Two techniques have far stronger evidence behind them than anything else in the study literature: retrieval practice and spaced repetition. Both feel worse than the alternatives while you are doing them, which is roughly why most students do the alternatives.
Retrieval practice: make yourself produce the answer
Pulling information out of your memory strengthens it far more than putting it in again. Reading a formula does very little. Covering it and writing it from memory does a lot.
What this looks like for the SAT:
- Do questions before you review the topic, not after. Struggling first makes the explanation stick.
- Close the explanation and re-solve. If you cannot reproduce the method without looking, you have not learned it, you have recognized it.
- Say the rule out loud in your own words. If you cannot, you do not have it yet.
- Redo missed questions cold a week later, not with the explanation next to you.
Spaced repetition: revisit at increasing intervals
Reviewing something once a week for four weeks beats reviewing it four times in one evening, by a wide margin, for the same total minutes.
A practical schedule for a formula or a rule you keep missing: revisit it the next day, then three days later, then a week later, then two weeks later. Each successful recall buys a longer gap.
You do not need software for this. Your error log with dates next to entries does the job.
Interleaving: mix the question types
Doing twenty transition questions in a row is easier and less useful than mixing transitions with punctuation and evidence questions. Blocked practice lets you apply the same method mechanically without deciding which method to use.
On the real test the questions arrive mixed, and choosing the approach is the skill. Practicing blocked and testing mixed trains a different thing from what gets measured.
What does not work, despite being popular
- Re-reading notes or explanations. High fluency, low retention. It feels productive because the material is familiar; familiarity is not recall.
- Highlighting. Studied repeatedly, and it barely helps. It creates the sensation of having processed something while you are essentially copying.
- Watching videos without pausing. A video where you never produce anything is closer to entertainment than study. Pausing to attempt the problem first changes it completely.
- Marathon sessions. Four hours on a Sunday retains worse than four separate hours across a week, for the same total.
Putting it together
- Attempt first, explain second. Always.
- Mix question types in every session rather than blocking by topic.
- Keep an error log with dates, and revisit entries at growing intervals.
- Shorter, more frequent sessions. Five sessions of an hour beat two of two and a half.
- Judge a session by what you can do afterwards, not by how much you covered.