ACT Prep: What Should Students Do the Day Before Taking the ACT or SAT?

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Students spend countless hours living and breathing standardized test prep.

Despite their hectic schedules of school, work, sports, volunteering and social events, they’ve managed to allocate a big chunk of their time to prepare for their test.

Summed up, they’re pretty much rockstars! Could you imagine adding that to your plate?

Think about it. Leading up to the test, students will have...

  • Received hours worth of test instruction from experienced tutors;
  • Taken so many practice tests that they’ve lost count;
  • Spent countless nights and weekends studying strategies, content and past tests (or at least they should have been).

Odds are, the night before the test, students are already as prepared as they can be.

The reasoning is simple: After all of the work and months of prioritizing the test prep, one extra day of self-prep is not going to dramatically impact scores.

Instead, it can cause nerves to escalate and lead to increased stress during what's already a stressful day - test day.

Why throw fuel onto the fire?

That is exactly why we don’t recommend that students review the day before the test.

In fact, we tell students to do the exact opposite by putting their books away and trusting that they’ve done everything they can to increase their score.

They should be spending the day in complete relaxation mode. It’s definitely deserved after the juggling act they’ve pulled off the past couple of months.

Parents can play a big part the night before the test, too, by taking students to see a funny, feel-good movie or binge watching a couple episodes on Netflix after going to dinner at their favorite restaurant.

Basically, schedule permitting, students should spend the day doing their most loved activities.

By doing things like this and having a big breakfast the day of the test, students will feel refreshed, focused and ready to conquer anything!

After all, it’s important that every student goes into test day well-prepared with the right tutoring and with the best possible mindset and ready to succeed!