I used to tutor students who were preparing to take the SAT and the ACT. I think every single one of these high school kids was pretty stressed out about a test that they believed could destroy their entire future, but one girl just couldn’t get a handle on her stress. Our tutoring sessions routinely included her bursting into tears about the thought of not doing well enough on the SAT — and this girl was pretty bright. I had a hard time getting to the bottom of her stress, but it turned out that her mother told her that she wasn’t working hard enough and would fail. The stress wasn’t truly coming from the test, but from her mother’s expectations.
Standardized testing season is starting up, and I don’t want to hear anymore stories like that poor girl’s. Here are some tips for reducing your worries come Test Day:
- If you are worrying about the SAT, ACT or another standardized test, one of the best steps you can take is to decide what the absolute minimum score you need in order to get into the school of your choice. While you should shoot higher, knowing that you can make that minimum can be the reassurance you need to deal with other people’s worries (your parents, counselors, etc.)
- You should also consider studying. In most cases you won’t need to spend three solid months studying — after all, the material that both the SAT and ACT covers should have been taught in your high school classes — but a little review can help you push your score upwards by a surprising margin.
- Remember, you always have the option to retake both the SAT and the ACT. You’ll have to pay another exam fee, but if anything happens, you do have the option of sitting down for the test again.
Standardized testing can be very important for students applying to college, but many admissions staff consider it the least part of an application. GPA, activities and such are far more important in deciding whether a student would excel at a specific school.
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