Just because it’s the summer doesn’t mean you should take a break from your SAT or ACT studying! With school out of the way for three glorious months, you can really settle in for some studying without the distractions of schools and extracurriculars! In between heading down to the beach and catching up on your summer reading, you can maintain your focus and improve your skills!
- 1.) Study vocab words with a tool like freerice.com. The SAT will be changing in the spring of 2016, removing the vocabulary section of the test. If you are planning on taking the SAT before then, increasing your vocabulary will help you on some of the trickier sentence completion questions. Either way, having a larger vocabulary will only help with your reading comprehension and writing! Plus, freerice.com donates rice to hungry children for every question you correctly answer, allowing you to get smarter while helping others.
- 2.) Do practice math problems. Math skills definitely fit into the “if you don’t use it, you lose it!” category. Many students find that they forget little things over the summer and have a learning curve at the beginning of the year each year in math class. If you continue to work practice math problems out of a book a few days a week over the summer, you’ll find that you suffer no skill loss when you start back up in the fall. That might be helpful if you’re planning on taking an earlier SAT.
- 3.) Study with a tutor! The summer is the perfect time to get started with a tutor, as you won’t have to worry about fitting your homework and extracurricular activities in around your sessions. You’ll be able to do your homework and still have time left over to have a great summer!
- 4.) Take practice tests. Just a few practice tests over the summer can teach you valuable lessons about your timing and how hard you need to push yourself. The SAT is a LONG test – you may need practice for your mental endurance, just like you would practice for long distance running or any other endurance sport. You have plenty of muscles that you need to exercise, and you should consider your brain one of them.
- 5.) Have great experiences! Don’t forget about this semester’s SAT essay – you’ll need to blend your personal experiences with persuasive text to back up your argument. Have fun this summer! You can write about some of the incredible experiences you have travelling or volunteering with friends. You can also use these experiences in your college admissions essays. Who said having a little fun can’t be beneficial, too!
Kick back and relax this summer – but don’t forget to practice for the SAT as well!
Author: Catherine Martin