Tips to Self-Study for the SAT/ACT

Tip 1: Write everything down.

Many students come to me after self-studying for months, and they have found that they could get pretty far, but then they got permanently stuck at some particular score. They just couldn’t push themselves past that one score.

Why?

Very often, the problem is that they aren’t writing down explicit reasons for why they are getting questions wrong, which means they will very likely continue to make the same “silly” or large mistakes.

Here is a Principle: Thinking is imperfect and incomplete. Only in articulating your thoughts (through writing or speaking) can you fully map out a concept.

Naval Ravikant, Indian-born American entrepreneur and investor, describes this phenomenon for himself in this clip. His important points are:

• There are gaps in thinking where you make leaps, but you're kind to yourself, so you let those leaps slide.

• When you're forced to write things down, you have to complete those gaps and make a proper logical chain.

And Chris Williamson, English podcaster and YouTuber, expresses a similar sentiment about writing his blog in this clip. His important points are:

• Your thoughts are low-resolution notions, ephemeral, wishy washy.

• Writing (putting things in words outside of your brain) synthesizes and concretizes what you’ve learned.

He’s talking about any thinking process, but let’s apply this to the SAT/ACT. So often, I see students who tell me “Oh, this problem was just a silly mistake. I totally get it now. It’s B. It’s so obvious; I was just being so silly. It’s really obvious to me now that it’s B.”

But, I’ve been a tutor for over a decade, and I’ve seen a thing or two. So I just casually ask the student, “Great, explain to me why the answer is B.” And…they absolutely can’t. Now, they’re not lying or being difficult. They genuinely believed that they understood why it was B. Sometimes their reasoning is just wrong, but often they simply can’t articulate why B is correct. And they almost certainly can’t explain to me why their original wrong answer is wrong.

Those are two very big problems. If you don’t know why the wrong thing is wrong, and you’re not very clear on why the right thing is right…then have you really learned anything from that question?

If you look at the answer key, and it says the answer is B, you must write down precisely why you think B makes sense as the correct answer. Then, you must write down precisely why your original wrong answer (and even the other answers as well) are wrong. Write it down so you can clearly articulate every logical element of your reasoning. And, if you struggle to do this, go find a tutor or even your English teacher to bounce ideas off of verbally!

Tip 2: Focus Primarily on What’s Wrong

Above, I mentioned writing down why the wrong answers are wrong. This is a critical component of my SAT and ACT programs with students because it’s not enough to see an answer that could be correct and think “that seems reasonable”. That is, I think, less than half of the battle.

The real battle is avoiding the Trick Wrong Answers.

Ever narrow down your answer choices to two…and then pick the wrong one? Well, you’re not alone. This is the bane of every kid’s existence in the world of test-taking. Students are constantly narrowing it down to two and picking the wrong one. This is part of why they think the correct answer makes so much sense once they see it. They KNEW it was either B or D. So, when they find out it’s B, not D, they think they’ve understood the question.

But, can they get that question right in the future? Where’s the growth?

To truly grow, you need to be able to pick B…and also NOT pick D. Between the two, I find that NOT picking D is more important and more productive for securing a top score.

When you’re training, always focus on the wrong answers. Think about the following:

• How did the SAT trick you?

• What words looked really appealing in that answer choice?

• If you had to pick one or two words that make this answer choice false, what would they be?

• Are there any patterns to this wrong answer? (Might need tutor help for this one)

• How can you be sure you won’t fall for this SAT trick in the future?

And, of course, write all this down! Don’t just think it. See tip number 1.

If the issue is just vocabulary, then you need to make flashcards and study them. If the issue is a grammar or math rule, then you need to write that rule down, maybe turn it into a flash card, and study it. But, for Reading Comprehension types of questions, you should really focus on what makes an answer choice wrong.

Tip 3: Take “Silly” Mistakes More Seriously Than “Real” Mistakes

This is touched on a bit in Tip 1, but it’s so important that it gets its own Tip.

You will not get a perfect score on the SAT or ACT if you sit around saying, “Oh, haha, whoopsie, I made a silly mistake. No big deal!” I would bet you money that if you adopt that mindset, you will not achieve a perfect score.

You must learn from your “silly” mistakes because they cost exactly the same number of points as any regular mistake. The SAT and ACT don’t care why you got it wrong. You got it wrong. Wrong is wrong. “Silly” wrong is just wrong.

Furthermore, the SAT and ACT pay people to sit around for 40 hours per week coming up with new and creative ways to make you make a “silly” mistake. If you’re studying for a few hours a week…you’re not even coming close to their manpower! They are constantly dreaming up new, sneaky, annoying ways to cause silly mistakes, and you have to fight against that with the same intensity you use for any other mistake.

Create a “Silly” Mistakes Guide, and study it at least twice a week.

As you’re studying for the test, copy over every single question you got wrong that was a silly mistake. Put it into this guide, and make notes surrounding that question with exactly what silly mistake you made.

Look for patterns. Common silly mistakes include forgetting a negative, messing up fractions, skipping a step in basic equations, and solving for the wrong variable. There are tons of others that are skill specific (another great reason to get support from a tutor who’s studied this test for years).

Repeat those questions until you never, ever, ever make those mistakes on any practice test for at least 4 tests in a row, but ideally as many tests in a row as possible.

Tip 4: Write Everything Down (Again)

I can’t stress enough the importance of writing things down. This time, I want to talk about math.

In math, my students will often come to me and say, “I got number 18 wrong.” I then ask, “Okay, what did you do for that question?” And they tell me… “Well, I don’t remember. I didn’t write anything down.”

That, my dear friends, is why you got the question wrong.

Remember how I said they pay a bunch of people 40 hours a week to sit around coming up with new and creative ways to trick you? Do you think that doing a bunch of math in your head is going to beat a team of people brainstorming and crafting questions together for YEARS?

No. The answer is no. It most certainly will not.

Again, when you think, you have gaps in thought that your brain just sort of glosses over because you’re kind to yourself. Do you want to know where the SAT/ACT is going to hide all their tricks? In those gaps in your thinking, obviously! Whatever thing the brain is most likely to gloss over…that’s the crux of their trick. Negatives are small, easy to miss, easy to gloss over. You’re so used to solving for x…why wouldn’t this question be asking you to solve for x? Well, it isn’t. You were supposed to solve for y or q or p.

If you write down every single step in math, then your brain can’t do those leaps, can’t leave those gaps. You can still make a mistake, but you’re decreasing your chances of making a mistake by a lot.

Write down every step in math.