By Aleeha Shah | staff writer
In March 2016, several students were among the first group of people to take the new version of the SAT. Although the test has changed a bit, the preparation process is still important.
“I have found that students who do some prep tend to increase their scores by 200 to 300. For example I had a student who made an 1800, did the whole prep and increased his score to like a 2100,” english teacher Robin Belden said.“I think it’s very beneficial if you’re trying to get that top score.”
For some, like junior Hannah Thompson, the process to prep for the exam was based off of previous scores.
“From my PSAT scores, I noticed my math score was the lowest so I did a bunch of practice tests for math, and then I kind of just went over reading and writing because both of those were pretty high on my PSAT,” Thompson said.
Similarly to Thompson, other students, like junior Caroline Matteson, also used their PSAT scores to help them study for the SAT. Others chose different methods to get ready for the test. Junior Paul Flores decided to take a specific course to help him.
“I took a six week class with a couple of my friends- an SAT prep class,” Flores said.
Some juniors that took the test, like Thompson, seemed to think the test was not as bad as they originally thought it would be.
“I was really surprised because the essay was not an argument essay, it was like a rhetorical analysis, and then I thought that compared to what I practiced the math was pretty easy,” Thompson said. “It wasn’t super easy, but it was easier than I thought it was going to be. And the readings were kind of interesting, so I could pay attention.”
Although it was interesting for Thompson, for Matteson, the test did not feature anything surprising or unexpected.
“I thought it was predictable- there wasn’t much out of the blue, like there was random math questions that were like, ‘what is the mode of the thing?’ and you haven’t talked about that since 6th grade, but overall I thought it was pretty predictable,” Matteson said.
Some juniors that took the test are planning on taking the SAT again. This time students, like Flores, will do some things differently.
“When I took it the first time I was super stressed out about completing all the questions in time and having left over time, so I’ll probably just take my time and answer the questions as best as I can rather than stress out about it,” Flores said.
