour test lies in the number of tests you take during your SAT exam preparation.

Tip #5. Test Analysis And Error Logs

• Why did the error happen?
• Was it a careless error?
• Did you not know the concept or technique behind it?
• Did you spend a lot of time on it?
• Did you follow the approach staunchly?
• Was it a guess?
• Were the mistakes more on the Verbal section or the Math section?
• If on the verbal, were there more mistakes in Reading or Writing & Language?
• Similarly, if the mistakes were more on Math, in No-Calculator or calculator?
• Were any errors made while bubbling the answers on the scantron sheet?
• Were all questions attempted or were there blanks?

Tip #6. Balance Pacing And Accuracy

Remember, you need not get all questions right to get a 1600 good SAT score. So play on your strengths. To get to a 1600 minimum, for instance, you need to get at least 48 questions right out of 52 on the Reading section. 41 out of 44 on the Writing & Language section. 55 out of 58 on the Math section.

Make Your own SAT study plan

Creating an SAT study plan is an art. It should be organized and well-directed to remove unnecessary resources and only keep the right SAT resources at your disposal. A good study plan for SAT is distracted free but with an effective & efficient time management system and also time for a break.

That is why we’re sharing our top 3 effective tips to help you create your own SAT study plan, so you can ace your SAT prep at once.

Choose Your Study Material

For SAT preparation, once you know when and how to study for the SAT exam, then the next question is to know what to study. The next step is to get oriented to the overall structure and format of the test.

Take a complete, timed practice test and figure out your strengths and weaknesses to ace the actual SAT test. Choose your study material wisely, learn what you don’t know, and review what you already know.

Organized the Study Material Properly

There are a lot of books on the SAT study material available online & offline in the market. But decide only on reliable books which are up-to-date to the market requirement as well as for the SAT exam. As we mention some best SAT books, a complete guide.

SAT Books from Manya- The Princeton Review

Manya- The Princeton Review aims to understand the SAT exam structure and help students achieve their target scores. We ensure to provide you with the best of resources for SAT Preparation. If you follow the study material and books recommended by us, then this will help you learn the content and practice strategies to score well on the test. The test prep books are your best companions, helping you achieve your desired score.

Make a Study Schedule

Making a study schedule for the SAT helps you to decide how much time you need to prepare for the SAT. Try to adopt a study schedule that is consistent; such as if you think you need 40 hrs of study and have 10 weeks to take the SAT, then plan a study schedule of 4 hours a week for 10 weeks. Having a planned schedule helps you stay motivated to achieve your target score.

Follow these Ten Tips for your SAT prep along with your SAT study plan

1. Solve the easy questions first, solve the questions that are easy for you, and try the harder questions later in the SAT.
2. Decide how many questions to solve. The best way to improve your SAT score is to set a target for the number of questions to attempt on the Preparation test.
3. A, B, C, or D? Which is your favorite? You will work through the targeted number of questions properly for SAT study preparation.
4. Eliminate the wrong answers whenever you realize an answer choice cannot be the right answer, eliminate it before proceeding further during the SAT exam preparation.
5. Read questions completely most times, in a question, the SAT asks for something unexpected and, of course, has deceptive answer choices that are especially tempting if we misread or misinterpret the question.
6. Underline the key parts of the questions and the text, otherwise, you may fall into the trap during the SAT preparation to try to work on this more in your study plan for SAT.
7. Cut it into pieces, break bulky SAT questions into smaller portions, and decide where to start. This required time to better practice during your SAT Study preparation.
8. Use your calculator shrewdly only when it is required, and you know that it will speed up your work. But do not overly rely on the Calculator, practice without the calculator during your SAT study plan.
9. Consider when to calculate and when to estimate this way, you may be able to eliminate a few answer choices that are too big or too small or that cannot possibly be the right answer. Do prepare for the SAT to be able to do it quickly.
10. Solve and bubble in tandem, do not wait for the last minute to shade the right answers. Do proper practice and make a good SAT study preparation plan to aim for higher marks.

Read more in detail and start your preparation for the SAT study plan. Know how more you can improve yourself for the SAT exam. Make this a to-do list and plan an SAT study routine for whole months.

How to Register for the SAT?

The SAT registration has four stages, the first is creating an account on the official site, filling out the application form, choosing and booking the SAT exam date, and finally, paying the charges.

Know more about SAT Registration and Exam fees

Conclusion

This is carefully organized to deliver you a perfect guide that will help you to get a complete overview of the SAT exam. This guide also includes study tips for SAT preparation. Enough to tell you exactly where to start. This is an organized SAT Prep Guide for SAT exams only to help students ace the SAT exam at once.

Good luck!