Taking SAT practice tests is the best way to prepare for the SAT exam. Here is a breakdown of some of the ways practice work can impact your performance on the official SAT exam.
Find Your Weak Points
When you take a practice exam, you will receive a score report. UWorld’s SAT Prep Course offers detailed performance tracking data for you to evaluate and use in your studies. A huge benefit of taking an SAT practice test is finding your weak points.
Pinpointing the areas you can improve the most is a good starting point for your study plan. Focusing on the sections, subsections, or question types that you can improve on the most is an effective strategy for increasing your score.
Know What To Expect
Another significant benefit from SAT practice tests comes with your exposure and experience with the format, style, and level of difficulty within the SAT test. Knowing what to expect from the test is a huge advantage when you sit to take an official exam.
You can also benefit from knowing your own tendencies or habits. Know what to expect from your strategy in the Reading, Writing, and Math sections, and if you are aware that you need more time for a specific question type, you can plan accordingly.
You can also prepare yourself for the nerves and stress that come with the official SAT exam by gaining experience and setting realistic expectations through practice work.
Practice Timing Restrictions
Another benefit of taking practice exams is the opportunity to hone your performance with the SAT exam’s time restrictions. You may find yourself rushing through one section and sitting with extra time at the end of another.
You should know that some of the sections have tighter time restrictions than others, and based on your own skills and strategies, you can really benefit from understanding your timing tendencies. You may find that better timing strategies allow you to check your work, which is a significant benefit.
Get Comfortable With Your Tools
Taking practice exams is a good way to get comfortable with your testing tools. To be more specific, your practice work will largely aid your comfort and success with the Calculator section of the SAT Math exam. It is important that you use the same calculator in the practice work that you plan to use on the official SAT exam.
This is crucial to ensure that you don’t waste any time trying to find the correct mode or buttons on the official test day. The Calculator section does not require that you use a calculator, but bringing one is a huge advantage.
Use your practice work to figure out how often you really need the calculator. Some students get in the habit of using it to solve even the most straightforward questions. Take time to decide if the calculator saves you time or serves as a crutch throughout this section.
Don’t operate on autopilot! There are some questions where using a calculator is not helpful. You can learn to recognize the difference and make educated decisions about when to use your calculator by practicing with it in your practice exams.
Note: Do not use the calculator in your practice work with the No Calculator section of the Math exam. Your practice work must be realistic to the testing conditions of the official SAT exam.
As you prepare for the SAT exam, consider how practice exams can benefit your scoring performance. Practice exams are a fantastic way to streamline your study plan while providing you with experience and knowledge about the exam’s structure and difficulty levels.
You will also learn a lot about your own performance tendencies. UWorld’s SAT Prep Course offers practice exams with thousands of practice questions that are realistic to the style and difficulty that you will work with on the official exam.
Our prep course also offers detailed question explanations to help guide your understanding of each question. Our performance tracking data will provide extensive information about your weak points and successes to track your improvements and focus your studies.
Try it out to gain the benefits of practice exams, and boost your performance on the SAT test.
