Help Your Students Increase SAT/ACT Scores With These 9 Simple Steps

As you prepare your students for graduation, schools are looking to use the SAT/ACT scores to fulfill ELA and math concordant graduation requirements or to help students meet the Bright Futures Scholarship threshold. SAT/ACT tests are also an area where a few simple reminders and tips from teachers can make a major impact on student scores.

 

A significant segment of Florida students graduate using concordant scores, and the trend has increased over time. According to WMFE (Orlando) reporting, 34.4% of graduates used concordant scores to meet the need during last year's assessment graduation requirements. With other factors now at play, including teacher shortages and COVID-related learning loss, it is even more critical to give your teachers and students all available tools for success.

 

The standardized nature of the SAT/ACT gives you an added advantage. These tests must test the same topics, the same way, in the same proportions every time. In addition, helping students understand the “why” turns them into active participants in the learning process, which positively impacts score improvement. Here are a few key examples to help students better understand the “why” behind the tests:

 

●     Improving scholarship opportunities - Getting a full-ride scholarship is appealing when you consider financial obstacles and loans.

●     Graduating with their peers - If students cannot meet the FSA benchmarks, they can use concordance scores.

●     Strengthening college applications - The SAT/ACT is the part of the college application that students can improve most dramatically in the least amount of time. It’s the most significant opportunity to quickly strengthen their application! For example, one year of high school grades represents more than 4,000 hours in the classroom.. Meanwhile, the SAT/ACT—worth as much as your grades—is a 2-4 hour test for which most students spend less than 20 hours preparing.

●     Increasing lifetime earnings - Adults with a bachelor's degree earn an average of $2.8 million during their careers. This averages $1.2 million more than the median lifetime earnings of workers with only a high school diploma.

 

After your students understand the "why," you can then dive into various test-taking strategies to help students know what they are up against. These strategies will help students learn how to answer the question. They go beyond understanding the topic to mastering how to look at the test and utilize time management. This eliminates the anxiety of the unknown and unpreparedness so students can feel confident and at ease when facing a complex topic.

 

The Nine Strategies for Students

1.    Answer all test questions - Many years ago, both the SAT and ACT had guessing penalties for guessing the incorrect answers. Today neither exam has a guessing penalty, this is why you should always guess and never leave questions unanswered.

 

2.    Know what you're up against - As a teacher, you can help students understand how the content is organized and how much time they will have for each section. Except for the reading questions, each type of question is arranged from easiest to most challenging, yet all questions have the same value. This means you can prepare your students for what they will see and encourage them to start with the easy ones.

 

3.    Organize the content in hierarchies - You can also organize the content and taxonomies due to the fact that this is a standardized test. For example, frequently tested topics can be covered with your students in detail early on and are often foundational topics such as algebraic expressions and linear equations. This is contrasted to less-tested topics that only have only one or two questions on the test such as combinations & permutations.

 

You can view a detailed Scope and Sequence on the ACT/SAT here. Otherwise, the chart below gives you a summary of the content covered on each test, the time limits, and the question types

 

         

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4.    Know your time - Encourage your students to start with the questions they know immediately and circle the ones they don't to revisit if there is additional time. Then, when test administrators give the final warning, students should start filling in the bubbles with their best guess because they are not penalized for wrong answers. Essential tip: Encourage students to bring a watch to keep track. Seniors taking a Non-College Reportable (NCR) test allow them to feel at ease knowing that time isn't a factor. As of the time of writing this article NCR tests in FL were double-time for the SAT and triple-time for the ACT.

 

5.    Use your pencil to guide your thoughts - Students receive a booklet which can be scribbled in and utilized throughout the test. The process of elimination is one crucial test-taking strategy so students can cross out the letter with their pencil when the response is a definite no. If students are taking the test fully online, they can still keep track of which answer choices they skipped or unsure of on a piece of scratch paper. We recommend using the pencil to establish a system. For example:

a.    Circle a question number that you skipped

b.    Put a question mark next to a question number that you answered but are unsure about your answer

c.     Put a double question mark next to a question number that you answered but are very unsure about your answer.

 

This system allows your students to revisit these questions at the end of the test, if they have leftover time, and prioritize amongst them.

 

Another way for students to use their pencil is to circle or underline the phrase as you’re reading passages to keep track when you see something important.

 

6.    Pay attention - Almost half of the questions that the typical test taker gets wrong on the test day are questions they would get correct if they saw them again. These are mistakes of inattention and not knowledge errors, so be sure to encourage students to read carefully.

 

7.    Practice, practice, practice - The more familiar students are with the format, the fewer surprises on test day. Students can take a free official licensed test to practice all four ACT sections here and understand their scores. They can also access free SAT practice tests here - both paper-based and online.

 

8.    Be confident - The first response to a question is usually correct. Due to the time constraint, it is better to move on with an educated guess if one gets stuck on a question for a longer period of time. The student can then reevaluate the answer if they have time left over at the end of the session.

 

9.    Stay calm and relaxed - Preparation the night before is critical. Students should get a decent night's sleep before the test instead of cramming at the last minute. When the test day arrives, giving your students a breathing exercise to calm their nerves can also create a huge impact. Simply taking in three deep breaths through the nose with a long exhale can go a long way.

 

These key strategies will help your students do their best on these critical tests. Test-taking strategies are incredibly important and impactful on score improvement but they make up a small portion of ChalkTalk’s curriculum, about ~5%. The vast majority of our curriculum and program is core ELA & Math skills paired with progress monitoring tools and assessments to fill the gaps.

 

If you are interested in learning how you can help your students see 2-6x growth on the SAT/ACT, visit chalktalk.com where we share more techniques and success stories of districts throughout Florida.

 

Author: Christiana Orlove - Partnership Manager with Florida

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Impact studies: ChalkTalk shows 2-6x growth on SAT/ACT scores than national average in 10-15 weeks.