A free SAT prep course takes place after school on every Wednesday and Sunday, preparing students for the SAT through two-hour classes.
One of the biggest ways the prep course helps prepare students is by providing them with similar problems to the real test, creating a familiar environment to the SAT.
“My confidence has gone up because I have experience [with] what [the] questions are like,” junior Kayeur Narayan said. “So I’m not thrown off by weird wording, or feeling like I don’t know a problem.”
Not only does the prep course familiarize its students with similar questions to the real SAT, but it also teaches them how to approach new types of questions.
“I’ve learned different methods of approaching difficult questions and how to eliminate incorrect answers,” junior Nathaniel Schoenstein said. “They teach us how to use things like the Desmos provided. So I think that will definitely help out on the SAT.”
Even though the course requires students to stay after school for an extra couple of hours, students find different ways to fit the extra class into their schedule.
“I just go after school on a Wednesday, it starts at three and it ends at five,” Narayan said. “I normally get home at around six anyway, because of my help with the athletic trainer. So I just need to skip athletic training that day and then just go to the SAT prep.”
Aside from already being in a time slot some students are used to, the prep course also fits in between other extracurriculars.
“I chose the [class] on Wednesday because we have an early day, which lets me actually go for [the] two extra hours after school,” junior Evan Pandes said. “It also lines up with practice, because the wrestling team starts practice at 4:30, which is good since I could still be at SAT [prep] for a whole hour and a half.”
There are also some things that students feel would improve the course in the future.
“It’s really long and it makes me tired,” Pandes said. “If they could have a little break in the middle it would be helpful. The questions, when you do them at home, aren’t interactive and don’t tell you the answers. I feel like you should be able to do it, check it, and then see what you did wrong, if you got it wrong. I think that’s why I’m not learning.”
Many enjoy the course and would recommend it to other students who are thinking about taking the SAT.
“I would suggest doing it, even if you feel like you’re confident for the SAT,” Narayan said. “I know one of my friends was confident that he would do well, but his parents forced him to do the SAT prep, and he felt like there were a lot of things he didn’t realize or didn’t know. So just take it, even if you feel like you don’t need to.”
