Knowing how to improve SAT scores is one of the most common questions we hear from students and families, and the answer depends a lot less on raw intelligence than most people assume. The SAT is a learnable test, and students who approach it strategically, rather than just logging hours of unfocused practice, tend to see the biggest gains.
This guide walks through the study approach we recommend at Summit Tutors, from when to start and how to use the best free resources, all the way through practice testing strategy and the question of whether the SAT is even the right test for your student in the first place.
Start Earlier Than You Think: Summer Before Junior Year
One of the most consistent pieces of advice we give families is to start SAT prep the summer before junior year, rather than waiting until fall. There are two reasons for this.
The first is the PSAT. Most students take the PSAT in October of their junior year, and strong performance on the PSAT is what qualifies students for National Merit recognition (more on that below). Starting prep in the summer gives students several months to build skills before that test, rather than scrambling to prepare after the fact.
The second reason is timeline flexibility. Students who start early have the option to test in the fall of junior year, get their scores back, and still have time to retest in the spring if needed. Students who wait until fall of junior year often feel rushed, end up testing under-prepared, and then have to navigate retesting alongside the most demanding stretch of the college application process. Starting in the summer tends to make the whole timeline more manageable.
Khan Academy: The Foundation of SAT Prep
Khan Academy’s Official SAT Prep is the single best free resource available for SAT preparation. It was developed in direct partnership with the College Board, the organization that creates and administers the SAT, which means the material, the question style, and the skill focus are all aligned with what the actual test is measuring. That partnership is what sets Khan Academy apart from other free prep resources.
The issue is that most students use it too casually, skimming through videos and moving on before they have actually absorbed the material. The students who see real score gains tend to treat it differently.
We recommend working through Khan Academy’s personalized practice plan from start to finish, beginning with a full diagnostic test to establish a baseline and identify weak areas. From there, work through each assigned section carefully, watching the videos and taking notes rather than skipping ahead to the practice questions.
The benchmark worth aiming for is 4 out of 4 on every practice question set before moving on. If you are consistently getting 2 or 3 out of 4, go back and rewatch the relevant video before trying again. The SAT tests the same underlying skills repeatedly in slightly different ways, so understanding each concept deeply tends to pay off across multiple question types. Finishing all quizzes, section tests, and course challenges, rather than stopping partway through, makes a meaningful difference in how well the material sticks.
UWorld for Additional Practice
Once a student has worked through Khan Academy thoroughly, UWorld is the best next resource. It is a paid platform, but the quality of the questions and the depth of the answer explanations make it worth the investment for students who are serious about maximizing their score.
UWorld’s questions are closely modeled on the style and difficulty of real SAT questions, and the explanations walk through both why the correct answer is right and why the wrong answers are wrong, which is a particularly useful way to build understanding. Working through UWorld after completing Khan Academy helps students get comfortable with the full range of question types they will encounter on test day.
Saving Official Practice Tests
The SAT transitioned to a digital format in 2024, and one consequence of that shift is that there are now very few official practice tests available for the current version of the test. This makes them a limited resource worth using carefully.
Our recommendation is to save them for later in the prep process, ideally for when a student feels close to their goal score or has worked through as much of their study plan as possible. In the meantime, older PDF versions of the SAT (from before the format change) can still be useful for building general skills and getting comfortable with test-taking pacing, even though they do not reflect the current digital format exactly. Third-party practice tests from reputable providers are another reasonable option for additional full-length practice during the earlier stages of prep. Khan Academy’s built-in practice and UWorld will cover most of the day-to-day preparation, with official current-format tests reserved for when they will be most meaningful.
Planning to Test More Than Once
Most students who reach their goal SAT score do not get there on the first attempt, and planning to test two or three times is simply realistic given how the process tends to work.
The first official test is often valuable as much for the experience as for the score itself. Students who have done substantial practice frequently find that the actual testing environment, the pacing, and the pressure feel somewhat different from what they expected going in. A second or third attempt, with targeted preparation in between, is typically where the score better reflects what a student is actually capable of.
It is also worth noting that many colleges superscore the SAT (i.e., they take the highest section scores across multiple test dates), which means testing more than once can directly improve the score colleges see even if the overall composite does not jump dramatically from one sitting to the next.
Checking Whether the ACT Might Be a Better Fit
This is a question worth taking seriously, and one that many families do not think to ask until late in the process.
The SAT and ACT cover similar material but in somewhat different ways. The ACT moves faster and covers a broader range of content, while the SAT allows more time per question and tends to reward careful reading and reasoning. Many students who find the SAT frustrating discover that the ACT feels more natural, and the opposite dynamic is also worth knowing about.
Students who prepare seriously for the SAT and then take a practice ACT partway through often find the ACT feels more approachable than expected. SAT prep builds strong underlying skills in reading comprehension and math reasoning, and having trained on a test that requires careful, methodical thinking tends to make a faster-paced test feel less overwhelming. Our suggestion is to take a full practice ACT around the halfway point of SAT prep and compare the experience. If the ACT feels like a significantly better fit, switching at that point is a reasonable decision, and the SAT prep will not have been wasted.
The PSAT and National Merit
For students who begin prep the summer before junior year, the PSAT in October is an important early milestone. Strong PSAT performance is what qualifies students for the National Merit Scholarship Program, which can lead to meaningful scholarship recognition at a range of universities.
The PSAT covers the same material as the SAT in a slightly shorter format, so SAT prep and PSAT prep are largely the same thing. The main considerations specific to the PSAT are pacing and the score thresholds that qualify for National Merit recognition, which vary by state and are published each year. Students aiming for National Merit should check the cutoff for their state and use it as a benchmark when evaluating where their prep stands going into October. For more on how National Merit fits into the broader scholarship landscape, our guide on how to win merit scholarships at top universities covers the full picture.
Test Scores in the Context of the Broader Application
Test scores matter, and getting into the competitive range for a given school is a meaningful goal. That said, beyond the competitive range, additional score increases tend to have less impact on admissions outcomes than most students expect. Admissions officers at selective schools see many applicants with strong scores, and the parts of the application that tend to differentiate students are usually elsewhere.
Students who reach the competitive score range for their target schools and then shift their energy toward other parts of the application tend to be better positioned overall. For a fuller sense of what colleges are actually weighing, our guide on what top colleges are actually looking for goes into more depth. For pre-med students managing test prep alongside a demanding science course load, our piece on college admissions strategy for pre-med students addresses how to sequence and prioritize across a busy schedule.
Reach Out!
If you’d like to talk through your student’s SAT preparation strategy or get a sense of where they stand, we’re happy to chat! Feel free to reach out through the Summit Tutors contact page. You can also reach us by email at contact@summittutors.org, or by phone at (847) 512-7117.
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