SAT Prep can be daunting. A massive book. Competing advice from friends and family. College an ethereal, distant specter.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Sure, it’s hard to visualize your test prep from beginning to end. And getting to that end can’t happen until you start, which makes the whole thing seem impossible. So let’s figure out how to make it possible.

Let’s start.

Step One: Start with Your Strengths

Long term, you’ll study everything in the Official SAT Study Guide. But for Day 1, we’re starting where you feel most confident. So if you like reading, start with the Reading section. If you like writing, start with the Writing and Language section. If you like math, start with one of the two Math sections.

Step Two: Get Comfortable

Now that you’ve found your favorite section, you’re going to explore it. Ignore the time constraints listed at the top of the page. For today—our first day—we don’t care about timing. That will come. First, though, we’re just getting familiar. So everything is untimed.

You know how puppies slowly acclimate to their surroundings, inching away from their safety net? And then all of a sudden, how they bound around as fanged whirlwinds? That’s how you approach the SAT. First cautiously, carefully. After you’re familiar, you can bound boldly around.

Step Three: Inching Forward

After Day 1, you can try the other sections, again untimed. Once familiar with them, start adding time. If your day doesn’t have 65 minutes for the whole Reading section, just do a single, 13-minute passage from the Reading section. For days that are really crammed, try the Daily Practice for the new SAT app so you get a little practice in each day. And now you’ve started.

All you have to do is keep moving, inch by inch.

If you would like a little assistance in preparing for your SAT, check out these helpful Apps… QuotEd Reading Comprehension and QuotEd ACT Science.

About the Author: An itinerant SAT and ACT tutor, Kreigh KNERR has worked with students from the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee to Santa Monica beach. Although he takes on new clients almost exclusively by referral, he has helped thousands of students worldwide. Kreigh is a national figure in the slow reading movement, and his invitation-only summer reading seminar sends students to some of the most prestigious universities and honors programs in the country. To share his expertise and training more broadly, Kreigh created his test prep apps, QuotEd Reading Comprehension and QuotEd ACT Science, so that self-studiers everywhere can have access to elite test prep wherever and whenever they have their phones. As an exposé on what a test prep program for the 1% looks like, Kreigh’s book, Tips from the Top, offers students the elite insights that only a true industry insider can provide. Rather than simply repeating the same mantras and “secrets” that can be found anywhere, Kreigh opens the door to the privately-designed study programs that make him one of the most sought-after tutors in the world. Kreigh’s blog, No Nightmare Tutoring, helps parents and students ensure they’re finding the best-fit and most qualified tutors.

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