Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hey, everyone. Alexis Avila, founder of Prepped and Polished LLC, here at
our new office in South Natick, Massachusetts. Now studying for a
standardized and preparing for a marathon are really quite similar. This
April, I recently completed my first marathon in Boston, and believe me, it
was not easy. To cross both finish lines, you have to spend a good four to
five months preparing, doing smart preparation. So here are some
similarities between marathon training and test preparation training.
Now when you train for a marathon, you don't want to, week one, go out of
the gates and run a 20-miler. Okay? You're going to collapse. It's not
going to work well. Similarly, when you train for a standardized test, you
don't want to dive right into rigorous preparation right away. You have to
figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are. Get familiar with the
test format, the types of questions you're going to find on the test. Once
you figure out the road map, then you can start to study harder and really
crank up those miles. Now any marathon runner will tell you that if you run
a 20 plus-miler the week of the actual marathon, you're going to heighten
your chance of injury. Similarly, you don't want to cram for the SAT a few
days before the big test. See, cramming for the SAT could hurt your
concentration and injure you mentally on test day. See, if you spread out
your SAT studying over a series of months and get some ample rest, you'll
put yourself in the best position to ace the exam.
Okay, it's the big day, and if you want to run a marathon, you have to run
a smart race. That means on race day you got to hydrate well and run in a
relaxed and comfortable pace. Now on test day, you don't want to rush
through the test and make a bunch of careless mistakes. That could hurt
your score. Nor do you want to spend any significant amount of time on one
problem. What you want to do is you want to move quickly but carefully
through the easy problems at the beginning, and then you want to slow down
when you encounter the medium and difficult problems. Now if you get stuck
on any one given problem, you're going to circle that problem and go back
to it if you have time. Like a marathon, on a standardized test, you'll
score the best if you pace yourself wisely from start to finish. Okay, I
wish you really good luck on your test preparation. And whether you prepare
for a test or a marathon, just remember, prepare yourself well. I wish you
good luck and I will talk to you soon.