SAT time management begins long before you ever sit for the test. Preparing yourself well ahead of time will help to ensure that you are able to pace yourself during the actual test. Students who face the SAT unprepared are often shocked when their scores are well below what they had hoped for; however, low scores are almost a given without advance preparation.
One of the test taking tips that many students use is to skip over the questions they don’t know and answer all the ones they do know first. While this may seem oversimplistic to some, there are those of us who find it difficult to move on; we don’t want to “give up.” What happens, though, is we end up shooting ourselves in the foot because we run out of time, leaving questions we could have easily answered blank.
You may find the math portion easier to study for than the reading and writing portion. That’s because with math problems, there is usually just one answer, even if there are multiple ways to work the problem. With reading and writing, however, the answers aren’t always so clear. When you run across words that you have never seen before, SAT time management may dictate that you leave those questions blank.
One good way to avoid running out of time when taking the SAT is to spend some time beforehand building up your vocabulary. This isn’t something you can sail through the night before the test, however; you will need to spend at least a few weeks actively engaged in word learning, although it only takes a few minutes a day. Expanding your vocabulary will help to raise your SAT scores in a variety of ways, though, and can make a big difference on how well you do with the reading and writing parts of the test.
Learning more vocabulary words as an SAT time management technique is smart because you will be able to quickly choose the word that completes the sentence and when you are working on the questions on the reading comprehension section, your expanded vocabulary will come in handy because you will better understand what you have just read.
Many students freeze at the very idea of writing an essay but this is something you can practice over and over again long before the test. While it is true that you won’t know the subject of the essay beforehand, by reading more and studying vocabulary words, you will be better prepared and will be able to manage your time more effectively, rather than staring at a blank piece of paper or a blank computer screen and wondering what you are going to write about.
Software programs such as Ultimate Vocabulary have been preparing students for years to score well on the SAT. Become your own tutor as you work at your own pace and increase your word knowledge so that you will have no time management issues when it comes time to sit for the SAT.
Comments
Related posts: