How should you Self-Study for the SAT?

There are generally two ways, the students prepare for the SAT exam. These are generally Coaching classes and self-study. Both ways have their benefits and provide quantifiable benefits.  The SAT preparation tips presented in this blog will help you prepare for the SAT exam 2024. This includes studying with official SAT practice on Khan Academy, practicing length practice tests on BlueBook, and focusing on high school classes. As these methods are free, you can make use of these practice tests for the SAT exam.  Therefore in this article, we provide you with the best ways to help you prepare for the SAT exam effectively. Also, we will provide SAT preparation strategies that can be used during the preparation of the SAT. 

Benefits of SAT self-study

Most of the students are opting for SAT self-study plans instead of taking the help of SAT preparation classes. The major reason is that self-study provides many different types of benefits to the students. 

• It's cheap 

Sat self-study is the cheapest way to prepare for the examination. Also, it can be done free of cost in case you are aware of the right resources.  This is due to the fact self-study helps in saving a lot of money that is required to be paid to the tutor. The tuition fees range from 600$ to 3000$ for the program. During the self-study programs, the students only buy the materials that are required. Students generally spend only a limited amount of money on SAT prep books that help them in removing their weaknesses. 

• It's flexible

Unlike the other SAT preparation options, which contain specific time and work that must be completed on a specific date, each week's study provides flexibility to readjust your schedule as per your requirements. When doing a self-study for SAT preparation you can rearrange your schedule so that you do not feel any type of inconvenience such as waking early morning, wasting money, or going somewhere you don't want to go. It also helps in making up for different commitments made in personal life. 

• It's customizable

The last benefit of self-study is its customizable and scheduled as per your requirements in different subjects to get better scores in the exam. For instance, if you are good in the maths section, then in that case, you can dedicate more time to those sections such as reading and writing rather than wasting time on strong parts. In short, it can be said that self-study provides students to prepare their curriculum, which is very helpful in meeting specific weaknesses. 

7 Important Tips to Get the most benefits from the SAT self-study program

To provide optimal performance in the SAT exams, it is important to focus on your weaknesses, prepare a schedule, and provide a commitment to your preparations. Some important tips that will help you prepare for the SAT exam through self-study:

1.Make a schedule

It's the first and foremost step to come up with a self-study plan that suits your requirements and works perfectly for you. This is a basic plan that must be followed throughout preparation. The creation of a planned schedule not only helps in providing a feeling of consistency, rather it also helps in completing things before the test day.  However, before making the plan, it is important to understand the SAT goal score and baseline.  The baseline score is the score from which you start your preparation for the test and is your current score on the SAT. On the other hand goal score is the score that you must get to get admission to colleges of your choice, and is also a good score for you at a personal level. 

To get the baseline score you can visit the official SAT practice test, However, it is important to note that you frame your time as per the official time limit and give the test in a quiet and distraction-free environment.  After completing the test, get the score with the help of a test scoring chart to evaluate the baseline score.  This is the official link for the SAT practice test https://satsuite.collegeboard.org/practice/practice-tests/paper.  After having both the goal score and the baseline score, you can subtract the baseline score from the goal score to evaluate the total number of points required to improve your performance. Here is the conversion table, that will help you find the required hours of study required to get the total in the SAT. 

• 0-30 point improvement: 10 hours
• 30-70 point improvement: 20 hours
• 70-130 point improvement: 40 hours
• 130-200 point improvement: 80 hours
• 200-330 point improvement: 150 hours

For instance, if your, goal score is 1320, and your baseline score is 1140, then 1320-1140 is around 18o points. This implies that you should study around 80 hours before the test day to hit the goal score. 

After calculating the potential hours of study, it will be easier to plan the potential study schedules.  It is best not to study more than 10 houses a week, as it will help in not making you feel overwhelmed. Always try to spread out the study in a way that suits you the best. Consider various things such as final exams, homework, AP tests, family vacations, extracurricular activities and most importantly SAT dates. 

2. Begin with official resources and materials

Anyone preparing for the SAT in a self-study plan should focus on College Board SAT study materials for their preparations when buying a prep book and running off. These official resources are free of cost and in case you are trying to save money then you should look at them immediately. 

 The entire official SAT study guide is downloadable in the form of a PDF. This will help you not to buy books on Amazon. The website also offers sample SAT questions along with 10 full-length practice papers. Khan Academy Moving from Official SAT Practice to Official Digital SAT Prep on Khan Academy another popular website among the students provides free online SAT preparations along with official questions. 

3. Make use of only highly rated-preparation books 

In case you you have decided to follow the SAT self-study plan then it is advisable to get at least one highly rated SAT exam preparation book, that can be used as a guide and provide you with a large amount of content review required for the exam. Books also help in providing test-taking tips and study strategies. However all the SAT books are not equally prepared, therefore it is important to steer through poorly reviewed books that are out of date. The best books for preparation for the SAT should contain the following

• Thorough content review of all major topics on the SAT or a particular SAT section
• Proven test-taking tips and strategies
• Realistic, high-quality practice questions and tests
• Detailed answer explanations

4. Keep track of your [progress with practice test sets

As you start getting accustomed to the SAT self-study plan, it is important to keep time every two weeks to practice an official SAT to check your progress towards the required goal score. This process is very helpful in determining whether you are improving in the areas where you find it difficult and finding ways to do better by making improvements. The practice tests can also be used to identify the pattern of mistakes you make.  For instance, you may find that you keep making mistakes in basic algebra functions due to carelessness. Identifying what is going wrong to highlight your weaknesses and create a plan to better attack them. This brings the next step

5. Focus on your weakness

One of the important reasons to opt for SAT a self-study plan is to have full control of what you study and how you study. It can also be said that you have the opportunity to customize your preparations so that you can focus on the content, question types, sections, and strategies that are hardest for you.  

The online preparation classes of preparation classes will make you study a large number of test topics, consisting of also those in which you are good and don't require to review. However, the SAT self-study plan provides the flexibility to adapt to a plan that suits you the most so that you are studying what is required for you to get the SAT goal score.  And what you are going to study with your SAT flexible study plan is Your Weakness.

Therefore the best way to identify your biggest weakness in the SAT exam is to look out for patterns in the mistakes you make in your practice tests as discussed above.  You can also ask yourself the following questions

• Are there any specific areas such as linear equations, mathematics, or writing sections, that are always getting wrong or unable to be understood in the practice tests?
• Is your time management OK and as per requirement in every section of SAT?  Or are you running out of time and relying on guesswork?
• Do you have tried and tested test-giving strategies, for instance process of elimination, to make informed guesses on difficult questions?

As you answer these questions, it will help you identify the points you need to pay more attention to during your SAT preparation.

6. Get help as needed

Although the SAT self-study program is all about studying yourself, it's sometimes Ok and necessary to get a little bit of outside help when facing any specific issues. These issues can be in the form of gaps that you may have in your knowledge required to prepare strategies and manage test-taking anxiety. 

Therefore if you fail to teach yourself what you require to perform better in the exam or have tried everything but still can't get better, then it is advisable to take the guidance. Try to reach out to a teacher, in your high school or hire a SAT tutor for a few hours to understand the areas in which you are struggling. Don't worry about the finances, as you can still keep your finances low as most of your plan is still self-contained, although you taking little help from someone else. 

7. Find ways to stay focused and motivated

Finally keeping focus and being motivated is a very important part of the SAT self-study program. As of now, you have the best SAT resources in the world, however, if you are not committed to the schedule for yourself, there will be no improvement in the overall SAT score.  Although flexibility is an important reason for adopting a self-study plan, and we do encourage this plan in case you aren't required to spend more time on sections and topics in which you are good, however, you must stick to the plan during a larger part of time. 

As no one is accountable other than yourself, it is important to find the willpower within you to make the SAT self-study plan truly effective. 

Conclusion 

This article will help you prepare your SAT self-study plan more effectively and help you make better preparations to achieve your goal score in the SAP test. However, if you find any difficulty during your preparation for the SAT, our experts present in "The Assignment Ninjas" can provide you with the help you require anytime.