At Method Test Prep, we don’t want ACT and SAT prep to dominate any student’s junior year: the purpose of high school is not to prepare students to do well on standardized tests. One of the more valuable things we can do for high school students and teachers is give them some time back.
That’s why we ask students to commit to only an hour of focused work each week completing our checklist. In that hour, students will listen to and watch our audio and video lessons, practice with our questions, and watch and listen to video and audio explanations that walk them through the strategies for each question. We know that students who put in this hour of concentrated work per week raise their scores an average of 110 points on the SAT and 3 points on the ACT. They can use the rest of each week to do the things that constitute a well-rounded high school experience, whether they be academic or extracurricular.
The fact of the matter is that all students can get the scores they need on the SAT and ACT to gain admission to a variety of schools and to earn more scholarship and financial aid money. Method Test Prep’s role is to help students be tactical about doing so. For students, it’s as simple as this: come up with a plan for when you are going to take these exams and set aside an hour per week to prepare. You can also dedicate more time per week if you choose. For example, our ACT checklist is 20 weeks long: if you’re going to start preparing 10 weeks before you take the ACT, you’ll want to put in 2 hours per week of preparation inside our program.
By the way, all students should try both the SAT and ACT once. Every college will accept either score, so students have two opportunities to be successful. When students take only the SAT or the ACT, they are taking advantage of only one of their two chances. The nice thing is that 80% of the content tested on the SAT and ACT is the same: the one or two hours per week students spend on Method Test Prep’s checklists will help them raise their scores on both exams.
If you work at a school that subscribes to Method Test Prep, please consider sharing this article with the 11th graders, their parents, and their teachers. Encourage them to carve out an hour of focused effort per week so that “test prep” doesn’t take up more time than it should.
