20 Hours of Practice

The College Board is singing the praises of their partner, the Khan Academy. According to a recent article, 20 hours of practice on the Khan Academy website “is associated with an average score gain of 115 points, nearly double the average score gain compared to students who don’t use Khan Academy.”

The article notes that Khan Academy practice is personalized. This is true: students can link their Khan Academy account with their College Board account to get personalized practice questions based on their performance on previous tests. You can also practice specific content areas, “leveling up” as you improve. For example, if you choose to practice linear equations, you will start at Level 2, and if you get five questions in a row correct, you will advance to Level 3, and on up to Level 5.

The problem is that some of the questions are much too difficult—even on Level 3. While it’s true that any student who could master Level 5 will probably get a near-perfect score on the SAT, some students could end up wasting a lot of time agonizing over questions that would never show up on the real test. Another problem is that the SAT has more than five problems per section—and it’s timed! While Khan Academy is a good resource, if you want a more accurate picture of what to expect on test day, it makes more sense to take official SAT tests.

Each SAT is 3 hours (not counting the essay), so you’d need to do 7 of them to get in 20 hours of actual test taking—BUT there’s more to studying than just taking practice tests. In fact, far more important than taking tests is reviewing them—looking at every missed question and figuring out why you missed it. Every official practice test comes with answer explanations, so if you can’t figure it out, you can look it up. The more questions you miss, the more time it will take to review, so the number of test sections needed to fill up 20 hours will vary from student to student. There are eight official tests available for free on the College Board and Khan Academy websites, so regardless of how much time you spend reviewing, you can definitely get in your 20 hours.

While you should take at least one full practice test in one sitting, replicating actual test conditions as closely as possible, you don’t have to take a complete test every time you sit down to study. If you take one section a day for four days a week and review every question you miss, you could get in your 20 hours (or close) in about six weeks.

Again, you can do this all on your own for free. But if you would like a little guidance, we’re here to help! And even if you don’t live in Austin, we do Skype tutoring, so we’ve got you covered. Give us a call at 512-453-7272 to schedule a free consultation.