ACT On My Own

Should I Hire A Tutor Or Study For The SAT/ACT On My Own SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Your number two pencils are sharpened; you have functioning erasers at the ready and tissues for when you can’t stop the tears. That’s right. You’re gearing up to study for the SAT/ACT. Except†¦how do you actually go about studying for the SAT/ACT? Do you need a tutor, or can you just do it on your own? We cover this topic pretty thoroughly in our free booklets on comparing methods of test prep for the SAT and ACT, so this article will just give you a brief rundown of when it’s worth it to hire a tutor. feature image credit: Lady Mary Fairfax with her Tutor, 1647 by Lisby, used under CC BY 2.0/Cropped from original. In general, if you want to succeed on the SAT or ACT, you must have all of the following five components. 1. Motivation and Accountability Finding the motivation to study for the SAT/ACT can be...problematic. I mean, your score doesn’t directly impact your high school education (unless your school uses it for something), and test prep isn’t as interesting as Youtube. If you aren’t motivated, you won’t make progress in your test prep. A vague reason that you just give lip service to, like â€Å"I know I probably need to study so I can get a good enough score get into the school I want,† won’t do you any good. You need reasons to study that will actually motivate you. Because it’s the strength of the motivation that matters, not the loftiness of the reason, â€Å"I want to beat my older sibling’s score on the SAT† is just as valid a motivator for test prep as â€Å"I want to do well on the SAT so I’m guaranteed a scholarship to a state school.† Accountability may play a role in your motivation, if you find that you are most motivated to succeed if you have people counting on you who you don’t want to disappoint. Maybe you’ll care if a friend or a sibling shames you for not doing work like you said you would (not that I speak from experience), or if your parents are disappointed in you for failing to improve your test scores (as long as this is also something YOU care about). Bottom line: you need to find a source (or multiple sources) of motivation that work(s) for YOU. IF you have problems finding the motivation to study on your own, without anyone holding you accountable for studying, THEN a tutor may be helpful for you. 2. Strong Study Plan Students who succeed on the SAT/ACT go into prep with a structured study plan. When you’re just studying on your own, it can be hard to stay organized in your studying. The first step to forming a high-level study plan is to know where you currently stand and where you want to be on test day. Take a timed practice test under realistic conditions to get a sense of how you are scoring now. Next, what is your target score? We have two articles about this, one for the SAT and one for the ACT, but to summarize: List the schools you want to apply to Search online to find their average SAT/ACT scores Take the average of all the averages to get your target test score. Once you know your current score and your target test score, you will have a better idea of what it's going to take to get there. A structured study plan will be able to answer all of the following questions. When am I taking the SAT/ACT? How long do I have to prepare before test day? How many hours will I study each week? What material do I need to cover? What resources will I use? Should I use books or a complete prep program? When do I take practice tests? How will I know how to adjust my plan according to my progress? I'm going to use a fictional student named Aaron to answer these questions. Aaron recently took a practice SAT and scored a 1000 and has six months to reach his target score of 1250. He and his tutor have assessed his weak areas and discovered that Aaron has serious content weaknesses across all of SAT Math and some smaller issues with the Critical Reading and Writing sections. Aaron's study plan looks something like this: Months 1-3: 1 hour every other week with tutor, 3 hours a week otherwise focusing on weaknesses in SAT Math. Practice tests every three weeks. Months 4-5: 1 hour every other week with tutor, 6-7 hours a week outside of tutoring sessions drilling weaknesses in Math, Critical Reading, and Writing and reviewing missed questions, using books and materials hand-selected by the tutor; practice tests every other week. Month 6: 1 hour every other week with tutor, 9-10 hours a week outside of tutoring sessions working on remaining weaknesses that the tutor has identified by drilling with actual practice questions, practicing reading comprehension by finding interesting articles in the New York Times and analyzing them; practice tests every week, increasing in frequency as the test draws nigh. Because Aaron sticks to his study plan, he bumps his Math score from 400 to 630 and his overall SAT score from 1000 to 1260, meeting his target goal. If he had not had this study plan, even if he had gotten focused help on the Math section a month before the test, it's unlikely that he would have been able to improve as much as he did, both in Math and across the board. So IF you have problems structuring your study time, THEN a tutor may be helpful for you. 3. Excellent StudyResources Being motivated with a plan won’t do you any good if you don’t have good resources for your test prep. It is extremely important to use actual SAT/ACT practice tests when you study, not other test prep company’s materials, since only the questions that will test you in the same way the real test does are...questions from an official test. Luckily, there are a bunch of free practice tests available online for the SAT and the ACT. What if there’s a topic you just don’t understand? Let’s make up an example and say I never really understood probability in class, but somehow managed to fake my way through it. Suddenly, I’m faced with the SAT or ACT, which questions you on probability in really weird ways. To address this, I could try going through back through notes or borrowing old textbooks, prep material from other people. But what if I don’t have any good notes or materials to begin with? Not only this, textbooks and class notes aren't the best way to prep for the tests since they're so different. What if I’m not good at teaching material to myself? My best bet would be to find a tutor who has a good reputation for teaching SAT Math, and get focused instruction on improving my knowledge of probability. IFyou don't know what the best resources available to target your weaknesses are, THEN you would definitely benefit from time with the right tutor. 4. Effective Way To Learn From Your Mistakes One of the mistakes many people have when they study for the SAT/ACT is failing to thoroughly review the questions they miss. A thorough review involves more than a halfhearted â€Å"Oh, I see. I got this wrong because I was careless.† In order for going over your errors to actually help you, you need to dig deep into why exactly you missed the question. Where were you careless? Did you make the mistake because you were rushing? If so, why were you low on time? What are concrete ways you can avoid making this mistake in the future? If you’re thinking that you’d love to read an entire article about the best way to review your mistakes, then you are in luck. IF you have trouble going over your mistakes and figuring out what in particular you did wrong (and concrete ways to avoid it in the future), THEN hiring a high quality tutor will be helpful. Bourgai Sadia by sebastien Delcoigne, used under CC BY-SA 2.0/Cropped from original. Don’t speed past your mistakes. 5. Ability To Measure Progress In order to successfully prepare for the SAT/ACT, you need a way to measure your progress as you study, and be able to adapt your study plan accordingly. This is the area I have the most trouble in – it’s tempting to keep doing the same things over and over, but after a certain point those things may no longer be helping you boost your score. So how do you measure progress? When beginning your test prep, you should take a timed, full-length practice test and score it; alternatively, if you've already taken the test once recently, you can use that as your starting point. As you proceed through your test prep, continue to take timed practice tests at regular intervals, spaced according to how much time you have to study. For instance, if you're preparing for the SAT over the course of two months, start out by taking a practice test at the end of each week of prep for the first month. Why is taking timed practice tests so important to your test prep? It's the only way, short of taking the actual SAT or ACT, to see how you're doing under realistic conditions. If you don’t know if you’re doing better than before on the test, it's impossible to know if your studying is effective...or if you're just wasting your time. By periodically checking your score on practice tests, you'll be able to see if you are improving, and if you need to be improving more quickly to meet your goals (or if you're doing just fine). Let's extend the example of a student who takes four practice tests in the first month of her studying. He started out with an ACT composite score of 24, and his goal is to improve to a 30; however, after a month of studying a couple of hours a week, his practice test composite is holding steady at 26. If this student wants to meet his goal, he's going to need to adapt his studying method. In this case, a tutor would be helpful because she would be able to identify the ways in which the student should adapt his studying method to reach his target score, whether this is by increasing the amount of time he studies or changing the specifics of how he reviews questions he's messed up on. IF you’re not really sure how to measure your progress, or how you can adapt your test prep as you improve, THEN you might find a tutor helpful. No Sweat, I’ve Got This Without A Tutor If you are confident that you take care of the following on your own: Motivation and Accountability: You have a reason or multiple reasons to study that are actually important to you. Strong Study Plan: You know your target score and the amount of time you have to study and are able to use that to plan out your test prep in a schedule that you can stick to. Good Resources: You have the right material to study, or you have the ability to aquire it. Effective Ways to Learn From Your Mistakes: You are expert at picking apart your mistakes, seeing exactly where you went wrong, and finding solutions to avoid these mistakes in the future. Ability to Measure Progress: You know what your starting point is and that you need to take timed practice tests along the way as yardsticks against which to asses your progress. ...then absolutely go for it - you don't need a tutor to do well, or even get a perfect score, on the SAT or ACT. As I can personally attest, working smart and working hard will get you most places when it comes to test prep. Storytime: When I was a senior in college, I was under the impression that I might want to go to grad school for psychology, and so I knew I had to take the GRE Psychology Subject Test. I didn't have the funds or time for a tutor, and there wasn't really a test prep course out there that I knew of. Instead, I studied with a friend for about an hour a day, every day, for the six weeks leading up to the test. We both scored exceptionally well, and my friend is in the process of earning her doctorate in psychology. So I don't want to suggest that you MUST have a tutor to do well on the SAT/ACT. But if you feel like you need help on one of the above key components, you should consider it. Uh Oh†¦I’m Not So Sure I Can Do This On My Own If you’re worried about even one of those 5 areas, however, you might want to consider getting yourself some assistance to maximize your score. The more areas you struggle with, the more a high quality tutor will help. On the other hand, if you’re not entirely sure that you want to go with a tutor, a test prep program, like PrepScholar’s automated drilling platform, is a good compromise. You get motivation, a pesonalized study plan that focuses on your weaknesses, materials, and a way to measure progress, but pay less and miss out on the one-on-one attention. What’s Next? Wait, what is it that tutors actually do during SAT/ACT tutoring, anyway? I’ve got the answer for you! Sounds good so far, but should I be doing online tutoring? Find out here. How do you find the right tutor for you? Reading this article is a good start (although since I wrote it, I might be a little bit biased). Want to get serious about improving your SAT/ACT score? Our tutoring service is designed to be the most effective in the nation. We hire the best tutors from across the country. This is then paired with our exclusiveonline drillingprogramthat gives your tutor complete insight into your progress to design the most effective sessions. Think about what improving 160 points on your SAT, or 4 points on your ACT, can do for you. Learn more about tutoring now:

SAT Standard Deviation What Does It Mean for You

SAT Standard Deviation What Does It Mean for You SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips If you've ever glanced through any of the year-end College Board data reports, you may have seen information about the SAT standard deviation. Unfortunately, the reports just list the numbers and then move on, without explaining at all what these numbers mean. So how is info about the SAT mean and standard deviation useful to you? In this article, we’ll explain what the term standard deviation refers to and what it means for you and your SAT score. Feature image credit: Bell Curve by Abhijit Bhaduri/Flickr Bonus: Looking for the very best guides to every SAT section? Check out our top guides for every single section of the SAT. Choose the score level you're aiming for: 800 Score Guides: SAT Reading | SAT Writing | SAT Math | SAT Essay Choose these guides if you're scoring a 600 or above on a section, and you want to get the highest SAT score possible. 600 Score Guides: SAT Reading | SAT Writing | SAT Math | SAT Essay Choose these guides if you're scoring below a 600 on a section, and you want to boost your score to at least a 600 level. These are the very best guides available on boosting your SAT score, section by section. They're written by Harvard grads and perfect SAT scorers. Don't disappoint yourself - read these guides and improve your score today. What Is the SAT Standard Deviation? The standard deviation of a set of numbers measures variability. Standard deviation tells you, on average, how far off most people's scores were from the average (or mean) score. The SAT standard deviation is195 points, which means that most people scored within 195 points of the mean score on either side (either above or below it). SAT standard deviation is calculated so that 68% of students score within one standard deviation of the mean, 95% of students score within two standard deviations of the mean, and 99+% of students score within three standard deviations of the mean. If the standard deviation of a set of scores is low, that means most students get close to the average score (in this case, 1060). This is pretty clearly not the case with the SAT, because otherwise schools that boast 1300+ average SAT scores for admitted students would have no students. By contrast, if the standard deviation is high, then there’s more variability and more students score farther away from the mean. Based on the most recent data released for the SAT, the standard deviation is relatively high, meaning that there is quite a bit of variability in how students score on the SAT. Below, we’ve created a table with the data about the SAT mean and standard deviation for each section of the test, as well as the mean and standard deviation for total SAT scores. SAT Participation and Performance Mean Standard Deviation Total 1060 195 EBRW 533 100 Math 527 107 Note: this table only includes data drawn from the most recent test scores of 2017 high school graduates. Hardeep Singh/Flickr What Does the SAT Bell Curve Look Like? The bell curve for SAT scores is pretty close to an ideal normal curve. Since the average score is higher than the midpoint of the range (1060 instead of 1000), it's a little shifted over to the right, but otherwise the SAT bell curve is a regular bell shape. Because the SAT standard deviation for total SAT scores is 195 and the mean is 1060, we can do a little quick math to figure out the score ranges for the first, second, and third standard deviation. % of SAT scores in range Total Score Range EBRW Range Math Range 68% 865-1255 433-633 420-634 95% 670-1450 333-733 313-741 99+% 475-1600 233-800 206-800 To help you better visualize the distribution of SAT scores, we've graphed out the SAT bell curve (in blue) for composite SAT scores (out of 1600) and added in lines for the mean and each of the standard deviations. The green line in the chart is the average SAT score (1060), while the lines on either side of the mean represent the boundaries of the different standard deviations. The two yellow vertical lines on the chart represent the first standard deviation scores, 865 and 1255. The scores of 68% of all students who took the SAT fall in between those two lines. The two orange lines on the chart represent the second standard deviation scores, 670 and 1450. The scores of 95% of all students who took the SAT fall in between the two orange lines (including the 68% who scored between an 865 and a 1255). The two red lines on the chart represent the third standard deviation scores, 475 and 1645. Technically, because the SAT only goes up to 1600, there are no students who scored above that, which is why the blue curve of all student SAT scores stops abruptly at 1600. The scores of about 99% of all students who took the SAT fall between the two red lines, with the remaining 1% falling below the leftmost red line (scores of 475 and below). Extra Advice: Want to get into the best college you can? Read our famous guide on how to get into Harvard, the Ivy League, and your top choice college. In this guide, you'll learn: What colleges are looking for in your application How to impress your top choice colleges Why you're probably wasting your time on activities that don't matter Even if you're not actually interested in Ivy League schools, you'll still learn something fundamental about how to apply to college. Read our top college admissions guide today. Why Does the SAT Standard Deviation Matter? As a student, the exact details of the SAT bell curve and standard deviation aren't going to be all that relevant. Most of the info you’d get from standard deviations you can just as easily get from the information about your percentile rank that's included on your score report. For instance, knowing you’re in the 98th percentile is probably more useful to you than knowing you’re a little more than two standard deviations above the mean SAT score. Learn How Much Scores Vary The size of the standard deviation can give you information about how widely students' scores varied from the average. A larger standard deviation means there was more variation of scores among people who took the test, while a smaller standard deviation means there was less variance. As we discussed above, the SAT standard deviation is 195, which is relatively high and therefore indicates there's a lot of variation in scores among students who take the SAT. Practically speaking, this means that high-achieving students have to get relatively high scores in order to distinguish themselves. To do better than 98% of students on the SAT with a mean of 1060 and a standard deviation of 195, you must get a 1450 or higher on the test. Discover How Your Score Stacks Up The standard deviation of SAT scores is also useful information because it gives you a good general idea about how well you performed, compared to other students. Based on which standard deviation you fall into, you can even figure out your rough percentile score (if you don't know it). If your SAT score is more than one standard deviation above the average SAT score, then you did better than about 84% of students, which puts you in a strong position for most state schools (including UMass Amherst, University of Cincinnati, and UT San Antonio) and some private schools (like Pace University, Temple University, and Quinnipiac University). Similarly, if your score is more than two standard deviations above the mean SAT score, then you did better than around 97% of students, which is great and makes you a strong candidate for more competitive schools like NYU, UMich (Ann Arbor), and even Ivy-League schools like UPenn and Brown. On the other hand, if your score is more than one standard deviation below the mean, you definitely have your work cut out for you if you want to be a competitive applicant for most schools. You’ll need to put in some serious study time to boost your score up to an 860+ score level. Bonus: Want to get a perfect SAT score? Read our famous guide on how to score a perfect 1600 on the SAT. You'll learn top strategies from the country's leading expert on the SAT, Allen Cheng, a Harvard grad and perfect scorer. No matter your level, you'll find useful advice here - this strategy guide has been read by over 500,000 people. Read the 1600 SAT guide today and start improving your score. What’s Next? Ready to get more precise information of how your SAT score compares to other students' scores? Check out our article on SAT scores and percentiles to figure out where you fit in. Are you a high-achieving student with high SAT score dreams? Learn what SAT scores you need to get into the Ivy League here. What if you're worried your score might be too low to get you into college at all? Find out what the minimum SAT score for college is here. Need to figure out what SAT score to aim for in the first place? We have a complete guide to setting your target SAT score in this article. Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points?We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now: