As college is approaching, students are stressing and preparing for standardized tests offered this fall. Their preparation for performing better on the ACT/SAT includes working with tutors, siblings, parents; and completing practice tests.
“At the moment I don’t feel super confident about the ACT looking at my practice ACT score,” junior Emily Goldstein said, “but overall I’m just not great with standardized testing.”
Some students are preparing for these tests and others are seeing where they are without studying for the PSAT. For example, sophomore Mazan Umar will take the PSAT just to see where he is at without studying.
“It’s good preparation that I’ll definitely need to do to get into the college that I want to,” sophomore Shoshana Weinstein said. “I think it’ll be good to see the kind of questions so that way I have a better idea for the real thing.”
However, preparation doesn’t always mean feeling ready.
“Somewhat, I still feel unsure about it,” sophomore taking PSAT, Christina Pham.
Pham has prepared for these tests including using the handouts that her teachers gave her as well as online practice tests. She claims that she studies every 3 weeks, and as she gets closer to junior year will study more.
“I went to a couple of ACT prep classes at school and they didn’t help me at all,” senior, Claire Huang said, “but I did the Maryville summer program which helped with strategies for ACT.”
Huang’s preparation strategy to score higher specifically was continuous practice, doing the practice tests over and over. Many students believe that these standardized tests are important, but understand they are not the only thing used for college admissions. These standardized tests may result in stress for some students.
“I don’t think they are that important, but colleges do unfortunately,” Huang said, who has taken the SAT and ACT twice. “It puts unnecessary stress on the youth of America.”
Along with stress, students are experiencing some issues with not having time to study or meeting with tutors due to sports, work, or school work.
“It’s hard to find time between cross country, regular school, and my job,” Goldstein said.
Upperclassmen mainly use their weekends and summers to really prepare for these tests as they have seen big improvements because of this.
“I think these tests are overrated because the test is designed to for you to fail just so you can spend money and take it again,” Pham said.
Cost is a factor when preparing for these tests. Money is used towards tutors, prep courses, towards materials such as flashcards or books, and also the test themselves. Some students take these tests more than once, so perhaps they get into their desired college or university.
“They’re [these tests] another way to measure a student’s intelligence but test scores shouldn’t be the only thing that colleges look at,” junior John Kim said.
Another factor on how to prepare and better perform onthese tests are whether or not the individual is good at standardized testing. During these tests, students are timed and given a
four hour exam.
“I understand with GPA, [grade point average] each school across the country differs in difficulty, so GPA isn’t always accurate [for college admissions],” Goldstein said.
