I know what you’re thinking. (No, I’m not psychic. I have just spent a lot of gloomy Februaries with a lot of students all thinking the same thing.)
You’re thinking—or at least, when you check to see, you find that yeah, okay, you’re kind of feeling—that it sure would be nice if you could quit all this test prep stuff right now.
It’s the dead of winter (especially up here in NYC), all the holidays have passed, and now there’s nothing on the horizon. Spring break is a ways off yet—and if you’re a junior, even THAT might get eaten by test prep…while your senior friends post beach selfies. Right now, in the February gloom, you might find that test prep looks like an endless tunnel—no matter where you are in the process.
Regardless of what stage you’re at in your SAT or ACT prep, you most likely have a long road ahead of you.
Perhaps you just took your first attempt of the ACT. Or your second. Or that’s not ‘til April. Perhaps you’re just about take your very first SAT. Or your second. Or you’re putting it off ‘til May. Even if you HAVE taken your test once before, you likely have multiple other attempts in your future in order to get your Target Score.
Or, if you still haven’t had your first SAT or ACT attempt just yet, you’ve been putting in the time and the work, but you probably haven’t seen how it all comes together just yet to get you your target SAT or ACT scores. You probably feel mildly bored. Or perhaps you’ve had a few practice tests and even bombed one of them.
The point is, you’ve been doing this test prep thing long enough to get tired of it…but not long enough that you’ve seen the kind of results that will motivate you to keep going. And as I’ll explain in a minute, THAT is exactly the problem. But first, I want to pre-emptively address something that may be lurking in the back of your mind…
If you’re like my SAT and ACT prep students, you might be asking yourself these questions: should I switch tests? Should I give up? What’s the point? I’m never going to get that score anyway.
Here’s the rub: when you’re in the middle of something long and arduous, like prepping for the SAT or ACT, it’s easy to lose sight of the end game. When you’re at the beginning of test prep, especially if you have a game plan, it’s so easy to feel excited, because you know EXACTLY what you need to do and EXACTLY how you’re going to accomplish it! Towards the end, when it’s just a matter of a few more mock tests before you peak on Test Day, you can see the end in sight, which is in ITS own way exciting. It’s the middle of the road that’s so hard.
So that’s why I’m here, in the cold endless corridor of winter and of test prep, to tell you that this middle section of your journey will soon end and give way to the exciting part where you start to see your hard work finally pay off!
Don’t sabotage your efforts by switching things up! Don’t get “test-is-greener” syndrome and wistfully look at the test your friends are taking and think you need to fit in and do that test, too. Don’t invalidate the logical and strategic decisions you made at the beginning of your test prep journey and assume they’re now wrong.
They aren’t.
All that’s going on is that you’re in the MIDDLE of your test prep process.
This is the boring part, the hard part, the tedious part. But it ends, and then you won’t have enough days or hours in the day to study everything you need to study (finals, Regents, AP’s, SAT, ACT, SAT II Subject Tests, etc)…
So savor this time. Don’t back down. Don’t phone it in. Give it your all, even when you don’t see the results immediately in front of you.
Have faith. And if you need someone to keep explaining to you why that’s actually the best way to get the scores that will get you in, and how much they can do for your applications, I’m here to help.
