On April 13, Michigan juniors will all take on the SAT (Scholastic Assessment Test), and are now preparing for this new test format in their classes. Compared to the ACT, the SAT has different scoring. There is an essay, reading, and writing, which is evidence based, but there is no science portion which would be scored on reading. The math is also way wordier and students are taught to pick out the main points.

            “I feel overwhelmed and it is nerve-raking to be the first class taking it and I’m kind of scared to,” junior Stephanie Walker said.

In order for students to begin preparing for this test, teachers are starting to do SAT practice worksheets. Math classes do warm-ups, English does essay writing and reading, science and social studies classes do parts of reading selections. In English to prepare for the essay writing and reading students are taught to read the article for how it says it, not what it says. Their main goal is to find the authors argument.These practices are similarly timed to how it would be on the test. For more practice, students can also visit Khanacademy.org.

You can always learn ways on how to get a great score and get testing strategies. Strategies for reading comprehension are just to look for the main idea and find the other details you need to later, and writing you need to think about the easiest and clearest way to express an idea. For math you should know your formulas and know how to do most multi step problems.          Preparing for this new test helps the students learn wording of problems so they can find what is really important and what the questions are asking. Doing this sets the focus on familiarity so students can do the ones they know first then go back to the trickier ones. For example, do not leave a question that you do not know blank because you still can receive points. Since colleges see your score, you will really want to do your best to show your knowledge.

“Reviewing does help students. When doing it for the ACT testing, students’ scores went up drastically by eight points!” math teacher Andrea Gabbard said.

As students practice these skills more and more, it will help students learn these concepts. Once it comes time for the test, they will be able to answer the questions easily without confusion or hesitation.