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There’s a lot of advice out there about SAT prep tips, some good, some bad. But the worst prep tips come from the writers of the test.
I mean, think about it. The College Board does not benefit from giving great advice about the SAT; in fact it will negatively impact their profits.
Why I don’t trust the College Board’s SAT Prep tips:
If they gave really effective info about how to improve your SAT score, students would score higher, and they would take fewer SAT tests.
If every student got a high score, the test wouldn’t help rank students as effectively, and colleges and scholarship committees would lose faith in the College Board and eventually stop using their tests, and the College Board (a for-profit testing business (EDIT: this was an error on my part – the College Board is NON-profit, but read the comments section for an interesting discussion about this topic) would eventually fail.
If students take fewer tests, the College Board loses revenue, because they produce income each time a student takes the SAT. So why the hell would they give us good advice? They want more money; they really do not care about making your life easier. But they act like they do.
What they do instead is give just enough good advice mixed with the bad advice to keep you coming back, buying their books, logging onto their website, making them MONEY. That’s what they want from you. The College Board tries to act like your “pal,” like they sympathize with your plight. What a joke! They are laughing all the way to the bank.
Useless “Official” SAT prep tips and why they’re BS:
Just read the back cover of the Blue Book (“The Official SAT Study Guide”) for another great laugh. (You can get your own copy of this essential SAT prep book here: Pre-March 2016 edition or March 2016 and after edition)
Now don’t get me wrong, this book is essential for the practice problems it provides, but the prep advice is just not always very good. Here is a sampling of a few of the myths it presents on its back cover:
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“The SAT isn’t designed to trick you.” BS! It’s totally designed to trick you… almost every single question has a “trick” in it!
“The SAT tests your skills in… the same subjects you’re learning in high school.” BS! Expect to be tested on math topics you haven’t studied in years, vocabulary words you’ve never seen before, and strange grammar rules that no one has ever told you about!
“If you take rigorous, challenging courses in high school, you’ll be ready for this test.” BS! Some of my most frustrated SAT prep students are in the highest-level courses their high school offers… and now find themselves being tested on topics they’ve forgotten about!
“The SAT measures what you already know” BS! The SAT Measures how well you’ve prepared for the SAT!
The College Board benefits from keeping students at a low-level, constant anxiety about the SAT (so students buy the Blue Book, visit the website, and purchase other “official” SAT prep materials from them), while keeping them docile and mellow enough to not prepare sufficiently be happy with their scores on the first SAT they take.
“Prep a little bit, but not too much” is the official line from the College Board, and it’s not good advice.
How to ACTUALLY prepare for the SAT (a perfect-scoring pro tutor’s advice):
Listen – you want to get into an elite college? Or maybe your grades suck and you want a trump card/secret weapon? Then you better do some serious prep work, starting today. Use this website, get my SAT prep books, and sign up for the email list to get my FREE Urgent Report on the Critical Reading section.
Build up your vocabulary, read the newspaper, and find a local tutor. Take action daily, weekly, and monthly to positively impact your score. There is no other “secret” advice. Professionally-guided practice problems (like you can find through my website) will help you improve in your weak areas.
Yes, of course I’m trying to sell you on the SAT prep methods I prefer, partially because I believe they are the best and partially so you will send me money and I can pay for rent and groceries.
But the difference is, I benefit most when your scores increase massively so you tell other people how excellent my SAT prep help is. On the other hand, the College Board benefits when your scores slowly creep up as you invest time and money into their questionable advice.
I want to help you improve the first time and provide lots of value so you give me good reviews, while they want to string you along with hope and fear for as long as possible while you take more of their tests. Think about it. Food for thought, right?
Get your SAT prep tips from any source except the College Board, and you’ll probably be starting on the right foot. They have no incentive to really help you. They profit from your misery and frustration. Look elsewhere for SAT advice.
Additional Resources:
Visit my SAT Prep Bookstore
Winning College Scholarships for High Schoolers Video Course
Prepping the SAT at Home: The Complete Free Guide
Read more SAT Prep articles
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Hi
I checked out your website after you left the comment on my lens – and I love what I have seen so far. Will definitely go back and link to you. Having had 3 kids already take the test, I can definitely agree with what you have written above. One has to figure out what they are wanting – I only wish it really did test what they have learned!!
Hi Meryl, and thanks for stopping by!
It’s true that the SAT doesn’t just test what students are supposed to learn in school – there is a specific “SAT Style” that exists nowhere else! I’m going to write a post soon about “Weird Symbol” problems in the Math section – they’re the best example of this.
“Weird symbol” problems don’t show up in high school, they don’t show up in college, and they DEFINITELY don’t show up in real life. Although they’re easy once you get the hang of them, I can’t help thinking “what’s the point?” Why does the College Board think these types of questions are important?
Learning to take the SAT and navigate through all its bizarre question types is just a hoop that students (unfortunately) have to jump through in this day and age.
Someday things will change for the better!
Your free website seems to be a valuable source of information!
I agree with the gist of this article, but you could improve it by elaborating on why you disagree with the statements on the back of the Blue Book, using “fewer” instead of “less” to describe quantifiable nouns and correcting the inaccurate references to the College Board as a for-profit testing business.
I look forward to reading this website as you develop it further!
Jen – all of the points you make are super-smart and I really appreciate you making them!
Catching the “less” and “fewer” mistake really made me laugh (in a good way) – even though I know the rule, and teach my students about it, I am just as guilty as the next person of taking grammatical liberties when I’m speaking and writing. :) I fixed it up, thank you!
Also, you make a crucial point about a mistake I made in this article and I want to get a little more in-depth about it as it is an important topic to me personally – the College Board is a NON-profit business on paper. They currently follow all federal regulations to be a non-profit entity and that needs to be pointed out.
However, my first job out of college was for an organization College Forward that was also classified as “non-profit.” We had second-hand office space, 35 minutes out of town; some of the families we worked with were enduring extreme poverty as well as entrenched racial discrimination. My coworkers and I worked at LESS than minimum wage, after the extra hours we put in; my managers were paid a laughable pittance for the work they did; I’m not even sure my “big boss” was drawing a salary of any kind.
The social mission came FIRST at ALL TIMES and there was absolutely no way to forget it. Though the nature of the job wasn’t quite right for me, I’ll always admire the total commitment and sincerity that I saw at College Forward.
On paper, the College Board also is a non-profit. However, the CEO, Gaston Caperton, draws an $830,000 yearly salary. They also spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on political lobbying; they also draw millions of dollars of investment capital. I think there are semi-sinister reasons that the SAT has such a massive market share. Vast accumulations of power and money rarely happen by accident.
Furthermore, since graduating from college myself (and finding that, as students, we were sold many myths about higher education that don’t turn out as advertised), I have started to see our national network of college prep and colleges themselves as an Educational-Industrial complex churning out hundreds of millions of dollars in profit for those at the top. The College Board seems definitely to have latched onto this vast source of profit and established a monopoly, to some degree, on the “College Experience.”
For the record, some of my information and many interesting points come from this site: Americans for Educational Testing Reform
True, there’s the ACT, and potentially other options, but it’s just the same story. I think they all want a piece of this huge, tasty profit pie. And who am I to talk? I believe I’m doing a service by promoting free SAT prep information, but my personal goal is to earn a small profit from this site through advertising so I can work on what I REALLY care about – music.
I don’t want to devalue education – it’s one of the hallmarks of our civilization, and I’m so proud to have learned from the gifted educators I studied with. But, you have to admit that vast sums of money often go hand-in-hand with corruption.
Thanks for sending some really thought-provoking stuff my way. You’re the best!