Why Taking More Practice Tests Is Not Always the Answer

Practicing with real, official SATs and ACTs is one of the most essential parts of test prep. However, if you do not use these tests properly, you may be wasting a valuable resource without having a positive impact on your score.

Practice tests show you the problem, but they don’t necessarily fix it. Taking a practice test can reveal weaknesses in content knowledge, timing, stamina, and careless mistakes. But simply identifying these weaknesses won’t automatically correct them. Without proper review, you may end up repeating the same mistakes. Repeating those mistakes over and over can turn them into bad habits that ultimately sabotage your score.

Students need to review their mistakes carefully! The work you put in after the practice test, including seeing what you got wrong, figuring out why you got it wrong, and taking steps to fix the issue, can be even more important than taking the test itself.

Practice tests are valuable resources, so they need to be paced out properly. The SAT and ACT have made only a limited number of official practice tests available. If we use them all right away, we won’t have as many opportunities to measure our progress later.

Practice tests absolutely matter, but our goal is not to take as many tests as possible in the shortest amount of time. Our goal is to learn as much as we can from every test we take.