A diagnostic table for when your score is not rising
| Symptom | What to review | Next step |
|---|---|---|
| Only looking at the total score | Area, skill and question type | Classify lost marks in Score Details |
| Repeating the same mistakes | Knowledge, approach, time, attention | Practise briefly for each cause |
| Only adding more practice tests | Whether review is complete | Repeat only weak points in the Student Question Bank |
| Running out of time | Where you spend time | Check time allocation by module |
1.You only look at the total score
After finishing a practice test, the first thing you care about is the score.
It went up 20 points from last time. It went down. It did not change.
Of course the score matters. But the score alone does not tell you what to fix.
According to College Board's My Practice guide, after taking an official Bluebook practice test you can check the correct answer, your own answer and the explanation for each question in Score Details.
What you want to see here is not only how many you got wrong. Look at these three points.
- Which areas of Reading and Writing you are losing marks in
- Which Math skills keep producing the same mistake
- Whether you are spending too much time even on questions you got right
Even with the same total score, what is behind the lost marks can differ each time. Rather than viewing the score as a judgement, use it as material for deciding what to practise next.
2.You finish the explanation at "checking the right answer"
When you look over a question you got wrong, do you stop at "the answer was B"?
College Board's My Practice guide and its guide to using Bluebook practice tests direct you to check the explanation for each question and review not just the correct answer but why the other choices are wrong.
The key here is not to memorise only the right answer. In the SAT there are choices that use words from the passage but do not answer the question, choices that are partly right but too broad, and choices where the calculation is correct but it is not the value asked for. If you memorise only the right answer, you can hesitate in the same way when a similar question comes up next.
In your review, try putting these three things into words.
- Why that answer is correct
- Why you chose a different answer
- What you will look at next time the same form appears
3.You only look at mistakes one question at a time
When you get 10 questions wrong in a practice test, treating them as 10 separate mistakes makes review scatter. In fact, several of them may share the same cause.
Looking at them together shows a trend, such as only the Hard questions in the same area having a low correct rate.
With the College Board Student Question Bank guide, you can search official questions by area, skill and difficulty, not just section. Rather than ending at "I got this question wrong", grouping by which skill the mistake belongs to makes it easier to decide what to practise next.
| Section | Examples of mistakes that can be grouped by the same cause |
|---|---|
| Reading and Writing | Repeatedly unsure on questions about the role of a sentence / misreading the logical relation of transition words / repeatedly missing the same grammar rule |
| Math | Can set up the equation but falls apart in the middle of the calculation / misses a condition in geometry questions |
4.You only add more full practice tests
When your score is not rising, you want to do one more practice test. But if you go on to the next full test without fixing the weak points found in the last one, you may lose marks for the same cause.
My Practice has Tailored Practice, which draws questions from the official Student Question Bank according to your practice test results. That means you do not always need to go on to another full test after a practice test. It is easier to organise if you use full tests as checkpoints for finding weak points and confirming that what you fixed works. For example, proceed like this.
- If you keep losing marks on a certain grammar skill, solve about 10 questions on just that skill
- If a particular Math area is weak, practise that area by difficulty
- After that, use the next practice test to see the change
5.You label every cause of mistakes "I didn't know"
Even for the same wrong answer, there is more than one reason. When Petra Tutors reviews a practice test, we first divide mistakes roughly into three: lack of knowledge, a problem with approach or how you read, or a problem with time allocation or attention.
The kind of practice changes depending on the cause.
| Example of a mistake | Type of cause | How to change practice |
|---|---|---|
| Did not know the formula in Math | Lack of knowledge | Fill in the formula |
| Knew the formula but missed a condition | Approach / reading | Fix how you read conditions rather than solving dozens more questions on the same unit |
| Did not know a word in Reading and Writing | Lack of knowledge | Fill in the vocabulary |
| Misread the relation between the passage and the choices | Approach / reading | Practise confirming which part of the passage is the evidence |
| Ran out of time and rushed the end | Time / attention | Check time allocation by module |
An order of review that connects one practice test to the next
After a practice test, try organising in this order.
- Look at all mistakes in Score Details. Check the questions you got wrong and the ones you were unsure about, and read the explanations, not just the right answers.
- Sort mistakes by cause. It is enough to separate lack of knowledge, a problem with approach or reading, and a problem with time allocation or attention.
- Group mistakes in the same skill or area. If there are several similar mistakes, treat them as one weak point and look for official questions in the same area in the Student Question Bank or My Practice's Tailored Practice.
- Repeat only the weak points briefly. Do not go straight to the next full test; practise the same skill for a few to a dozen or so questions. Look not at quantity but at whether you lose marks again for the same reason.
- Check the change in the next practice test. Look not only at the total score but at what happened to the part you tried to fix last time. If the same mistakes are decreasing, that review is working.
As a parent, ask one more thing after "What was your score?"
During SAT preparation, parents also care about the practice test score. But if you only ask about the score every time, your child can also stop at "it went up" or "it went down".
After checking the score, try asking just one more thing. Even that shifts the conversation from the result to review.
"What was the most common mistake this time?"
If they cannot answer
If your child cannot answer right away, they may not have analysed the practice test enough yet. Without blaming them, start by opening Score Details together and sorting the questions they got wrong by cause.
Three questions Petra Tutors asks about a practice test
When Petra Tutors organises practice test results, we check these three things.
- Which questions were lost
- Why they were lost
- What will change next time the same form appears
If these three are connected, a practice test is not an event that produces a score but material for deciding what to study next. If the third is not decided, it may be better to make the review a little more specific before taking the next practice test.
SAT practice test review checklist
Summary: what matters is what you change from each practice test, not how many you take
It is worrying when your SAT score does not rise even though you have done many practice tests.
But taking practice tests is not in itself a waste.
What matters is whether your next study changes because of each practice test.
The flow of review does not end at checking the score. It continues through sorting out mistakes and causes, practising only weak points and confirming in the next practice test.
Once you have this flow, a practice test is no longer just scoring.
We chose this theme because, in concerns like "we are doing practice tests properly but not improving", it can be better to review how the review is designed rather than the amount of study.
If you cannot decide what to practise after a practice test, Petra Tutors can also sort the results out with you. Before adding another practice test, first decide what you will change from the last one.
