The Student Aptitude Test, commonly referred to as the SAT, is a must when applying to most U.S. universities today, and since it is usually a great part of a candidate’s application and plays a major role in the admission decision, students need to plan carefully, and must plan out a proper schedule with rigorous training. But that’s not all. One can always learn from others’ mistakes, and here are some of the most common blunders committed by most SAT candidates.
1) Most people tend to keep procrastinating and delaying preparation for the SAT till their crucial final year at school. At this point, most candidates are already overworked with preparing for final exams, managing applications to universities, and taking the SAT definitely adds to their problems, and a huge number of candidates end up under performing somewhere or the other. So the best thing to do is to start preparing for the SAT well in advance and to not burden yourself with all the work at the same time!
2) Most well prepared candidates tend to know their strengths and weaknesses on the SAT. For some, it’s the vocabulary, and for others, it’s angles and line segments. Once individuals indentify these areas, they tend to devote all their study time trying to improve the areas where they struggle most. This urge must be resisted. If you give your trouble spots all the attention, you will lose out on doing extremely well on your strong sections.
3) Cramming for the SAT is the worst thing anyone could do. We have all tried it for some exam or the other, and it might have worked. However, cramming is not the right answer to the SAT. The SAT tests your knowledge of strategies and techniques, not pure information. Memorizing 10,000 vocabulary words the night before is not just a bad idea, it’s impossible.
4) Diligently completing all the sentence corrections in a specific section, then reviewing your answers, all while paying close attention to any directions and each response explanation. You’re ready. Right? Wrong. Scoring a strong mark on the SAT requires doing accurate work in a very limited time. Individuals who never practice in a structured setting fail to prepare themselves for one of the most important SAT skills – time management.
The key to doing well on the SAT, or any other exam, is not just studying and preparing well and putting in all your efforts.It is also about doing these things right, and planning intelligently. So sit back, and map out your plan cautiously, and prepare not only what the textbooks can teach you, but also what you can learn from practicing yourself.