Panel of Experts

We want to wish all our ePrep students best of luck on this Saturday’s SAT test. You should feel very confident based on the effort and practice you’ve put in over these past several months. Following the ePrep method of practice, grade and review (under simulated, test day conditions!) you are well prepared to take on the SAT.

You might consider reviewing our ePrep strategy session videos this week as a final preparation going into the test. Summarized below are links to many key video lessons focused on test taking strategies.

SAT Test Day: The Night Before and Morning Of
Real SAT Stories: Second Guessing on the SAT
SAT Directions: Optimize Your Time on Test Day
When to Guess on the SAT Writing Section
When to Guess on the SAT Critical Reading Section
When to Guess on the SAT Math Section
SAT Sentence Completion Questions: When to Guess?
Don’t Blame the Chicken Pox for SAT Math Mistakes
Approach to SAT Math Problems
Habeus Answer, or Show Yourself the Answer!
Mastering Your SAT Test Weaknesses
SAT Questions…Easiest to Hardest
Autopilot - Don’t Set a Course for a Lower SAT Score
A Lesson from a Course in Wills, Trusts and Estates
Bubbling: Avoid Mistakes in Your Answer Key
Please Put Down Your Pencil!
The Dreaded SAT Experimental Section

Additionally, we’ve included a link to our presentation (in PDF format) on “what to do the night before and the morning of the SAT test” right here: Webinar Presentation - Night Before the SAT

Best of luck on Saturday!

Nancy read 1/3 of a book on Monday, 1/2 of the book on Tuesday, and the remaining 60 pages on Friday. How many pages of the book did Nancy read on Monday?

(A) 360
(B) 320
(C) 240
(D) 160
(E) 120

The most popular wrong answer is (A). Why? A lot of testtakers go on “autopilot” when working on a problem like this. In other words, they get so absorbed in solving for B, the total number of pages in the book, that they forget the question: How many pages did Nancy read on Monday?

Why does this happen? It happens because students develop most of their problem solving skills in school, and on a typical in-school test or quiz, the final question to a problem like the one presented is likely to be, “How many pages are in the book?”

Thus, when practicing for the SAT, students should develop the habit of quickly re-reading the question before answering and moving on to the next question. It is likely to make a big difference.

…and I didn’t/don’t know what to do!?! Don’t panic. We’ve posted a last minute favorite below. Also, in the blog post right below this one, you’ll find a more comprehensive list of videos with last-minute advice. So . . . sit back, relax, watch, and enjoy.

http://blog.eprep.com/2006/10/11/sat-test-day-the-night-before-and-morning-of

After graduating from college back in 1990, I spent a few months in Germany playing soccer and working part-time in my uncle’s bakery. It was a great time to be in Germany. The Berlin Wall was coming down and Germany’s national soccer team won the coveted FIFA World Cup. Anyway, my uncle is one of the nicest and most generous people I have ever met. That’s why I was surprised to learn that he made his own employees pay full price for baked goods from his own store . . . even the goods that were left unsold at the close of business. (more…)

If you’re not completely happy with your PSAT scores, don’t panic . . . but don’t procrastinate either. There are simple things you can start doing right now that will get you ready to crush the SAT on March 1st. Here’s my advice on how to prepare effectively:

First: Start building (more…)

Here’s a link to an old post that becomes relevant about seven times a year:

http://blog.eprep.com/2006/10/11/sat-test-day-the-night-before-and-morning-of

(Pssst. In case you didn’t know, the SAT is administered 7 times per year.)

As part of this summer’s alpha test of ePrep’s new SAT prep product, ePrep for the SAT, students were required to submit essays that I agreed to hand-grade. Since grading essays always gets me thinking about some of the common mistakes that keep students from scoring high on the essay, I though I would share a few while they are fresh in my mind. (more…)

Students often get into trouble when they begin to spot patterns in their SAT answer choices (e.g. A-A-A-D-D-D) and allow those patterns to impact their subsequent answers. Reacting to patterns on the SAT is pure folly.

Here’s a little math problem you would do well remembering when going into the SAT test. Assume you are flipping a coin where the odds of coming up heads is 1 out of 2 and the odds of coming up tails is 1 out of 2. You flip the coin and, remarkably, it comes up heads 5 times in a row. If you were placing a small wager on the sixth toss, would you assume the odds of coming up heads is 1 out of 64 (i.e., 1/2 to the sixth power) or the same 50% as the first toss? The obvious answer is 50%, (more…)

  - 2:15m -   Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Good luck to all the students taking tomorrow’s June 2 SAT test. As we did for the May 5th SAT test, here is our collection of last-minute advice and videos focused on SAT test day:

SAT Test Day: The Night Before and Morning Of
Real SAT Stories: Second Guessing on the SAT
SAT Directions: Optimize Your Time on Test Day
When to Guess on the SAT Writing Section
When to Guess on the SAT Critical Reading Section
When to Guess on the SAT Math Section
SAT Sentence Completion Questions: When to Guess?
Don’t Blame the Chicken Pox for SAT Math Mistakes
Approach to SAT Math Problems
Habeus Answer, or Show Yourself the Answer!
Mastering Your SAT Test Weaknesses
SAT Questions…Easiest to Hardest
Autopilot - Don’t Set a Course for a Lower SAT Score
A Lesson from a Course in Wills, Trusts and Estates
Bubbling: Avoid Mistakes in Your Answer Key
Please Put Down Your Pencil!
The Dreaded SAT Experimental Section

You can also see EVERY SAT post here. If you have an iPod, we encourage you to subscribe to our free podcasts and take ePrep with you on the go!

Every year I meet a lot of kids who prepare for, and try their best on, an SAT or two during the spring of their junior year. When they get results they are not happy with, they panic or start to doubt themselves.

I always tell them not to panic or begin to doubt themselves. “It is the rare student who crushes the SAT junior year.” Most (like me back in 1985) will have to wait until senior year. (more…)