Spring has come, and testing season is just around the corner. This April, students will file into the cafeteria to take the PSAT, M-STEP, WIN or SAT tests. Although these assessments are taking place near the end of the semester, many students have been preparing since the beginning of the school year.
In many 11th grade math and English classes, teachers are preparing students for the SAT through warm-ups and vocabulary. Junior Joshua Grubaugh has been receiving help from math teacher Michael McCauley.
“I’ve had a little bit of tutoring,” said Grubaugh. “I’ve gone to Mr. McCauley a few times, and he’s taught me tricks with Desmos [the online calculator used on the SAT].”
Some teachers additionally give students example SAT questions to practice. Junior Veronica Privett has been doing practice questions and studying vocabulary in Mary Johnson’s Honors English 11 class.
“In my English class, every morning we have SAT vocab questions as a warm-up and SAT questions for the English part,” said Privett. “There are some words that were new to me.”
Fellow junior Tristan Karr has been attending Academic Achievement Center (AAC) sessions after school to prepare for the math section of the SAT. The AAC holds SAT study sessions in addition to their normal tutoring.
“You go in at 2:30 and it goes until 3:30, and you just work on a bunch of math to catch up and prepare for the SAT,” said Karr. “I’ve actually gained 300 points [on the SAT] in the last two months from taking this class.”
Some students use resources provided by the College Board, the company that runs the SAT. They offer a bank of example SAT questions, full length practice tests and daily SAT questions. Junior Emma Sinclair has been studying the daily SAT questions.
“There’s a math portion and there’s an English portion. It’s one question a day, and there are different questions in different difficulties every single day,” said Sinclair. “It’ll tell you if you got them right or wrong and then it’ll show you the correct answer and how you’re supposed to go about it.”
Sinclair also plans to attempt a practice test through the College Board.
The measures that these students and others are taking have made them feel more prepared for the approaching test.
“I feel pretty confident that I’m going to get at least an alright score, but with all this preparation, hopefully it will become a good score,” said Privett.
