The SAT Question Bank the most important resource for SAT preparation. You select an exam: SAT, PSAT, or PSAT 8/9. Then select Math or Verbal and one or more of the four topics.
Even if you are preparing for the SAT, the PSAT questions may be useful. The regular PSAT questions are somewhat easier than the SAT ones, and the PSAT 8/9 questions are much easier than the SAT questions. They may be useful in finding the right level of questions to practice.
You will then be taken to the questions. The default is 10 questions per page, but it is usually best to change this to 50 questions per page. There are options for Difficulty and Subtopic. The difficulty corresponds to how the exam is given.
The difficulty levels correspond to the modules on the exam. Medium questions are from the first module. Hard or Easy questions are from the second module. You will be placed into a Hard or Easy module depending on how you perform on the Medium module.
You should be able to tell which module to practice based on how difficult you find the questions. In general, if you have a score of 600 or higher, you should only practice Difficult-level SAT questions. If your score is about 400, you should mainly work on Easy problems.
It is recommended that you download the questions. For students, it is useful to download one version without the answers for the student to complete and another version with the answers of the same problems for grading. You need to individually check off questions to download.
Official tests are available so that you can practice the semi-adaptive format. You need to download the Bluebook app and sign in. It is highly recommended that you take these official practice tests. There are also several companies that offer tests in the semi-adaptive format of the actual exam, and they usually allow you to take one test for free.
These are close to 100 real tests from the previous non-adaptive version of the SAT. There have been changes to the test, so they are not the same as the current version.
When preparing for the SAT test , you will generally want to use official SAT tests from College Board itself. You can get the official free practice tests from College Board, or otherwise find them in several of the other links. We do recommend using official SAT practice tests whenever possible and over other SAT practice tests provided by other companies. SAT practice tests that are not written by college board are usually of a lesser quality; moreover, wouldn’t you prefer to take the tests made and endorsed by company who actually makes the tests?
In addition, one should note that Official SAT Practice Test 2 and 4 are not currently endorsed by College Board and were replaced test administration by Practice Test 9 and 10. Practice Test 9 and 10 continue a trend seen in Practice Test 8, especially in the verbal section, of some changes to question wording and type. Therefore, we suggest focusing on tests 8, 9, and 10 for preparation . Tests 2 and 4 (which can still be found) are still useful as question banks, and additional testing, though are not currently recommended over the others.
This leads to another point – in terms of SAT test preparation, the official SAT tests are “as good as gold” (PrepMaven). They are limited, the highest quality practice tests for the SAT, and free. It should therefore go without saying that, and especially because the SAT is administered on paper is administered on paper, printing these tests out and printing out the official SAT answer sheet when using these tests to practice is highly recommended for the best test preparation strategies. Take these tests seriously, on paper, and most of all, timed just like the actual test. Practice answer sheets and proctoring instructions are available.
The best way to use the SAT practice tests is to set aside a time to take the full test in one sitting, timed (ideally proctored by a parent, tutor, or other third-party), with a pencil and the bubble sheet. Though this is difficult, it’s extremely important to prepare under circumstances that most closely match the actual SAT test-taking environment. Taking the test in pieces, without the bubble sheet, and without time pressure is a very ineffective way to use these limited and valuable test-taking materials.
It is also critical test taking success that quality of preparation is much more important than quantity. Taking a few SAT practice tests very seriously, then carefully going over them and reflecting on the types of questions missed and the types of material that need to be reviewed is absolutely more important than merely trying to just “finish” every single question on every single practice test. Disciplined, focused practice is much more effective than just quantity.
