The first thing to know about standardized tests is that no one does well their first time. Not me, not my friends who went to Yale or Harvard, not those who went to a local community college. The difference between the Yale and the community college grad, is that the Yale applicant took it a second time.
The first time you take the standardized test, you are calibrating. You are in a stranger room doing strange things. You will look around you, you will look at the test, you will look at the proctor and all these things will make you do worse because they will distract you. You should expect doing poorly as much as a first time Olympian.
So if you would like to do well on a test, what is needed isn’t intelligence, but discipline.
Step 1
What you need to do is first know where you’d like to go and what the scores they accept.
Step 2
Once you’ve done that, take the test. After you take the test (and bombed it), that’s when you put that score that you researched on a post it for the school you’d like to attend and paste it on your mirror or somewhere where you will see it every day.
Step 3
Get books from the library on the test. You may need to go to multiple libraries. Try to get the most recent books. At this point you’ll probably be able to sign up on Princeton Review or GRE or GMAT or MCAT website for the test and they often have at least one practice test. If there’s two, take the first one and save the other for right before you take the test again.
Step 4
Study with a schedule. Set a date for when you’d like to take the test, break up the reading of chapters and taking of practice tests and set the time so you have to do something every day, at least on chapter. Plan on spending 2-4 hours a day. I did general studying during the day and slowly worked through the vocabulary at night. Working with flash cards. Often looking up word use through google helped remember words.
You will finish all problems and books and then start taking tests. Take the test with the essays. Take the test so many times you are tired of it. Register for accounts in the books which will often give more practice tests and take written tests and basically take so many tests where you are tired and bored of tests and then take some more. Take the tests timed and with the breaks and no social media or distractions.
If you reach the planned date and you’re not tired of the test, extend the deadline. You want to be so practiced that you can’t stand the test, and then take a few more.
Step 5
At this point you should be hitting a good score all the time. You had gone through all the questions you got wrong and all the tests you could find. It is time to take the test. Make sure you have ear plugs. Take with you warm clothes. Grab food and snacks during breaks and hydration. You need to be prepared like a mind olympian.
Now all this will be hard but you can do it. One thing that you will have to do is motivate yourself. What I did is motivate myself with idea that each point on the test could be worth thousands of dollars, major career opportunities, life changing events.
Follow these steps and I’m sure you’ll do great. Send me a note from Harvard if this helps :).
seven year degree 