Priorities for the night before
| When | What to do | What to avoid |
|---|---|---|
| End of studying | Check just a few of your usual mistakes | Starting a new full practice test or unit |
| Test preparation | Check Bluebook, admission ticket, ID, charging and login | Leaving setup and checking what to bring until the day |
| Before bed | Check the venue and arrival time, then stop | Keeping on studying out of anxiety |
Studying the night before
When anxiety grows the night before, you may think "if I just do one more practice test I will feel secure". For your last study, separate what to add from what to look at.
| Do not add: a full practice test | Look at: patterns of mistakes, not questions |
|---|---|
A full practice test takes more than two hours. If you also try to score and review it, you use up most of the time you have the night before. Even if you find a new weak point the day before, there is almost no time left to fix it. | Look back over just a few of the mistakes you have repeated: missing conditions, losing marks on the same grammar rule, working in the middle of a Math calculation, spending too much time. This is less about memorising the right answers again than about checking what to watch for so you do not make the same mistake tomorrow. |
Preparation to get ready the night before
Check Bluebook and your test device
For SAT Weekend, you need to complete exam setup in Bluebook and have your admission ticket ready.
College Board's Bluebook guide for SAT Weekend describes doing exam setup in Bluebook from five days before the test and getting your admission ticket.
The night before, check at least the following.
- Bluebook is installed on your test device
- Exam setup is complete
- You can see your admission ticket
- Your device is fully charged
- You know your College Board username and password
Bluebook is the app you use on test day. Do not open it for the first time the night before; check that you can log in.
Look at your admission ticket and venue information
Check your admission ticket for your arrival time on test day. According to College Board's test-day guidance, check-in for a typical Saturday SAT usually starts in the morning, but guidance may differ by venue.
So rather than remembering a fixed time, check these three things the night before. You want to avoid starting to look up the address on the morning of the test.
- The arrival time shown on your admission ticket
- The venue address
- Whether Bluebook or email shows a venue change or the latest guidance
Gather what to bring in one place
The main items shown in College Board's guide to what to bring on SAT test day are as follows.
- A fully charged test device
- The admission ticket you got in Bluebook
- Photo ID that is accepted
- Writing materials
- Your College Board login details
According to College Board's guide, you can use the calculator in Bluebook for Math. If you want to bring your own calculator, check that it is an allowed model. A charging cable or power bank is also handy. You cannot count on power being available at the venue. The night before, gathering these in one place means fewer things to look for the next morning.
Three things not to do the day before
| What people tend to do | Why to avoid it | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Widen into a new unit | An area you do not know suddenly bothers you, but if you start broadly it never finishes and only time passes | Keep to checking the range you have already studied |
| Keep solving lots of questions | You become afraid to stop out of anxiety, but what you need is not how many questions you solved | Be in a state where you can recall which mistakes to watch for tomorrow |
| Leave test-day preparation until later | You can review test content the day before, but forgotten items or login problems affect the test itself | Before studying, put yourself in a state where you can take the test |
What parents can do the night before
What parents can do is not look for extra questions.
Rather, asking "Is everything ready for tomorrow?" instead of "What else are you going to do?" can be more useful.
The night before is a time when your child's judgement can waver.
Admission ticket, ID, device, charging, venue, arrival time.
If you can check these practical things together, your child can use the time that remains for only the review they need.
Three things Petra Tutors checks the day before
When Petra Tutors organises the day-before study, we check these three things.
- Which questions are you likely to repeat the same mistake on tomorrow?
- Have you separated what you can fix now from what you will not chase today?
- Is the preparation needed for the test itself finished?
The night before, it is easier to organise if you think of study priorities and test preparation separately. If you want to review a little at the end, check your usual mistakes. Once that is done, finish preparing Bluebook, admission ticket, ID and device. In this order, you are less likely to end the night with only the anxiety of "I still have to study".
SAT night-before checklist
Summary: the night before, organise rather than add
It is natural to feel anxious the night before the SAT.
It is also a time when things you have not done suddenly catch your eye.
But you do not need to fill everything in the night before.
Check a few last mistakes and finish the preparation you need for tomorrow's test.
Even that is plenty to do the night before.
We chose this theme because families right before the SAT tend to wonder whether they should make their child study a little more.
But the night before, getting your child ready to take the test properly tomorrow takes priority over increasing study volume.
If it is hard to decide what to review before stopping, Petra Tutors can also sort out the last points to check from your recent practice tests. Precisely because it is the night before, do not add too much.
