SAT: The Winner’s Strategy

More than two million of students desiring of getting admission into their dream college take SAT. With SAT being such a crucial determinant of the future career path of the students, their desire to crack the exam and come out with flying colours makes them search for a winning strategy for the exam. In the current era of "Artificial Intelligence" it is smart work which matters and not just hard work. So a successful strategy could lay a strong foundation for the preparation of the exam.

SAT winner: What does it takes?

One important question to begin with is that what does it actually takes to emerge as a SAT winner. Perhaps this question will lead to a more basic question that what is the skill set that the exam look for and test in students. SAT requires students to be well versed with various basic concepts across the subjects and should be able to apply the basic concepts to solve questions. So SAT requires a good learning of all important concepts and adequate practise to learn application part of the basic concepts. Since the concepts are very basic and more important are the application part which comes with enough practise, even average students can perform very well in the exam. All it requires is confidence and tenacity along with planned smart preparation to crack SAT. Even average students by learning basic concepts and adequate practise can crack SAT to get great scores for admission into colleges of their choice.

Know Thyself

Before you start your preparation you should undergo a detailed assessment of yourself. This is perhaps the most crucial part of the preparation as you need to know your strengths and weakness before you actually start your preparation. An analogy about correct assessment of yourself before starting your preparation is suppose you want to reach New York, before starting your journey you should know which place are you starting form and what is your speed to accurately know how will you reach there and how long you would take to reach there. Your preparation plan shoals be made such that you devote your time accordingly. After you have your own map of strengths and weaknesses move on to the next stage of preparing the preparation schedule for your self.

Stages of Preparation

Divide your preparation in three stages

Stage-1

This stage should constitute of 40 percentage of the total time
The focus in this stage of preparation should be learning and improving areas of weakness as well as unfamiliar topics.
All the basic concepts should be covered by the end of this stage.
Focus on easier topics initially followed by more difficult topics.
Solving problems along with reading lessons is of utmost importance.

Stage-2

This stage should constitute 30 percentage of the total time
The focus in this stage of preparation should be practising well the topics which are your strengths and topics which you find interesting
The purpose of this stage is to give you confidence and make you better in areas of your strengths as these are the areas where you have better chances of scoring.
Try and covert most topics from areas of your weakness to areas of interest then to areas of your strength

Stage-3

This stage should constitute 30 percentage of the total time
The focus of this stage is to optimise your preparation so that you score the best with your preparation
In this stage take as much simulative tests as possible
Each simulative test should be followed by a detailed analysis of your performance
After getting feedback after each test work in a retrospective fashion on areas of difficulty
Monitor your progress all along this stage

An important aspect of dividing the entire preparation into three smaller stages is that it gives more objectivity to the preparation in terms of goals. It helps students formulate their long term as well as short term goals. A deadline based preparation schedule will also monitor their speed of progress of completion of subjects so that they could speed up or give more time to preparation if they trail behind the schedule.

Train like an Athlete

SAT preparation requires a lot of commitment and tenacity. Preparing for SAT is very similar to training of an athlete for any sport. The commitment and drive to achieve what you desire and each day pushing yourself to stretch and test your limit while enjoying the journey toward your goal. Another point worth mentioning is very similar to an athlete whose performance gets back by 15 days if he misses a single training session , regularity is as important or perhaps far more important than intensity of your preparation . So instead of cramming up things in a short span of time try and regularise your preparation over a period of time.

Remember: "It takes years of preparation for moments of glory"

CONFIDENCE: Name of the Game

Confidence is what differentiates a winner from a mediocre. Confidence in yourself and your hard-work goes a long way to mould preparation. It serves as the only fuel to power your preparation. Lack of confidence will make you loose the game before the game actually starts. So self-belief and confidence are two very basic ingredients of any successful strategy for SAT.

SAT: LAST MINUTES TIPS

With about two million students taking SAT every year to gain admission in their dream college, last minutes pressure on students is immense. Many a times it is seen that it is not lack of knowledge or skill but sheer pressure of the exam retards the performance of many a students. So it becomes of great importance to properly manage the last few days before the exam. Here are a few tips to effective manage yourself during the last few days before exam and how to optimally leverage your preparation to attain a great score in SAT .

LAST WEEK BEFORE EXAM

The last week before SAT is very crucial and may turn out to be the Achilles heel for many students. Managing anxiety and stress becomes of prime importance. Some amount of stress is normal and perhaps even necessary to bring out the best of performance from you, but generally student spoil their entire preparation due to excess stress. There are various ways to tackle last minute stress, the most effective being confidence. Always keep reminding yourself of the hard work and preparation you have put in for SAT. Try and remember incidents where you positively you used your intelligence and smartness to overcome any difficult situation. Think about your academic achievements and how good you feel about it. If you believe in God, moments of prayers can work wonders for you and can drive away all fear and anxiety. Also important is that you keep revising the concepts learned rather than learning something new. Re-revise all high yield formulae as well as frequently asked concepts.

Remember: “When it gets tough, only the tough gets going”.

THE NIGHT BEFORE EXAM

The night before exam is very important and there are many myths which float around about the same. Let me discuss the dos and don’ts one at a time.

Arrange for all required things well in advance:
It is important that you arrange all required paraphernalia in the evening itself. Collect your pens, calculators, admit cards, etc so as avoid any last minute glitches. It will give you a sense of being adequately prepared for the exam. Also you can imagine taking SAT and you are attempting all the questions very confidently and correctly. Also try and imagine how confidently you are tackling tougher questions and how good you are feeling doing so. Such an exercise will not only make you feel better by easing out the stress but also certainly improves your exam the next day.

Sleep and last minute revising:
Every person is of the opinion that a good sleep is must before SAT exam. So what do you do if you are not feeling sleepy or you still want to revise something? Well In my opinion there is no need to worry if you go to sleep a bit late, because even you sleep a little late on the night before exam your adrenaline levels during the exam time will help you give your best, but if get panicked because you are not able to go to bed early, the anxiety will definitely destroy your chances on the crucial day. Also ass against many peoples advice last minute revision is quite OK if you are comfortable with it.

Avoid medications:
It is important that you don’t take any medication without proper consultation with your physician on the night before. Many sleep inducing pills may have a brain depressant effect the following day. Even amphetamine containing formulations without physician’s advice is a strict no-no on the night before SAT.

IN THE EXAMINATION HALL

Well the marathon of SAT requires not only skills but also stamina and nerves of steel. Confidence and diligence takes you through while few minutes of latitude in the exam hall may take you miles from your dream college. Here are a few important tips for the Day.

Confidence is the name of the game:
Your confidence will take you a long way to crack SAT and come out with flying colours. If you confident you can solve a very tough question and if you are not confident you will even be confused by simple questions.

Time is you friend and not enemy:
Many students consider time their enemy, but most successful students consider time as their friend during the exam. The beauty of SAT is most students stagger under time pressure so if you manage to maintain a cool head under the time pressure you have successfully managed to beat many students whose preparation could have been better than yours. So if you consider this time factor decreases the competition for you provided you make it your friend. Some handy tips to save time during exam are:

• Don’t spend too much time on reading instructions. Just skim through them as they are similar to the practise tests with which you have already practised.
• Stop looking to often at watch as it will not only make you anxious but also wastes a lot of time.
• Read the questions attentively. It is often when your mind wanders away onto something else that you have to read and re-read to understand the question.

Speed is important but not at the cost of accuracy:
Trying to increase by putting in jeopardy your accuracy is not a smart thing to do. Try and work through problems at your speed at which you are comfortable because as you increase your speed you are bound to make more careless mistakes which will not only earn you negative marks but also in retrospect would be waste of time which you devoted to solve the problem.

Maintain your cool and don’t panic:
It is quite normal to not be able to solve a few questions in a row in the exam. Sometimes it may so happen that in the stress of an exam you forget some important formulae or concept. But at such a stage maintaining your cool is of utmost importance because if you panic you may further spoil your performance. If you just maintain your cool then chances are that you may recollect the forgotten formulae or concept.

Lengthy math questions:
Lengthy math questions generally have short-cuts, try and look for them. It is important to remember the basic premise on which the exam is built, that is time constraint. So even the person who sets the paper keeps this in mind that every given question could be solved by a student in the given time constraint. Another important derivation of the above statement is that if you solution is getting big chances are high that you are wrong.

Common Sense:
This is your biggest asset in the exam hall. Just by application of this weapon you can eliminate options or zero down to a certain option. Use this versatile tool optimally to make intelligent and smart guesses. If you have done so your scores will speak of the same.

Avoid familiarity trap:
Avoid this very often used trap by the SAT. Generally speaking try and avoid familiar answers and obvious answers until and unless you are very sure of the same. Also try and avoid extreme statements and options as they are also false in many a cases.

At last just let me tell you one thing which separates a person who comes out with flying colours in SAT and persons who do not do very well. The difference is in their confidence and attitude. Your confidence in yourself and he hard work you put in will take you miles not only in SAT but in every exam you face. And your attitude is what drives you to put your best to make you deserve what you want and to get it want you deserve.