Get Rid of SAT Test Anxiety - Take Proctored Mock SAT Tests
The singular best way to avoid test anxiety is to take real, proctored, practice tests.
Many students perform at a way lower level than they’re capable of - just because they run out of time.
The SAT exam strips students of feeling agency, making many students perform at their worst, instead of their best.
The Best Way to Avoid Test Anxiety? Practice, Practice, Practice.
Many students feel like the SAT exam is something over which they have no agency. They’re being judged by a set of standards that they don’t know and they don’t have adequate test prep in their school. This loss of agency causes anxiety, a lack of confidence, and the conditions for students to perform at their worst.
Practice tests are the single best way to study
Even if you do all of the practice question on the entirety of Khan Academy, nothing can prepare you for the SAT exam like actually taking the test. The SAT can feel like a completely unpredictable exam - but when you’ve taken five or six practice tests, you know exactly what’s coming.
Time management
When the proctor calls five minutes, you can feel the energy in the room. Students are freaking out - they know how important this test is and are terrified of running out of time. Many students suffer from test anxiety (read more about test anxiety in this post!) which not only makes testing stressful, but also lowers scores.
Our kids? Calm, confident, and ready to show what they know. We emphasize time management constantly, having students wear and use watches, doing all questions and passages at test speed, and practicing bubbling in answers. These little things add up - and make our students perfectly prepared.
Agency
That’s why, at SSA, we flip the script. Instead of allowing the test to have agency over the students, our students have agency over the test.
With real proctored practice tests - times are being called out, you can have nothing on your desk except your pencil and your test, you take short breaks for snacks and the bathroom, you have to make time to bubble in answers - that extra level of fear, of not knowing what to expect, is stripped away. Students feel in charge of their performance on the test.
This is the heart of what we do. Agency is everything - if you feel like you know what’s going on, you can predict what will happen, and you’ve prepared for everything, you approach it from a different lens. That lens is where success comes from.
