Boosting your SAT score significantly takes practice and focus.  Most of my students need at least two months of review before seeing a 150-200 point score increase.  But what if your test is next week?  Here are my top five last-minute SAT tips, in order of priority:

1. Take care of the basics.  Having these easy details under control will make you feel more prepared and free up your brain to focus on the test content rather than finding an eraser that doesn’t smudge.
2. Know your strengths. If you’ve taken the SAT or PSAT before, you probably have a pretty good idea of which sections are your strongest.  If not, your grades are a reasonably good predictor of how you will do – in other words, if you’re a straight-A math student who has taken at least Algebra and Geometry, there’s a good chance that you will do well on the math section.  Spend 20 minutes reviewing problems from your strong section(s) to make sure you know what to expect – check out the “Find a Test Topic” link at the top of this page to jump to a specific topic for review – and then leave your strong sections alone.
3. Know your weaknesses.  Plan to spend about an hour reviewing problems from each of your weaker sections, and pay close attention to the strategies I offer in the explanations.  You won’t see these actual problems again on test day, but the strategies will still apply.  (Use that “Find a Test Topic” menu again to focus in on problems from your not-so-strong sections.)
4. Try a timed section. Time yourself on one of the free sets of SAT practice questions that the College Board provides on their website.  Since this is a timed test, you’ll want to know that you can finish each section within the allotted time.
5. Plan for the essay. Your first test section will be the 25-minute essay, and although you don’t know the topic, you can rest assured that you will take a position on an issue that is somewhat abstract (success, happiness, community, convenience…).  Arm yourself with examples that you can use for this essay: what books or movies do you know well?  What activities have you participated in?  Are there any historical eras or figures that resonate with you?  These examples will form the meat of your essay, so save yourself some early-morning heartache on test day by having some ideas for things that you might use to support your argument and remembering your 5-paragraph essay format.

Good luck!  If you need more help or want a last-minute refresher for your test, please feel free to contact me.