Test day is largely logistics, and logistics are the part you can fully control. Here is what to sort out and when.
The week before
- Stop learning new material. Light review of things you already know, and nothing else. Cramming in the last few days trades sleep for material you will not retain.
- Shift your sleep. If you have been going to bed at 1am, a 7am start will feel brutal. Move it earlier by twenty minutes a night across the week rather than trying to fix it the night before.
- Do one timed section early in the week, at roughly the hour you will be testing. Then stop.
- Check the route and the parking. If you have never been to the center, look at it on a map. Test morning is not the time to discover a one-way system.
The night before
Pack everything and put it by the door. Then do something else entirely. Studying the night before a test has never been shown to help and reliably costs sleep, which does affect performance.
What to bring
- Your admission ticket, printed or saved offline.
- Photo ID whose name matches your registration exactly.
- Your device, fully charged, plus the charger, for the digital SAT. Charge it the night before, not in the morning.
- An approved calculator and spare batteries. Desmos is built into the SAT app, but bring one anyway.
- Pencils for the paper ACT.
- Water and a snack for the break. Something plain. Test day is not the day to try an energy drink for the first time.
- Layers. Test rooms are unpredictably hot or cold and you cannot leave.
- An analogue watch if you like one, without any smart or audible features.
What not to bring
Phones, smartwatches and any device with recording or communication capability are prohibited, and the consequences are serious: scores can be canceled. Most centers require phones to be off and stored. Assume you will not have access to it for several hours.
Also leave: your own scratch paper, notes, and anything that looks like a study aid.
What the day looks like
- Arrive early. Doors typically close well before testing starts and late arrivals are not admitted.
- Check in. ID and ticket verified, sometimes a photo check, then you are seated.
- Setup takes longer than you expect. Instructions, device checks and codes eat the first stretch. This is normal, not a delay.
- Section one. On the digital SAT, Reading and Writing, two modules with the second decided by how the first went.
- The break. Ten minutes on the SAT. Eat something, drink water, move. Do not discuss questions with anyone, which is both prohibited and demoralising.
- Section two. Then submission and dismissal.
Two things worth deciding in advance
Your guessing letter. Neither test penalises wrong answers, so never leave a blank. Decide now which letter you will fill in when time is short, so the decision costs nothing on the day.
What you do when a question defeats you. The plan is: flag it, move on, come back. Deciding this in advance is what stops you spending four minutes on one question, which is the most common self-inflicted score loss on either test.