If you follow this blog at all, you know that I think it’s a good idea to be intentional in all aspects of applying to college, and that includes the way you prepare for standardized testing.  This week, Test Prep expert  Alexis Avila, founder and private tutor of Prepped & Polished, LLC in Boston.  You can learn more about Prepped & Polished at www.preppedandpolished.com. 

Check out what he says about how getting ready for the SAT or ACT is very similar to preparing for a big race.  By the way, that’s Alexis in the photo above, at the Boston Marathon recently.  He finished in 5 hours, 49 minutes, and 9 seconds.  Congratulations,  buddy! 

Getting ready for a standardized test and preparing for a marathon are quite similar. In order to cross both finish lines you should spend a good four to five months doing smart preparation.

Practice and Preparation

When you train for a marathon you have to build up your miles slowly. If you start running a twenty miler during week one of a sixteen-week training schedule you can easily succumb to injury. Similarly while preparing for a standardized test you don’t want to dive right away into rigorous preparation. First familiarize yourself with the test format, the pacing, and figure out your strengths and weaknesses. Once you figure out the road map you can start to study harder and “crank up” those miles.

Taper

Any marathon runner will tell you that doing a 20+ mile practice run too close to race day will heighten your chance of injury. Similarly, you don’t want to cram for the SAT the night or two before the big exam; Cramming for the SAT will hurt your concentration and could injury you mentally on test day. If you spread out your SAT studying over a series of months, and get ample rest, you will put yourself in the best position to score the highest.

Game Day

While running the marathon, you want to run a smart race. That means hydrating well and running in a relaxed and comfortable pace. On test day, you don’t want to rush through the test and make careless mistakes, nor do you want to spend too much time on any one problem. Instead you want to move quickly but carefully through the easy problems and then slow down gradually through the medium and difficult problems. If you get stuck on any given problem, circle it and go back if you have time. Like a marathon, you will score highest on a standardized test if you’ve paced yourself well from start to finish.

Great advice!   Now, let us know what your plans are for test prep.