tips for taking the sat essay

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Tips on How to Write the SAT Essay

Sat essay: the passage, 4 sat essay passage tips.

• Written for general audiences . Understanding the passage doesn’t require any special knowledge of content or vocabulary. They are the kinds of passages any high school student should be able to understand and analyze.
• Focused on a reasoned argument . On the SAT, arguments have nothing to do with conflicts, disagreements or fights. A reasoned argument is simply an author’s topic with their conclusion and the evidence they use to back it up. Your job is to analyze how they build their argument to persuade their readers of their point of view.
• Published works . All passages are taken from existing works; none are made up specifically for the SAT. Topics can include excerpts from political speeches, historical documents, personal calls for action, and the like. The essay prompts for the four tests in the current SAT Official Guide are a call for conservation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., an essay on the pros and cons of students using digital media, and a first-person essay on the benefits of natural darkness
• Analysis of subtle subject matter . You’ll have to do some real thinking to understand the important points in the essay. Writers rarely state ideas in simple sentences such as “I think everyone should vote.” More likely the idea will be conveyed in a more subtle form, such as “The right to vote freely and without intimidation is a fundamental hallmark of a democracy and a way to make one’s political choices heard.” Making connections and inferences will be important in analyzing the passage’s subject matter.

[ RELATED : What’s tested on the SAT Reading and Writing section ]

SAT Essay: The Directions

As you read the passage below, consider how [the author] uses evidence, such as facts or examples, to support claims., sat essay directions example 1, reasoning to develop ideas and to connect claims and evidence., stylistic or persuasive elements, such as word choice or appeals to emotion, to add power to the ideas expressed., sat essay directions example 2, write an essay in which you explain how [the author] builds an argument to persuade [his/her] audience that [author’s claim]. in your essay, analyze how [the author] uses one or more of the features listed above (or features of your own choice) to strengthen the logic and persuasiveness of [his/her] argument. be sure that your analysis focuses on the most relevant features of the passage. your essay should not explain whether you agree with [the author’s] claims, but rather explain how the author builds an argument to persuade [his/her] audience., 5 essential sat essay directions tips.

Your task is to analyze the argument, so you’ll need to focus on the author’s conclusion, and to consider how the author builds that argument. Note that the testmaker gives you a head start here, suggesting that you include analysis of evidence, reasoning, and stylistic elements.

• How nice that they included more guidance in the second set of directions! The testmaker pretty much tells you what the essay is about. Use these directions to pinpoint the author’s argument.
• Even nicer—the testmaker encourages you to use the features in the first set of directions, but note that you can develop your own.
• Focus on relevant features. The passage author may add some tangential information which is not important to their primary argument. Don’t spend any time on these. You may not have enough time to write everything that you think of, so prioritize your points and include those which are most pertinent to the argument and how the author develops it.
• Your essay won’t include a personal point of view. As the instructions say, “Your essay should not explain whether or not you agree with (author’s) claims.” “Claims,” by the way, is another word for argument, which is another way of saying what the author thinks and why. Be very careful here. Don’t analyze the essay for your own opinion, but only for the argument itself and how the author supports it. If you write about your own opinion, you’ll get a low score on the essay.

You’ll have 50 minutes to write the essay, which will come at the end of the SAT. You’re given two double-sided, lined pages to write on, so be sure you can include everything you want to say in that space, but don’t feel you need to fill up all the pages. Writing just for the sake of taking up space is a bad idea, and one the readers will recognize and penalize you for.

Because the format and directions for the SAT essay are always the same (but the passage changes), you can memorize them and practice writing essays.  Pay close attention to doing exactly what the instructions say, spend some time thinking before writing, prioritize your points, and write clearly and well (more about that in yet another blog), and you’ll score well on this optional, but important part of the SAT.

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10 Easy SAT Writing Tips to Get a Perfect Score in 2024

Bonus Material: Download free grammar practice developed by Ivy-League educators

Scoring well on the SAT is an important part of the college admissions process. Even with the new test-optional policies , a strong SAT score will still help students get into college .

What’s more, strong test scores can be used to win scholarships or be admitted to honors programs and other special opportunities.

On the new Digital SAT, the Reading and Writing section combines questions on reading comprehension with questions that test your knowledge of key grammar concepts. The two Reading and Writing modules make up half of your potential score.

Fortunately, effective study and exercises can help students to improve their SAT Reading and Writing scores. Grammar is a set of rules that can be learned and practiced. I should know, because back when I took the SAT I earned a perfect 800 on the Writing section on my first try!

Through following these tips, we’ve helped students to improve their SAT scores by as much as 380 points!

Although the SAT itself is changing in 2024, we’ve got good news: English grammar is staying the same. That means that all of the rules covered in this post apply equally to the new and old versions of the SAT!

For our breakdown of the new, Digital SAT, check out our comprehensive post here.

For more tips and exercises, download our Essential Grammar Workbook!

Download the free SAT Essential Grammar Workbook

Jump to section:

Tip #1: Don’t avoid the “no change” answers Tip #2: Pace yourself Tip #3: The semicolon trick Tip #4: Understand dependent vs independent clauses Tip #5: Shorter is (almost always) better Tip #6: Read it out loud Tip #7: Don’t change verb tenses Tip #8: Know your transition words Tip #9: Eliminate duplicate answers Tip #10: Practice! What is the SAT? What is the SAT Reading and Writing section? How is the Reading and Writing section on the SAT scored? How can students improve on the SAT Reading and Writing section?

Tip #1: Don’t avoid the “No change” answer

One of the easiest ways to improve your performance on the SAT Writing section is to treat the “No change” multiple-choice answer just like any other option.

That’s because there is no difference between “no change” and the other answers . They are all equal contenders. For example, in this example, “no change” is definitely the correct choice!

Students often avoid picking “no change” because they feel like they have to do something to fix the sentence. But the “no change” option is just one of four possible ways of fixing it, all equal. It’s purely a formatting decision that the SAT has made — and it’s changing on the new digital SAT , perhaps because the College Board has realized that it tends to confuse students.

Tip #2: Pace yourself

Pacing is a challenging aspect of every part of the SAT. On the Reading and Writing section, students have two take two “modules,” each of which gives you 32 minutes to answer 27 multiple-choice questions . The questions are not ordered by difficulty on the Reading and Writing section, but the difficulty of the questions in the second module depend on your performance on the first module.

If you spend too much time on a hard question, you’ll potentially run out of time and miss out on the chance to answer several easier questions.

If you find yourself spending more than a minute on a given question, make your best guess and move on. You can mark the question to come back to at the end of the section if you have enough time.

(This is why it’s a great idea to bring a watch with a second hand on test day.)

Tip #3: The semicolon trick

My favorite grammar hack is super short and sweet.

There are a lot of grammar questions about semicolons on the SAT. The semicolon is the punctuation mark that looks like this:

In your own writing, you may rarely use semicolons. However, our theory is that the SAT likes to focus on the semicolon because they’re a great way to check if students understand independent clauses (more on that in the next tip). On the SAT, you’ll see lots of questions like this one:

There’s a great hack to tell if a semicolon is being used appropriately or not. Just replace the semicolon with a period.

Does it work? Do you have two complete sentences, each one with a subject and a main verb? Then great, that semicolon is being used correctly.

Does it leave you with a sentence fragment? Is one of the sentences lacking a subject or a main verb? Then nope, you can’t use a semicolon there.

Check it out in action:

Last summer, my family adopted a dog from the shelter; a black lab mix. → Last summer, my family adopted a dog from the shelter. A black lab mix. (This doesn’t work — the second sentence is a fragment!) The shelter said the dog was about four years old; however, we’ll never know for sure. → The shelter said the dog was about four years old. However, we’ll never know for sure. (This works — both sentences are complete!) We named the dog Apollo; after the ancient Greek god. → We named the dog Apollo. After the ancient Greek god. I had underestimated how much work it was going to be making sure that Apollo got enough exercise every day; but it was worth it knowing that he was happy. → I had underestimated how much work it was going to be making sure that Apollo got enough exercise every day. But it was worth it knowing that he was happy. My parents were also happy that Apollo was too tired from running and playing with me to make a mess at the house; that had been the one concern that my dad expressed before we got our dog. → My parents were also happy that Apollo was too tired from running and playing with me to make a mess at the house. The one concern that my dad expressed before we got our dog. I’m looking forward to introducing Apollo to my friends; everyone has been asking to meet him, but we’re taking it slowly so he’s not too overwhelmed. → I’m looking forward to introducing Apollo to my friends. Everyone has been asking to meet him, but we’re taking it slowly so he’s not too overwhelmed.

Using this one trick will help you answer several questions on the SAT correctly!

Tip #4: Understand dependent vs independent clauses

Half of the questions on the SAT Writing section are about grammar, and if we had to pick one single grammar concept to know, it would be understanding how to identify dependent clauses versus independent clauses .

Why? Because so many of the grammar questions are fundamentally about this concept. Once you know how to identify if a clause is independent or dependent , you can memorize a few short rules about how to connect two independent clauses .

In a nutshell, a clause is independent if it can stand on its own as a sentence. With some rare exceptions, it will always have a subject + a main verb.

Here’s some examples, with independent clauses highlighted in green and dependent clauses highlighted in yellow :

Last spring, I took the SAT for the first time . Some of my friends thought it was easy , but most of my friends thought it was hard . I’m not sure how I did on the test ; I’ll have to wait a few weeks to get my scores back . Fortunately, when we finished the test we all went out for ice cream together at the little shop that’s near the school . After I had spent three hours concentrating hard on the test , I felt like I deserved to get an extra scoop of ice cream .

If you have two independent clauses in one sentence , they can be connected with:

• A semicolon (or sometimes a colon)
• A period (just make them two sentences)
• A FANBOYS conjunction: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, or so

On the other hand, if you’re connecting a dependent phrase or clause to the rest of the sentence , you don’t want to use any of the things on this list! Depending on the sentence, you’ll either want no punctuation or just a comma. (We often work on the tougher nuances of this with our tutoring students .)

For more exercises and examples of independent clauses vs dependent clauses, check out our free Essential Grammar Workbook . Thousands of SAT students have used it to improve their Writing scores on the SAT!

Tip #5: Shorter is (almost always) better

Half of the questions on the Reading and Writing section are about grammar and punctuation, but the other half of the questions are about what the SAT calls “Effective Use of Language.”

In other words, the SAT will ask you to judge which version of a sentence or a paragraph is the best one, even if all of them are grammatically correct.

These questions often feel challenging to students because all of the sentences sound okay, and it feels subjective.

However, it’s less subjective than you might think! The trick is to think like a test creator , and know what the SAT considers to be “good writing.”

One of the biggest hacks on the Reading and Writing section is to choose the shortest answer , if all of the answers seem correct grammatically.

That’s because the SAT values concision , which is saying something in the shortest amount of time necessary and not using extra words.

Eliminate words or phrases that are repetitive, and avoid sentences that seem more convoluted than they need to be.

The shortcut here is to simply choose the shortest answer.

Check out this example:

Now, once in a while there will be something wrong with the shortest answer, and the correct answer will be the second-shortest answer. So ideally you should double-check your answer after using this shortcut.

But the vast majority of the time, yes, the shortest answer will be the right one.

Using this hack will make sure that you answer up to 18% of the questions on the Reading and Writing section correctly!

Get more examples in our free SAT Essential Grammar Workbook

Tip #6: Read it out loud

One great way to tell if a sentence has correct grammar is to read it out loud .

When we read silently, our brains tend to “fix” the sentence for us. When we read it out loud, we can more easily “hear” any grammatical mistakes.

Of course, in the real test room on testing day you can’t make sound while you’re taking the SAT. However, it’s still a powerful tool to physically move your mouth as if you’re silently whispering to yourself !

Don’t worry about feeling silly doing this. It’s part of how I scored a perfect 800 on the first try!

This hack is especially useful for determining whether you should have a comma or no comma. If reading the sentence without a pause sounds fine, then you don’t need a comma there!

(Use this to decide if you need punctuation or no punctuation — not what type of punctuation to use. It’s probably impossible to “hear” the difference between a comma and a semicolon, since they’re both a pause, but hearing the difference between a pause and no pause is definitely possible.)

Tip #7: Don’t change verb tenses (without a good reason)

On the Reading and Writing section of the SAT you’ll see lots of questions about verbs.

One easy tip is that you shouldn’t change the tense of the verb unless you have a specific good reason to do so. 

Most of the time, just take a look at the other verbs nearby and match their tense.

Here’s an example of how this will look on the real SAT:

We explain grammar questions involving verbs in a lot more detail in our free Grammar Guide , developed by Princeton graduates.

Tip #8: Know your transition words

Too often, SAT students spend hours trying to memorize vocabulary words with flashcards. 

We don’t recommend this, because it’s not a very effective way of studying and improving your score! It’s hard to memorize words out of context, and the chances that you’ll encounter the exact word you learned on the test is very, very small.

The one exception to this is transition words . These are words that signal how sentences relate logically to one another. Transition words are really important in clear writing!

Usually about 18% of the questions on the SAT Writing section are about transition words. That’s a lot!

Because of that, we do recommend making sure that you know the meaning of all of these transition words:

The SAT will ask you to choose the type of transition that makes sense, like this:

For more practice, check out our free guide to SAT Reading and Writing:

Tip #9: Eliminate duplicate answers

This is a sneaky hack that can be applied to many types of questions on the Reading and Writing section.

If you see two answers in the multiple choice that are essentially the same, you can eliminate both of them.

That’s because the SAT is never going to make you choose between two answers that are equally correct. 

As much as the Writing section might feel subjective at times, it’s really not. There’s always only one right answer , and if you know the rules, the right answer is usually very clear .

That’s how I got a perfect 800 score on the Writing section — I knew the grammar rules and how to pick the most concise or clear version, so it was always clear which answer to choose. I’ve also used the same grammar and writing rules to help professors at Harvard and Yale edit their books for publication!

For example, if you see two choices on a transition-word question that mean the same thing, you can eliminate them both. 

In this example, “in addition” and “also” mean the same thing, so neither of them is correct, because the SAT will never make us choose between them!

Same thing with many grammar questions. If you see both a period and a semicolon in the multiple-choice, neither is correct, because they are grammatically pretty much the same! (see tip #3 )

This is an example of how thinking like test creators can help us to answer questions more accurately.

Tip #10: Practice!

In the end, the best way to improve on the Reading and Writing section is to practice.

Drill specific concepts with targeted practice that focuses on that one grammar or writing skill. A great SAT tutor can help you find good exercises for this kind of drill, or even create custom practice sentences to help you truly understand.

Then put everything together by taking full timed practice sections from real SAT tests. Track your progress over time! 

With hard work, our test prep students have improved their SAT scores by as much as 200–400 points. The trick is to make sure that you’re practicing effectively and not wasting your time with the wrong practice.

Sign up for one-on-one tutoring with our Ivy-League tutors for experienced guidance!

What is the SAT?

The SAT is one of two main tests (along with the ACT) used by colleges and universities in the US and sometimes internationally for admissions purposes.

The SAT covers basic high school material and is used to measure college readiness.

Since the spring of 2020 and challenges to testing caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, many schools have adopted temporary test-optional policies.

However, test scores are still an important way to show colleges your abilities. (These days, if you can take the test and don’t submit your scores, colleges are likely to assume that your scores were low.)

If you are able to take the SAT or ACT, you should still take the test. To the best of your abilities, you should still prepare for the test and take it seriously.

What is the SAT Reading and Writing section?

The Reading and Writing section on the SAT tests students’ abilities in reading comprehension, grammar, and “effective writing,” which is writing in a way that is concise, clear, and logical.

Students have to take two modules, each of which gives them 32 minutes to answer 27 multiple-choice questions . Why have two sections with the same exact format? Because the new adaptive SAT will tailor the second “module” based on your performance on the first.

Roughly half of the questions in this section are about grammar and punctuation. Unfortunately, we’ve found in our work helping students that many schools no longer teach students grammar rules !

That’s where our free Essential Grammar Guide can step in and help.

The other half of the questions in the Reading and Writing section present different versions of a sentence or a paragraph and ask students to choose the one that makes the most sense.

Students working with our one-on-one tutors receive a free companion guide that covers these questions about Effective Use of Language .

There is no longer an Essay component for the SAT. All of the Reading and Writing questions are multiple-choice , and students will not have to write their own answers.

How is the Reading and Writing section on the SAT Scored?

Students are scored based on the number of questions they answer correctly. Every question is worth the same amount of points, and there are no penalties for wrong answers.

The Reading and Writing part of the SAT makes up exactly half of your total Digital SAT score. The Reading & Writing section is scored out of 800. The average score for this section in the US is 533.

Students also earn a score out of 800 for the Math section, and their total SAT score is out of 1600. Anything above 1060 is above-average, and students should aim for a score in the 1500s to be competitive applicants at the most selective colleges and universities.

For a decade (between 2005 and 2016), Writing was a separate score out of 800 on the SAT. Students earned up to 800 points for Reading, Writing, and Math, with total SAT scores out of 2400. In spring 2016, the SAT went back to a 1600-point scale with combined Reading & Writing scores.

Schedule a free short test-prep consultation

How can students improve on the SAT Reading and Writing section?

If you’re planning years in advance, there are some general activities that students can do that will lead to higher scores on the SAT Reading & Writing section. 

Reading extensively, with whatever books or other media students enjoy the most, is incredibly powerful. 

Studying another language besides English is also helpful for understanding grammar better. Languages that share a significant etymological history with English like Spanish, French, Latin, and Ancient Greek are especially useful.

However, there are lots of things that students can do to improve their scores on the SAT Reading and Writing section with only a few months or even weeks of effort! In fact, grammar questions on the Writing section are some of the most common question types where students tend to see the most improvement.

It’s important for students to familiarize themselves with the general structure of the test.

Students should also learn the main grammar rules tested on the SAT. These rules are absolutely predictable — because I knew the rules of English grammar, I earned a perfect score on the SAT Writing on my first try.

Unfortunately, most schools these days don’t teach the rules of grammar. Many of the students we work with don’t know grammar rules, and that’s not their fault — they never learned grammar at school .

A great SAT tutor can help students to learn the rules and feel confident on the SAT. Our tutors are from the Ivy League and many have impressive backgrounds in professional writing, publishing, and teaching.

Sign up for one-on-one SAT tutoring

Finally, the best way for students to improve on the SAT Writing section is to practice effectively, using the right materials. There is some limited SAT writing practice available for free via Khan Academy . Our experienced tutors can also guide students through the best practice exercises tailored to their specific needs .

Request a short test-prep consultation today!

Bonus Material: Download our free Essential Grammar Guide, developed by Ivy-League educators

Top SAT Posts

• The 15 Best Online SAT Tutoring Services for 2024
• What’s a Good SAT Score for 2024?
• The 2 Sections of the Digital SAT
• SAT Grammar Rules for a Perfect Score
• 5 Tips for SAT Reading Questions
• Hardest SAT Math Questions
• Digital SAT Scoring Guide
• What’s on the SAT Math Section?
• How to Prepare for the Digital SAT
• The 12 Best SAT Prep Courses
• When should you take the SAT or ACT?

Emily graduated  summa cum laude  from Princeton University and holds an MA from the University of Notre Dame. She was a National Merit Scholar and has won numerous academic prizes and fellowships. A veteran of the publishing industry, she has helped professors at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton revise their books and articles. Over the last decade, Emily has successfully mentored hundreds of students in all aspects of the college admissions process, including the SAT, ACT, and college application essay. 

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By submitting my email address. i certify that i am 13 years of age or older, agree to recieve marketing email messages from the princeton review, and agree to terms of use., 3 essential sat tips and strategies.

After over 30 years of helping students get the scores they want on the SAT, we can tell you the most important thing to remember about the test: It doesn't measure intelligence or predict future success.

The SAT is no different. The test measures one thing, and one thing only: how good you are at taking the SAT. That makes it easy to improve your score —you don’t have to memorize your entire Algebra II textbook, you just need to learn how the SAT works. Here are three simple SAT tips from our proven test-cracking methodology.

SAT Study Tips

1. look for wrong answers instead of right answers..

Don't know the right answer? It happens. But if you know which choices are definitely wrong, you will significantly improve your chances of getting the question right. This is called process of elimination. Since you aren't penalized for wrong answers on the SAT, you should always guess, even if this means choosing an answer at random.

Here’s how it works: Each question has 4 possible answer choices. Eliminate even one possibility, and you have a 1:3 chance of guessing correctly.  Let's say there are 9 questions where you eliminate 1 choice and guess among the remaining choices. Statistically, you will guess correctly 3 times and incorrectly 6 times. You just earned 3 points!

2. Know your personal order of difficulty.

SAT questions are not arranged in order of difficulty (so that easier problems come earlier in the test than the hard ones). Instead, it’s important to identify the questions that YOU find easy or hard. Remember, you’re not scored on how many questions you do. You’re scored on how many questions you answer correctly. So slow down on the questions you personally find easy or medium difficulty so you can pick up the most points. Just make sure you guess on the rest!

Video: Watch our SAT tips on TODAY

3. Own your test booklet.

You paid for that test booklet, personalize it. Scratch work is extremely important on the SAT. Don't be embarrassed about it—writing in your test booklet will help you keep your mind focused.

• Mark up geometry diagrams. Keeping track of your work directly on the page will help you avoid careless mistakes.
• When you use process of elimination to eliminate a wrong answer, cross it out! Don't leave it there to confuse you if you have to choose between two remaining answer choices.
• When you answer a question but aren't entirely confident in your choice, circle the question or put a big question mark next to it. That way, if you have time to go back at the end of the section, you can find the question easily and quickly.

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The Optional SAT Essay: What to Know

Tackling this section of the SAT requires preparation and can boost some students' college applications.

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Even though an increasing number of colleges are dropping standardized test requirements, students who must write the SAT essay can still stand to gain from doing so.

Although the essay portion of the SAT became optional in 2016, many students still chose to write it to demonstrate strong or improved writing skills to prospective colleges.

In June 2021, the College Board opted to discontinue the SAT essay. Now, only students in a few states and school districts still have access to — and must complete — the SAT essay. This requirement applies to some students in the SAT School Day program, for instance, among other groups.

How Colleges Use SAT, ACT Results

Tiffany Sorensen Sept. 14, 2020

Whether or not to write the SAT essay is not the biggest decision you will have to make in high school, but it is certainly one that requires thought on your part. Here are three things you should know about the 50-minute SAT essay as you decide whether to complete it:

• To excel on the SAT essay, you must be a trained reader.
• The SAT essay begs background knowledge of rhetoric and persuasive writing.
• A growing number of colleges are dropping standardized test requirements.

To Excel on the SAT Essay, You Must Be a Trained Reader

The SAT essay prompt never comes unaccompanied. On the contrary, it follows a text that is about 700 words long or approximately one page. Before test-takers can even plan their response, they must carefully read and – ideally – annotate the passage.

The multifaceted nature of the SAT essay prompt can be distressing to students who struggle with reading comprehension. But the good news is that this prompt is highly predictable: It always asks students to explain how the author builds his or her argument. In this case, "how” means which rhetorical devices are used, such as deductive reasoning, metaphors, etc.

Luckily, the author’s argument is usually spelled out in the prompt itself. For instance, consider this past SAT prompt : “Write an essay in which you explain how Paul Bogard builds an argument to persuade his audience that natural darkness should be preserved.”

Due to the essay prompt’s straightforward nature, students should read the passage with an eye toward specific devices used by the author rather than poring over “big ideas.” In tour SAT essay, aim to analyze at least two devices, with three being even better.

The SAT Essay Begs Background Knowledge of Rhetoric and Persuasive Writing

Since your SAT essay response must point to specific rhetorical devices that the author employs to convince the reader, you should make it a point to intimately know 10-15 common ones. The more familiar you are with rhetorical devices, the faster you will become at picking them out as you read texts.

Once you have read the passage and identified a handful of noteworthy rhetorical devices, you should apply many of the same essay-writing techniques you already use in your high school English classes.

For instance, you should start by brainstorming to see which devices you have the most to say about. After that, develop a concise thesis statement, incorporate quotes from the text, avoid wordiness and other infelicities of writing, close with an intriguing conclusion, and do everything else you could imagine your English teacher advising you to do.

Remember to always provide evidence from the text to support your claims. Finally, leave a few minutes at the end to review your essay for mistakes.

A Growing Number of Colleges Are Dropping Standardized Test Requirements

In recent years, some of America’s most prominent colleges and universities – including Ivy League institutions like Harvard University in Massachusetts, Princeton University in New Jersey and Yale University in Connecticut – have made submission of ACT and SAT scores optional.

While this trend began as early as 2018, the upheaval caused by COVID-19 has prompted many other schools to adopt a more lenient testing policy, as well.

Advocates for educational fairness have long expressed concerns that standardized admissions tests put underprivileged students at a disadvantage. In light of the coronavirus pandemic , which restricted exam access for almost all high school students, colleges have gotten on board with this idea by placing more emphasis on other factors in a student’s application.

To assess writing ability in alternative ways, colleges now place more emphasis on students’ grades in language-oriented subjects, as well as college application documents like the personal statement .

The fact that more colleges are lifting their ACT/SAT requirement does not imply that either test or any component of it is now obsolete. Students who must write the SAT essay can still stand to gain from doing so, especially those who wish to major in a writing-intensive field. The essay can also demonstrate a progression or upward trajectory in writing skills.

The SAT essay can give a boost to the college applications of the few students to whom it is still available. If the requirement applies to you, be sure to learn more about the SAT essay and practice it often as you prepare for your upcoming SAT.

13 Test Prep Tips for SAT and ACT Takers

Tags: SAT , standardized tests , students , education

About College Admissions Playbook

Stressed about getting into college? College Admissions Playbook, authored by Varsity Tutors , offers prospective college students advice on Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses, SAT and ACT exams and the college application process. Varsity Tutors, an advertiser with U.S. News & World Report, is a live learning platform that connects students with personalized instruction to accelerate academic achievement. The company's end-to-end offerings also include mobile learning apps, online learning environments and other tutoring and test prep-focused technologies. Got a question? Email [email protected] .

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Articles & Advice > Test Prep > Articles

Essential Tips and Strategies for Taking the SAT and ACT

Looking for study tips to help you on the SAT or ACT? These test-taking strategies will prepare you for either standardized test and help boost your scores.

by Erica West CollegeXpress Student Writer

Last Updated: Mar 16, 2023

Originally Posted: Mar 31, 2017

You’re about to continue the long and noble tradition of high school students freaking out over, taking, and surviving one of the two main standardized tests colleges use when considering you for admission: the ACT or SAT. Nervous? Don’t be. You're going to walk into your exam with something many first-time (and second- and third-time) test-takers don’t have: you're going to have a strategy.

While these study tips may not guarantee perfect standardized test scores, they can give you confidence—and hopefully a few extra correct answers. We separated this list by ACT and SAT subjects, but many of the tips can apply to multiple subjects. Here's what you should know. 

What to do before the ACT or SAT

You want to be in the right mindset on test day, and these tips can help get your head in the game. 

• Don’t freak out. Easier said than done, I know, but even though these tests can be scary, freaking out will do you no good. (In fact, it might actively hurt your score.) Give yourself lots of time for test prep and planning. Also include self-care in your test-prep routine: meditate, eat well, and get plenty of sleep. Besides, the PSAT is much like the SAT, so if you are a junior or senior, you’ve basically already taken the SAT once and survived—you can do it again! Taking a practice ACT (or three) can give you that same peace of mind.
• Pump yourself up before the test. It might mean listening to an up-beat song, wearing your favorite outfit, or bringing a little good-luck charm. It doesn’t matter if you actually think it brings you luck; if it gives you confidence, you should have it on test day.
• Come up with a calming routine. Despite everything I said above, no one’s brain is ruled entirely by logic. Have a strategy for if you do start to lose it during the actual test. This could be anything from repeating a calming mantra, playing a snippet of a happy song in your head, or taking three deep breaths. Whatever it is, it should be silent and calming. To make a long tip short: come up with an instant anti-adrenaline shot before you take the SAT or ACT.
• Eat breakfast. Even if your nerves are running wild and it feels like you can’t eat a thing, try to down something. Don’t make yourself sick, of course, but at least attempt to get something healthy in your stomach . Also remember that hunger can become a distraction when you’re taking the test. Ideally, your breakfast will be something with complex carbs and protein, so you’ll be fueled all morning without getting a sugar high. Go for things like multigrain cereal, avocado toast, low-sugar oatmeal, an egg-white omelet, or fruit.
• Bring a snack and water bottle. I promise this is the last food tip. These standardized tests can last up to five hours, but they almost always let you bring a snack, so take advantage. Just like with your breakfast, choose something fairly healthy like a piece of fruit or protein bar. Drink plenty of water too!

Related:  Top Tips for Stress–Free Test Prep  

ACT English and SAT Reading tips

For these sections, check out the  CollegeXpress SAT Word Game  and follow the advice below.

• Read the questions first. On both the SAT Reading and ACT English sections, carefully reading the whole passage as soon as you see a block of text is simply a waste of time, because there won’t be questions about every single paragraph. You’re better off reading the questions first and skimming the passages. The questions will often tell you exactly where you need to read by giving you specific reference numbers too. Only read the whole passage if a question asks you about the whole thing.
• Study word parts. Knowing lots of word parts (e.g., bio-, cert-, en-, -ly, -tive) is a great test-prep strategy for both the SAT and ACT. If you memorize a word, you only know that word, but if you know the roots, you can figure out dozens of words. The best way to learn these word parts is to study Greek and Latin word roots as opposed to entire lists of vocabulary. Even if you only know what half of a word means, you have a far better chance than blind guessing.
• Homophones: they’re there! The SAT and ACT love throwing homophones at you. Know the difference between common homophones as part of your test prep, such as there, they’re, and their; it’s and its; where and wear; do and due; etc .
• Less is more. Conciseness is important on these standardized tests too. On the sentence corrections, you’re often better off going with the answer that clearly states the information in the fewest number of words (while still being grammatically correct).
• Trust your gut. If all else fails on a sentence correction question and you have no clue, go with what sounds right. Repeat the sentence to yourself in your head (since you can’t speak aloud). You’ve been hearing English for years. That might be all the strategy you need!

ACT and SAT Math tips

Don't forget your calculator—it's allowed for both tests!

• Focus your test prep on algebra and geometry. The SAT and ACT math problems feature a lot of algebra and geometry. So focus your math test prep on these subjects, especially if you haven’t had one of these classes yet or haven’t had them for a while. Be sure to review those geometry theorems too—you can’t logic your way through those like you can with the algebra.
• Pay close attention to graphs. Familiarize yourself with graph-question strategies for both the ACT and SAT . And when you come across a graph on test day, read it very carefully. (This also applies to the ACT Science section.)
• Start with the free-response questions. Whether you’re taking the SAT or ACT, skip ahead to the math questions that require you to calculate the answers. You can always guess on the multiple-choice math questions with a shot at being correct if you need to. Self-generated responses are practically impossible to guess on, so don’t save these questions for last.
• There's no shame in a calculator. Don’t try to be a superhero. Both the SAT and ACT let you use a calculator on their Math sections. FYI: the SAT allows most graphing calculators , but the ACT doesn’t ! But in either case, calculators can be a real time saver on test day. Take advantage.
• If your answer doesn’t make sense, do it again. If you end up with a triangle with two 90-degree angles, something is wrong. Math is logical and structured. If something seems completely wrong, there’s a good chance it is.

Related:  Tackling the Hardest SAT Math Problems  

ACT Science strategies

If you're taking the ACT, brush up on your  scientific principles and remember these tips. 

• Remember your English skills. You know all the close-reading skills you learned in English? They can really help you in the Science section of the ACT. That’s because the ACT Science section is a lot of passage reading and analyzing . In that way it’s actually more like the English section of the ACT than the Math section!
• Study prefixes, suffixes, and other word parts. Science is full of long words that you can break down into word parts (see study tip #7!). For example, “photosynthesis” is made up of “photo,” meaning “light,” and “synthesis,” meaning “make.” It literally means made with light. Study prefixes, suffixes, and other word parts .
• Know the graph, be the graph. Read every graph at least twice to make sure you understand it. Also, keep in mind that if the ACT gives you a graph, they will ask you something about that graph. They didn’t just feel like wasting ink. (This also applies to the Math section.)

SAT Essay or ACT Writing tips

These sections are optional, but the schools you apply to may require them—so it's best to be prepared.

• Actually write the essay. Not all colleges and universities will require you to complete the essay portion of the SAT or ACT (and not all schools will require you to take the SAT or ACT to begin with, but that’s another story). So even though it’s tempting to skip the essay, it’s good to do it just in case you end up applying to a college that does require it. It’s better to have the essay and never need it than need it and never have it.
• Don’t use “don’t.” Or any other contractions, for that matter. They fall into the “jargon” category and make your writing seem less formal. It may seem awkward to write out “do not,” but it will be worth it. Similarly, use proper English. No slang or casual language. Remember, you’re trying to show the test scorers that you’re ready for college-level academics. So proper English is a must.
• Stay in third. English teachers (and college professors) are typically looking for you to stay in the third person, meaning you don’t use any first- or second-person words like “I,” “me,” “mine,” “you,” “yours,” “we,” or “ours” unless you are using a direct quote. This makes your writing more authoritative, since it doesn’t seem like you are letting personal feelings cloud your judgment. This may not sound like a big deal, but trust me when I say that it can make a difference.
• Don’t start a paragraph with “the.” This is hard to do, I’ll be the first to admit, but it can be a helpful strategy that improves your writing immensely. By forcing yourself not to start a paragraph with “the,” you tend to change your sentence structure for the better.
• Use the active voice. If you can help it, avoid “to be” verbs such as “is,” “am,” “are,” “were,” “was,” etc. This will make sure you’re writing in an active voice, which is almost always preferable (and more impressive to test scorers). For example, “It revealed a truth about the character” is active, whereas “A truth about the character was revealed.” is passive.
• Read your finished essay carefully. Proper grammar and usage count! Know your own weaknesses and proofread your SAT or ACT essay with an especially critical eye for those mistakes. Go over your essay slowly and methodically on test day. If you just breeze through it, your brain will insert what you know you meant and not what you actually wrote. For once, skimming is not your time-saving friend.

Related:  SAT With Essay: Take the Option and Write It!  

General test-taking strategies

Try to keep these in mind on top of everything else! 

• Skip questions that stump you. Whether you’re taking the SAT or ACT, if you stare at a problem for a full minute and you have absolutely no clue whatsoever, move on . You can go back later. (Pro study tip: taking timed practice tests can help you get a sense of how much time you can devote to a question.)
• Eliminate answers you know are wrong. If you’re struggling with a question, and especially if you’re straight-up guessing on the answer, eliminate any answers you know are wrong to improve your chances of guessing the right one.
• Never leave a question blank. You don’t lose any points for guessing a wrong answer on either the SAT or ACT. So if you have any time left at the end of the test, mark down something—literally anything—on all of your unanswered questions. Even if you don’t make it to all of them, you will have a chance at getting some points. That’s better than zero.
• If you’re retaking the test, be realistic. Lots of students retake the ACT and SAT to boost their scores, but it’s important to be realistic about how much you expect your score to improve from an old PSAT, SAT, or ACT score. The odds of going from a 900 to a 1600 on the SAT are slim to none, and Slim just left town. That being said, you shouldn’t be discouraged. Even a few points worth of improvement is movement forward and that is nothing to be scoffed at.

There you have it: a nice, long list of study tips and test-taking strategies for the ACT and SAT. We hope you learned something new to help you boost your scores. Good luck! 

Discover even more tips to ace the SAT and ACT in our Test Prep section.

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10 Tips to Prepare for the SAT

You will probably take many, many tests throughout your high school career. Some will be relatively insignificant, while others will seem like the ultimate be-all-and-end-all. Regardless, again and again, well-meaning friends and family will remind you that it’s just a test, it’s just a test. And while this is always true, there’s no denying that some tests are more important than others.

One test that should definitely top your list in terms of importance is the SAT. Along with, perhaps, your driver’s license test, it is among the most defining tests a high school student can take. Your score will be used to help shape the future of your education when it’s weighed as a part of your college application, so the SAT is one test that you should definitely be taking seriously.

The good news is, there are plenty of ways to prepare for the SAT. In this post, we’ll outline our top-ten list for SAT prep work and give you an idea of how and why you should be implementing each of these tips. Read on to learn our favorite SAT prep tips.

1. Know What to Expect on the Test

The SAT is not an unknown variable, so you have no excuse for showing up to the test without a fairly deep understanding of what to expect. Well before test day, you should become familiar with the SAT content and format.

Specifically, you should know that the test consists of two primary sections — the Evidence-Based Reading and Writing section and the Math section. The third section, the Essay, is optional.

You should also have a general idea of the content found in each of these sections. For example, the Evidence-Based Reading and Writing section actually contains two parts, with the first being a Reading test and the second being a Writing and Language Test. The Math section also contains two parts, one of which allows the use of a calculator and the other of which does not.

On test day, you’ll take the Reading test first, which lasts for 65 minutes. After it, you’ll have a ten-minute break followed by the Writing and Language test. This test lasts for 25 minutes and when it’s finished, you proceed directly on to the Math – No Calculator test, which lasts for another 25 minutes. After this part of the test, you’ll have a five-minute break, followed by the Math – With Calculator test. This test lasts for 55 minutes. It is the last required section of the SAT. If you choose to take the optional Essay, it will follow a two-minute break at the end of the Math test.

Before SAT test day, you should memorize this format and have a rough idea of how you’ll mentally prepare for each part of it so that there are no surprises on test day.

2.   Know Where You’re Starting From

There’s no sense in diving head first into a study plan if you don’t know what you need to study. As unique and diverse as SAT skills and knowledge are, there are very few students who need to study every part of it at equal depth. Your prior experiences, strengths, and coursework will determine which areas of content you’re most comfortable with, and which will need further review.

3. Make a Concrete Study Plan

You might think that making a list of material to review based on the results of your diagnostic test counts as a SAT study plan. Think again.

When we say a concrete study plan, we mean a personalized, step-by-step guide that begins from where you’re starting and leads to where you want to be. To get started, set a realistic target score, based on the middle 50% data for accepted students at your top-choice schools. You can usually find this information directly on their website.

Count backwards from your intended test day to see how many weeks you have left. Leaving the week preceding the test open for review, create a list of the materials you will review each week. Look at your schedule for the week and try to pin down when you will have time to study. Set a weekly goal for study hours and, if you think it will help, set daily goals as well. 

4. Study the Content

This is probably the most common method of SAT preparation, and while it is definitely important, it will work most effectively when practiced in conjunction with the rest of the SAT prep tips. Raw content knowledge alone will only get you so far on test day.

There are many ways to study the SAT’s content. You’ll need to become familiar with lots of grammar, active reading skills such as using context clues, and the basic math skills and formulas needed on the test.

You can start with the College Board’s overview of Key Content Features on the SAT, and use that as a springboard for exploring the rest of the College Board’s resources. You should also review the content resources available from Khan Academy .

While you’re online, be sure to check out the College Board’s Daily Practice SAT app that provides you with one daily practice question, an answer hint, and answer explanations to help you learn from your mistakes.

5. Study Test Strategy

Knowing the material on the test won’t be enough to ensure you perform well. You’ll also need to know how to take the SAT, which is a separate skill in and of itself.

To start with, don’t leave any questions blank. There is no penalty for wrong answers, so you should always make your best guess even if you aren’t sure of an answer. Use the process of elimination to narrow your choices and go from there.

Also be sure to have some time management strategies that work for you. These might include skim reading on the Reading test, answering questions as you go on the Writing and Language test, and skipping the hardest math questions to return to at the end of the Math test. But don’t apply these strategies blindly. Try them out on practice tests to figure out which works best for you.

Finally, know all of the test instructions ahead of time. They will be the same on the test as they are on the practice tests. Save yourself some time and energy by knowing what is required of you on each section and how to show your knowledge. That way, you can skip the instructions on test day to focus on what really matters — taking the test.

6. Know Your Calculator

This is a simple way to maximize your efficiency on test day. You should be sure to use a calculator that you’re familiar with and that has fresh batteries. Know how to use the functions that you’re most likely to encounter on the test by using the same calculator on practice tests.

Also, know how to notate your calculator use on paper so that if you arrive at an answer that isn’t among the answer choices, you have a record of how you got there. You don’t want to have to start from the beginning again if you happen to have pressed a wrong button.

7. Ask for Help

Since when did studying become a solo activity? Working with other people can give you new insight into the concepts you’re finding tricky, and make studying simply more enjoyable, so don’t exclusively study alone.

Try to find a study group at your high school, local library, or through a community college. You can also ask for help from mentors, family members, and teachers or advisers. Even a family member who isn’t familiar with the test might be willing to quiz you if you can provide them with some practice questions. Varying how you study can help ensure the knowledge sticks.

Finally, consider a formal SAT tutor. Although you’ll have to pay for the service, working with an expert can be the single most effective way to ensure you’re prepared on SAT day. Check out CollegeVine’s marketplace , which hosts dozens of expert college admissions advisors, some of whom specialize in standardized test prep.

If finances are a limiting factor in your search for a tutor, search online for your city name and the term “pro bono SAT tutor” to see if you can find a service that offers

8. Take LOTS of Practice Tests

You can read up on test strategy, content knowledge, and test format all you want, but there is no substitute for the experience gained by actually taking the test. And because taking a half-dozen actual SATs isn’t feasible for so many reasons (time, money, etc.), the close second is taking a half-dozen practice tests, or however many it takes for you to really get a feel for the test, its pacing, and its format.

At the beginning, take it slow on practice tests. Spend time making sure that you understand what each question is really getting at and take the time you need to solve each question. Try taking just one section of the test at a time to stay fresh and engaged.

Then, after you’ve taken a few practice tests and gotten a better feel for the content, begin to simulate the actual testing conditions, including time limits and taking the entire test at once. After all, you will need to know how you perform under the actual time constraints in order to plan your time management for each section of the test.    

After each practice test, correct your answers and pay attention to what kinds of errors you are making. Keep a running tally of the kinds of mistakes you’ve made so that you know which areas to focus on most for your review. Is your content knowledge lacking? Are you misunderstanding questions? Rushing through your work and making careless mistakes? Classify your mistakes so that you can learn from them as you go.

9. Think About Test Day Logistics Ahead of Time

No matter how well you study, there are few things that will set you up for last-minute failure, like not making it to your test on time, or arriving on time but without the things you need to be successful.

To avoid one of these nightmares becoming your reality, pack for the test day well in advance. Know everything that you’ll need to have in your backpack on SAT day and begin to pack it a few days before the test.

Other things to think about include what time you’ll need to get up in order to be out of the house with time to spare, what you’ll have for breakfast before the test, and how you’ll get to the testing facility. Have plans and backup plans. In case everything doesn’t go smoothly on the morning of the test, you’ll want to have a plan B in mind ahead of time so that you can remain calm and mentally focused.

10. After the Exam, Take Notes

As soon as you are done taking the SAT, write down as much as possible about areas that surprised you or caused difficulty. Write down any pacing issues you ran into, content you felt unprepared for, or even specific questions that stumped you. Just like you learned from mistakes on the practice SATs, you should learn from your experience on the actual SAT too.

If you’re like the majority of college applicants applying to competitive schools, you will take the SAT more than once. And that is a good thing! Generally, scores increase on a retake, but that increase won’t happen automatically—you need to learn as much as you can from your first test-taking experience. The notes you take while the test is still fresh in your mind will become important study tools for you to review both on your own and with your study group, mentors, or tutors.

The Impact of the SAT on Your Chances of Acceptance

Even with the expansion of test-optional policies , the SAT still plays a significant role in the admissions process at many schools, especially more selective ones. And, of course, many schools have gone back to requiring test scores .

If you’re wondering what kind of SAT score you should aim for, check out CollegeVine’s  free chancing engine , which evaluates a variety of factors like grades, course rigor, extracurriculars, and yes, standardized test scores to estimate your odds of being accepted at over 1,600 schools across the country. You can enter hypothetical SAT scores, to see how well you’ll need to do to boost your chances at your top-choice schools.

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Free SAT Mock Practice Tests Questions | Based on Latest Pattern

Colleges globally use SAT (Scholastic Assessment Test) scores to evaluate potential students, along with GPA, extracurricular activities, essays, and other standardized tests. More than 75 countries accept SAT scores for undergraduate and postgraduate programs in various fields. A high score can open doors to prestigious universities and scholarship opportunities.

To achieve the best possible score, thorough preparation is essential, and SAT mock practice tests play a pivotal role in this process. This article explores the benefits of taking SAT mock practice tests and how they can help you succeed.

Why SAT Mock Practice Tests Are Essential

• The SAT comprises sections on reading, writing and language, math (with and without a calculator), and an optional essay. Taking mock practice tests familiarizes you with this format, helping you understand what to expect on test day.
• Practice tests highlight your strong areas and identify subjects where you need improvement. This allows you to focus your study efforts more effectively, ensuring a balanced preparation.
• The SAT is a timed exam, and managing your time effectively is crucial. Mock tests help you practice pacing yourself, so you can complete each section within the allotted time without feeling rushed.
• The SAT is a lengthy exam that can be mentally exhausting. Regular practice with full-length mock tests helps build the stamina needed to maintain focus and concentration throughout the test.
• Familiarity with the test format and timing can significantly reduce test anxiety. Knowing what to expect helps build confidence, making you more comfortable and relaxed on test day.

How to Use SAT Mock Practice Tests Effectively

• To get the most out of your practice tests, simulate real test conditions. Find a quiet place, time yourself strictly according to the actual test durations, and avoid any interruptions.
• After completing a mock test, review your answers thoroughly. Understand why you got certain questions wrong and learn from your mistakes. This step is crucial for continuous improvement.
• Use your practice test results to identify patterns in your performance. Are there specific types of questions or sections where you consistently struggle? Focus your study sessions on these areas.
• Set achievable goals for each practice test. Gradually aim to improve your score with each subsequent test. This progressive approach helps build confidence and track your improvement over time.
• If possible, seek feedback from teachers, tutors, or study groups. They can provide valuable insights and strategies to help you improve your performance.

Access Our SAT Mock Practice Tests

To help you on your journey to SAT success, we have developed comprehensive SAT mock practice tests. These tests are designed to mimic the actual exam closely, providing you with a realistic practice experience. Our mock tests come with detailed answer explanations and performance analysis to guide your study efforts.

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SAT mock practice tests are an indispensable tool in your test preparation arsenal. They offer numerous benefits, from familiarizing you with the test format to improving your time management skills and reducing anxiety. By regularly taking and analyzing these practice tests, you can identify your weaknesses, refine your strategies, and steadily improve your performance.

Take advantage of our expertly designed SAT mock practice tests to maximize your preparation efforts and boost your confidence. With dedication and the right resources, you can achieve the SAT score you need to reach your college admission goals.

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Want To Get Into The Ivy League? Here’s How Long The Application Process Really Takes

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One of the main gates on the Brown University campus, decorated with the University crest. (Photo by ... [+] Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images)

While the college admissions process begins in earnest during a student’s junior year of high school, a standout college admissions profile is the result of years of strategic and intentional planning. This is especially true for students with Ivy League dreams—joining the ranks of students at Yale, Princeton, and Harvard requires time, dedication, and consideration long before students start their applications. Even the most talented, qualified students underestimate the amount of time that goes into planning for and completing the application process. Starting early and planning ahead are crucial for crafting stand-out Ivy League applications.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of how much time you should realistically expect to invest in the Ivy League admissions process, from start to finish:

Developing Your Hook: 4 Years

A “ hook ” is the element of a student’s profile that “hooks” the attention of admissions officers—it is the X factor that distinguishes a student from thousands of other applicants. It should be the anchoring interest around which all other elements of an application coalesce. Developing this defining passion requires time and dedication, so the earlier a student starts intentionally exploring their interests to develop this hook, the better. Beginning in freshman year, students should explore activities, courses, and volunteer opportunities in their schools and communities, thoughtfully weighing what they most enjoy as they do so. Over the next few years, students should hone their hook through continued involvement in extracurricular or volunteer opportunities that align with their guiding interests, seeking leadership opportunities when applicable.

Building an Independent Project: 2 years

One of the most effective ways to showcase a hook is through an independent passion project. Sophomore, junior or fall of senior year, students should craft an initiative that uses their passions to better their communities, as this will demonstrate self-motivation, genuine passion, and leadership acumen to Ivy League and other top colleges. Their project could take the shape of scientific research, a nonprofit, a community initiative, or a startup business. Students should spend a few months brainstorming, planning, and setting clear goals before entering the implementation stage. They should be sure to document their progress meticulously as they overcome hurdles and meet their goals, as this will enable them to relay their successes clearly and specifically on their applications in the future.

Researching Colleges & Structuring College List: 6 months–1 year

During their junior year, students should consult a variety of resources and rankings and begin to develop their college lists. As they do so, they should keep in mind that every ranking system takes unique factors into account—for instance, while U.S. News and World Report focuses on metrics related to academic quality such as academic reputation and graduation rates, Forbes is heavily focused on financial metrics , considering ROI, average debt, and alumni salary. In addition to weighing schools’ rankings, students should also seek to balance their college lists by comparing their academic standing with the academic profile of admitted students. If a student’s GPA and test scores fall within the middle 50% of admitted students, the school is a match; if they are above the 75th percentile, that school is likely a safety, and if their scores are below the 25th percentile, the school is a reach.

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Studying & Taking Standardized Tests: 6 months–1.5 years

Typically, students will have completed the mathematics coursework needed to take the SAT and ACT by the spring of their sophomore year and should sit for diagnostic ACT and SAT tests around that time. Once they receive their diagnostic scores, students should create a study plan that will enable them to reach their goal score, which should be set relative to their college aspirations; students with Ivy League dreams should aim to earn a 34+ on the ACT or a 1550+ on the SAT. The amount of time needed to prepare for and ace standardized tests often varies greatly depending on students’ diagnostic scores, goal scores, and how much time and effort they devote to studying.

Writing Essays & Assembling Applications: 6 months

Finally, completing the actual application is perhaps the shortest stage of the process—though it is the most important. Students who have dedicated time and effort to building their applicant profiles throughout their high school careers will reap the benefits of their long term planning; they will be able to approach the process with a clear understanding of the unique story they wish to convey through their application components. Students should kickstart the process in the spring of their junior year by requesting recommendations from their teachers, school counselors, and other non-academic mentors. The summer before senior year is a critical time to work on the personal statement, which tends to be one of the most time consuming elements of the application process as it requires lengthy brainstorming, drafting, and editing. Supplemental essay prompts for specific schools are generally released in August, so students should plan to devote the remainder of their summer and fall to completing those essays. Finally, with focus and dedication, students can complete the activities list in one to two weeks, but they should devote concerted attention to the activities list like all the other elements of their application and be sure not to save it until the last minute.

While every student is different and will need to assemble their own timeline, the college admissions process is a demanding one—particularly for students determined to gain admission to the most elite universities in the country. Students should begin preparing early in order to give themselves some leeway and submit applications that they are truly proud of.

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ChatGPT: the latest news, controversies, and tips you need to know

ChatGPT has continued to dazzle the internet with AI-generated content, morphing from a novel chatbot into a piece of technology that is driving the next era of innovation. No tech product in recent memory has sparked as much interest, controversy, fear, and excitement.

What is ChatGPT?

How to use chatgpt, how to use the chatgpt iphone and android apps, is chatgpt free to use, who created chatgpt, what do the chatgpt errors mean, latest chatgpt controversies, can chatgpt be detected, common uses for chatgpt, what are chatgpt plugins, is there a chatgpt api.

• What’s the future of ChatGPT and GPT-5?

ChatGPT alternatives worth trying

Other things to know about chatgpt.

If you’re just now catching on, it’d be fair to wonder what the fuss is all about. You can try it out for yourself for free (or use the official free iOS app ), but here’s the detailed guide you’ve been looking for — whether you’re worried about an AI apocalypse or are just looking for an intro guide to the app.

ChatGPT is a natural language AI chatbot . At its most basic level, that means you can ask it any question, and it will generate an answer.

Using the ChatGPT chatbot itself is fairly simple, as all you have to do is type in your text and receive information. The key here is to be creative and see how your ChatGPT responds to different prompts. If you don’t get the intended result, try tweaking your prompt or giving ChatGPT further instructions. ChatGPT knows the context of previous questions you ask, so you can refine from there rather than starting over fresh every time.

For example, starting with “Explain how the solar system was made” will give a more detailed result with more paragraphs than “How was the solar system made,” even though both inquiries will give fairly detailed results. Take it a step further by giving ChatGPT more guidance about style or tone, saying “Explain how the solar system was made as a middle school teacher.”

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You also have the option for more specific inputting requests for an essay with a specific number of paragraphs or a Wikipedia page. We got an extremely detailed result with the request “write a four-paragraph essay explaining Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.” And remember, ChatGPT is great at making tweaks to previous answers, so you can always ask for more detail, ask it to rewrite something, or ask it further questions.

To see what it can do, try using ChatGPT in daily life or work activities to see how it can help. Ask it to write emails, craft business proposals, fun date night ideas, or even a best man’s speech. So long as it doesn’t break some of the explicit or illegal content rules, the generator will do its best to fulfill the commands. It’s certainly is potential for ChatGPT to begin filling in gaps with incorrect data. As OpenAI notes, these instances are rare, but AI “hallucinations” certainly do happen . The company also notes that ChatGPT, which uses the GPT-3.5 LLM (large language model), currently has “limited knowledge of world events after 2021.” For more recent knowledge of the world, consider using another tool like Bing Chat .

However, OpenAI recently announced that ChatGPT Plus subscriber, who have access to the GPT-4 model, will be able to search the web for up-to-date information .

Even so, you have the option to input queries continuously until you close your browser or reset the thread to clear your previous requests. These chats are then saved in conversations in the sidebar, even automatically naming the chat. From there, you can manage these chats, renaming or deleting them as needed. You can even “hide” specific chats if needed .

You also have the option to use ChatGPT in dark mode or light mode.

Unlike Bing Chat , which can now generate images with Bing Image Creator and receive images as prompts for questions, ChatGPT only provides text outputs. In September 2023, however, OpenAI added the ability for you to use an image or voice as an input for your prompt. It’s currently only available to ChatGPT Plus subscribers.

As opposed to a simple voice assistant like Siri or Google Assistant , ChatGPT is built on what is called an LLM (Large Language Model). These neural networks are trained on huge quantities of information from the internet for deep learning — meaning they generate altogether new responses, rather than just regurgitating specific canned responses. They’re not built for a specific purpose like chatbots of the past — and they’re a whole lot smarter.

This is implied in the name of ChatGPT, which stands for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer. In the case of the current version of ChatGPT, it’s based on the GPT-3.5 LLM. The model behind ChatGPT was trained on all sorts of web content including websites, books, social media, news articles, and more — all fine-tuned in the language model by both supervised learning and RLHF (Reinforcement Learning From Human Feedback). OpenAI says this use of human AI trainers is really what makes ChatGPT stand out.

First, go to chat.openai.com . If it’s your first time, you’ll need to set up a free account with OpenAI before getting started. You have the option of choosing an easy login with a Google or Microsoft account, or just entering your email address. You’ll be asked next to enter a phone number ; however, keep in mind that you cannot use a virtual phone number (VoIP) to register for OpenAI. You will then receive a confirmation number, which you will enter on the registration page to complete the setup.

You’ll see some basic rules about ChatGPT, including potential errors in data, how OpenAI collects data, and how users can submit feedback — all of which have some wondering about whether or not ChatGPT is safe to use . Once you’re through that, you know you have successfully registered. You’re in!

After many months of anticipation, OpenAI has finally launched an official iOS app that you can go and download today . The app quickly topped half a million downloads in less than a week and is becoming available in an increasing number of countries .

Instructions for using it aren’t dissimilar to the ChatGPT web application. You do get an extra option for signing in using your Apple ID account, but it otherwise functions nearly identically to the web app — just type in your question and let the conversation begin.

The clean interface shows your conversation with GPT in a straightforward manner, hiding the chat history and settings behind the menu in the top right.

For those who are paying for ChatGPT Plus, the app lets you toggle between GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 too. You can even use the microphone to chat with ChatGPT over voice.

As our mobile editor noted in his experience with the app, it still doesn’t provide a connection to the internet like chatbots like Bing Chat and Perplexity .

Users have been asking for Android support for months, and now, a ChatGPT Android app is finally available . You can find it in the Google Play Store, but it’s limited to certain countries at the moment, including the U.S., India, and Brazil.

Some devices go beyond just the app, too. For instance, the Infinix Folax is an Android phone that integrated ChatGPT throughout the device. Instead of just an app, the phone replaces the typical smart assistant (Google Assistant) with ChatGPT.

Yes, the basic version of ChatGPT is completely free to use. There’s no limit to how much you can use ChatGPT in a day, though there is a word and character limit for responses .

It’s not free for OpenAI to continue running it, of course. Initial estimates are currently that OpenAI spends around $3 million per month to continue running ChatGPT, which is around $100,000 per day. A report from April indicated that the price of operation is closer to $700,000 per day .

Beyond the cost of the servers themselves, some egregious information has recently come out about what else has been done to train the language model against producing offensive content.

OpenAI also has a premium version of its chatbot, called ChatGPT Plus . It costs $20 a month but provides access even during peak times, faster responses, and first access to new features like GPT-4 .

ChatGPT was created by an organization called OpenAI, a San Francisco-based AI research lab. The organization started as a non-profit meant for collaboration with other institutions and researchers, funded by high-profile figures like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.

OpenAI later became a for-profit company in 2019 and is now led by its CEO, Sam Altman. It runs on Microsoft’s Azure system infrastructure and is powered by Nvidia’s GPUs, including the new supercomputers just announced this year . Microsoft has invested heavily in OpenAI too, starting in 2019.

Many people attempting to use ChatGPT have been getting an “at capacity” notice when trying to access the site . It’s likely behind the move to try and use unofficial paid apps, which have already flooded app stores  and scammed thousands into paying for a free service.

Because of how much ChatGPT costs to run, it seems as if OpenAI has been limiting access when its servers are “at capacity.” It can take as long as a few hours to wait out, but if you’re patient, you’ll get through eventually. Of all the problems facing ChatGPT right now, this had been the biggest hurdle for keeping people from using it more. In some cases, demand has been so high that ChatGPT has gone down for several hours for maintenance multiple times over the past few months.

This seems to be less of a problem recently, though, as demand has normalized and OpenAI has learned to manage the traffic better, but in the middle of the day, it still makes an appearance from time to time.

Although ChatGPT is a very useful tool, it isn’t free of problems. It’s known for making mistakes or “hallucinations,” where it makes up an answer to something it doesn’t know. A simple example of how unreliable it can sometimes be involved misidentifying the prime minister of Japan .

Beyond just making mistakes, many people are concerned about what this human-like generative AI could mean for the future of the internet, so much so that thousands of tech leaders and prominent public figures have signed a petition to slow down the development. It was even banned in Italy due to privacy concerns, alongside complaints from the FTC — although that’s now been reversed. Since then, the FTC has reopened investigations against OpenAI on questions of personal consumer data is being handled.

Speaking of bans, a number of high-profile companies have been disallowing the use of ChatGPT internally, including Samsung, Amazon, Verizon, and even the United States Congress . Apple is also on the list, though Tim Cook stated that he uses it, just weeks after having it banned .

There’s also the concern that generative AI like ChatGPT could result in the loss of many jobs — as many as 300 million worldwide, according to Goldman Sachs. In particular, it’s taken the spotlight in Hollywood’s writer’s strike , which wants to ensure that AI-written scripts don’t take the jobs of working screenwriters.

Beyond that, multiple controversies have also sprung up around people using ChatGPT to handle tasks that should probably be handled by an actual person. One of the worst cases of this is generating malware, which the FBI recently warned ChatGPT is being used for.

For example, Vanderbilt University’s Peabody School was recently under fire for generating an email about a mass shooting and the importance of community. In addition, JPMorgan Chase is restricting the use of the AI chatbot for workers, especially for generating emails, which companies like Apple have also prohibited internally.

There are also privacy concerns. A recent GDPR complaint says that ChatGPT violates user’s privacy by stealing data from users without their knowledge, and using that data to train the AI model.

Lastly, ChatGPT was even made able to generate Windows 11 keys for free , according to one user. Of course, this is not how ChatGPT was meant to be used, but it’s significant that it was even able to be “tricked” into generating the keys in the first place.

Teachers, school administrators, and developers are already finding different ways around this and banning the use of ChatGPT in schools . Others are more optimistic about how ChatGPT might be used for teaching, but plagiarism is undoubtedly going to continue being an issue in terms of education in the future. There are some ideas about how ChatGPT could “watermark” its text and fix this plagiarism problem, but as of now, detecting ChatGPT is still incredibly difficult to do.

ChatGPT recently launched a new version of its own plagiarism detection tool , with hopes that it will squelch some of the criticism around how people are using the text generation. It uses a new feature called “AI text classifier,” which operates in a way familiar to other plagiarism software. According to OpenAI, however, the tool is still a work in progress and is “imperfect.”

Other tools like GPTZero claim to help detect ChatGPT plagiarism, too. Although they work, some extra editing on AI responses can still trip up these tools.

Well, that’s the fun part. Since its launch, people have been experimenting to discover everything the chatbot can and can’t do — and some of the results have been mind-blowing .

Learning the kinds of prompts and follow-up prompts that ChatGPT responds well to requires some experimentation though. Much like we’ve learned to get the information we want from traditional search engines, it can take some time to get the best results from ChatGPT. If you want to get started, we have a roundup of the best ChatGPT tips .

It really all depends on what you want out of it. To start out, try using it to write a template blog post, for example, or even blocks of code if you’re a programmer.

Our writers experimented with ChatGPT too, attempting to see if it could handle holiday shopping or even properly interpret astrological makeup . In both cases, we found limitations to what it could do while still being thoroughly impressed by the results.

But the fun is in trying it out yourself. Whether you think ChatGPT is an amazing piece of tech or will lead to the destruction of the internet as we know it, it’s worth trying out for yourself to see just what it’s capable of.

Following an update on August 10, you can now use custom instructions with ChatGPT . This allows you to customize how the AI chatbot responds to your inputs so you can tailor it for your needs.

You can’t ask anything, though. OpenAI has safeguards in place in order to “build a safe and beneficial artificial general intelligence.” That means any questions that are hateful, sexist, racist, or discriminatory in any way are generally off-limits.

The announcement of ChatGPT plugins caused a great stir in the developer community, with some calling it “the most powerful developer platform ever created.” AI enthusiasts have compared it to the surge of interest in the iOS App Store when it first launched, greatly expanding the capabilities of the iPhone.

Essentially, developers will be able to build plugins directly for ChatGPT, to open it up to have access to the whole of the internet and connect directly to the APIs of specific applications. It’s ChatGPT out in the real world. Some of the examples provided by OpenAI include applications being able to perform actions on behalf of the user, retrieve real-time information, and access knowledge-based information.

It’s currently only available on a waitlist, but early applications to use plugins with ChatGPT include Expedia, Instacart, Slack, and OpenTable — and now there are lots to explore, including the ones we’ve seen as the best ChatGPT plugins to try out.

Outside of the ChatGPT app itself, many apps had been announced as partners with OpenAI using the ChatGPT API. Of the initial batch, the most prominent example is Snapchat’s MyAI .

Essentially, this is a way for developers to access ChatGPT and plug its natural language capabilities directly into apps and websites. We’ve seen it used in all sorts of different cases, ranging from suggesting parts in Newegg’s PC builder to building out a travel itinerary with just a few words. Recently, OpenAI made the ChatGPT API available to everyone, and we’ve seen a surge in tools leveraging the technology, such as Discord’s Clyde chatbot or Wix’s website builder .

What’s the future of ChatGPT and GPT-5?

There’s no doubt that the tech world has become obsessed with ChatGPT right now, and it’s not slowing down anytime soon. GPT-4, the next iteration of the model, has officially launched, though it’s currently only available for ChatGPT Plus. We do know, however, that Bing Chat is at least partially built on the GPT-4 language model, even if certain elements such as visual input aren’t available.

But the bigger development will be how ChatGPT continues to be integrated into other applications. Microsoft reportedly made a multibillion-dollar investment in ChatGPT , which is already starting to pay off. The first integration was in Teams Premium , with some of OpenAI’s features showing up to automate tasks and provide transcripts. Most prominently, Microsoft revealed 365 Copilot , which integrates ChatGPT natural language prompts directly into Office apps like Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and more.

There were initial reports that GPT-5 is on the way and could finish training later this year, with some people claiming that it would achieve AGI (artificial general intelligence). That’s a big, controversial statement, but clearly, things are progressing at a rapid pace.

Since then, OpenAI has stated that GPT-5 is not on the timeline and is not currently planned. That being said, the next version, GPT-4.5, is currently training and may be available later this year. OpenAI indicated that it may be done planning as early as September or October.

All that to say, if you think AI is a big deal now, just wait until it’s built into the most common applications that are used for work and school.

ChatGPT remains the most popular AI chatbot at the moment, but it’s not completely without competition. Microsoft’s Bing Chat is the biggest rival, which uses OpenAI’s GPT-4 model as a basis for its answers. Although it requires downloading the Edge browser to use, Bing Chat is free and offers some added features such as different writing modes, image creation, and search links. It even got a significant update recently that introduced features like export, third-party plugins, and multimodal support. There’s also YouChat, which uses GPT-3, an older model from OpenAI, and Forefront AI , which gives you access to GPT-4 and beyond.

The biggest non-GPT competitor to ChatGPT is Google Bard . It’s based on Google’s own homegrown language model, LaMDA, and Google seems intent on competing directly with OpenAI with Google Bard. The most recent updates make it a far more compelling alternative to ChatGPT , even if it’s not quite there.

There are a number of other chatbots out there, some of which are based on Meta’s open-source language model, LLaMA, such as Vicuna and HuggingChat .

Reports suggest Apple has been working on a ChatGPT rival for years , as well, though we haven’t seen it yet. Some reporters say it is “significantly behind competitors” at the moment.

Are ChatGPT chats private?

It depends on what you mean by private. All chats with ChatGPT are used by OpenAI to further tune the models, which can actually involve the use of human trainers. No, that doesn’t mean a human is looking through every question you ask ChatGPT, but there’s a reason OpenAI warns against providing any personal information to ChatGPT.

It should be noted that if you don’t delete your chats, the conversations will appear in the left sidebar. Unlike with other chatbots, individual chats within a conversation cannot be deleted, though they can be edited using the pencil icon that appears when you hover over a chat. When you delete the conversations, however, it’s not that ChatGPT forgets they ever happened — it’s just that they disappear from the sidebar chat history.

Fortunately, OpenAI has recently announced a way to make your chats hidden from the sidebar . These “hidden” chats won’t be used to train AI models either.

When was ChatGPT released?

ChatGPT was originally launched to the public in November of 2022 by OpenAI. The chatbot is based on the GPT-3.5 LLM, which is a fine-tuned version of GPT-3, a model first launched on March 15, 2022. GPT-3 itself, though, has been around for a few years now. It was first released in June 2020, but only as an autoregressive language model.

The predecessors to GPT-3 had very limited public exposure. GPT-2 was announced in February 2019, and the first research paper on GPT was published on OpenAI’s website in 2018.

Will ChatGPT replace Google Search?

Rather than replace it, chatbots are likely to be integrated directly into search. Microsoft has already done this with Bing Chat and Bing, which puts a “chat” tab right into the menu of Bing search.

Even Google has begun experimenting with integrating the smarts of Google Bard into search through its Search Generative Experience . We’re in the early days where all these exist as different products, but it’s not hard to imagine a future where it’s a completely unified experience.

Is Bing Chat the same as ChatGPT?

Microsoft has officially brought ChatGPT to Bing in the form of Bing Chat . After a long beta period, it was officially available to try out. But unlike ChatGPT , Bing Chat does require downloading the latest version of Edge. So Safari or Chrome users are out of luck.

In the early days of its release, Bing Chat was capable of some unhinged responses , but Microsoft has been quick to tame things a bit. It was recently announced that Bing Chat is using the latest GPT-4 language model , meaning it’s more powerful and accurate than ChatGPT . The new Edge Copilot mode also provides a more user-friendly way to get started, offering suggested prompts, links to learn more, and ways to tweak the kinds of answers it gives you. And now with the Windows Copilot , Bing Chat will live right on your desktop.

Is Google Bard the same as ChatGPT?

Unlike Bing Chat, Google Bard  uses an entirely different LLM to power its natural language capabilities. Upon its release, Bard has been using LaMDA, the company’s own model, which stands for Language Model for Dialogue Applications. As has been demonstrated from early on, Bard didn’t have quite the precision in its answers.

Reports indicate, however, that Bard is getting a massive update soon, going from being trained on 30 billion parameters up to 600 billion parameters. That could make it closer to what is possible with GPT-4.

Can you write essays with ChatGPT?

The use of ChatGPT has been full of controversy, with many onlookers considering how the power of AI will change everything from search engines to novel writing. It’s even demonstrated the ability to earn students surprisingly good grades in essay writing.

Essay writing for students is one of the most obvious examples of where ChatGPT could become a problem. ChatGPT might not write this article all that well, but it feels particularly easy to use for essay writing. Some generative AI tools, such as Caktus AI , are built specifically for this purpose.

Can ChatGPT write and debug code?

Absolutely — it’s one of the most powerful features of ChatGPT. As with everything with AI, you’ll want to double-check everything it produces, because it won’t always get your code right. But it’s certainly powerful at both writing code from scratch and debugging code.

Developers have used it to create websites, applications, and games from scratch — all of which are made more powerful with GPT-4, of course. There’s even a plug-in called ChatGPT Code Interpreter that makes programming with AI even more accessible.

What is the ChatGPT character limit?

OpenAI doesn’t set an exact character limit, but it will cut off around its responses at about 500 words or 4,000 characters. If you happen to give the chatbot a request for a specific number of words above 500, you might find that it cuts off mid-sentence somewhere after 500 words.

One way to get around this is just to ask it to “go on” or “continue,” but it depends on the prompt and type of response. Sometimes ChatGPT will more or less repeat the previous answers in different words.

The best way to get access to responses with longer characters is to upgrade to ChatGPT Plus.

Is there a ChatGPT bug bounty program?

Yes. A bug bounty program for ChatGPT was recently announced . The program was unveiled officially on OpenAI’s website , which details the types of “cash awards” that are being offered. They range from $200 to up to $20,000 for what it calls “exceptional discoveries.”

While addressing security researchers interested in getting involved in the program, OpenAI said it recognized “the critical importance of security and view it as a collaborative effort. By sharing your findings, you will play a crucial role in making our technology safer for everyone.”

Do you need to download ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is available via a webpage , so no downloading is needed. However, OpenAI has finally released a free, official iOS app that needs to be downloaded from the iOS app store. For many months, the various app stores were full of fake versions. These are still out there, though, and should be installed and used with caution, as they are not official ChatGPT apps. There is no still no official Android app.

On desktop, there are a couple of ways to install ChatGPT, though. First, you can navigate to the ChatGPT website and save it as a Windows app through Edge. Go to the site, click the ellipsis menu, and hover over Apps.  Select  Install this site as an app  to load ChatGPT from your desktop.

Other tools like MacGPT also allow shortcuts to access the browser service from your desktop.

Can you use ChatGPT on iPhone or Android?

Now that there’s an official iOS app, you no longer have to rely solely on the web app to use ChatGPT on your phone . So, whether with the official app as downloaded through the app store or just the web version, you can certainly use ChatGPT on iPhones. In addition, there’s even a way to replace Siri with ChatGPT on your iPhone, as well as some useful mobile apps like Perplexity AI .

As for Android, you’ll need to rely on the web app. Just as on desktop, type in chat.openai.com to start using ChatGPT.

Can you get ChatGPT to answer any question?

Not exactly. ChatGPT has limitations in the kinds of questions it can answer. First of all, it can’t write about anything that requires internet knowledge after late 2021, which is when its training stopped.

Beyond that, ChatGPT is careful about answering questions that might imply illegal, explicit, or damaging activity. It’ll avoid swearing or political debates, and will (usually) avoid making malware. There is some amount of jailbreaking that can be done to get around these restrictions, but OpenAI is constantly tightening its content policies to restrict unwanted answers. One example of a common jailbreaking technique is the DAN (Do Anything Now) prompt , though OpenAI has worked hard to plug these holes over time.

What is Auto-GPT?

Built on GPT-4, Auto-GPT is the latest evolution of AI technology to cause a stir in the industry. It’s not directly related to ChatGPT or OpenAI — instead, it’s an open-source Python application that got into the hands of developers all over the internet when it was published on GitHub .

With ChatGPT or ChatGPT Plus, the capabilities of the AI are limited to a single chat window. Auto-GPT, at its simplest, is making AI autonomous. It can be given a set of goals, and then take the necessary steps towards accomplishing that goal across the internet, including connecting up with applications and software.

According to the official description on GitHub, Auto-GPT is an “experimental open-source application showcasing the capabilities of the GPT-4 language model. This program, driven by GPT-4, chains together LLM ‘thoughts’, to autonomously achieve whatever goal you set. As one of the first examples of GPT-4 running fully autonomously, Auto-GPT pushes the boundaries of what is possible with AI.”

The demo used on the GitHub page is simple — just create a recipe appropriate for Easter and save it to a file. What’s neat is how Auto-GPT breaks down the steps the AI is taking to accomplish the goal, including the “thoughts” and “reasoning” behind its actions. Auto-GPT is already being used in a variety of different applications, with some touting it as the beginning of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) due to its autonomous nature.

What is GPT-4 and how does it compare to GPT-3.5?

GPT-4 is a more advanced LLM — the most powerful that OpenAI currently offers. At the current moment, OpenAI only offers access to GPT-4 through ChatGPT Plus. GPT-3.5, on the other hand, is the LLM that powers the free ChatGPT tool. OpenAI no longer says exactly how many parameters these advanced models are trained on, but it’s rumored that GPT-4 boasts up to 1 trillion parameters.

Regardless, the results are a fairly dramatic difference between GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 in terms of quality. It offers much more precise answers, is significantly better at coding and creative collaboration, and can provide (and respond to) much longer selections of text. GPT-4 remains the best possible model available, while GPT-3.5 is more in line with some other models available.

Who owns the copyright to content created by ChatGPT?

This is a question open to debate. Much of the conversation around copyright and AI is ongoing, with some saying generative AI is “stealing” the work of the content it was trained on. This has become increasingly contentious in the world of AI art. Companies like Adobe are finding ways around this by only training models on stock image libraries that already have proper artist credit and legal boundaries.

According to OpenAI, however, you have the right to reprint, sell, and merchandise anything that was created with ChatGPT or ChatGPT Plus. So, you’re not going to get sued by OpenAI.

The larger topic of copyright law regarding generative AI is still to be determined by various lawmakers and interpreters of the law, especially since copyright law as it currently stands technically only protects content created by human beings.

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ChatGPT is an amazing tool, and when they were introduced, plug-ins made it even better. But as of March 2024, they're no longer available as part of ChatGPT, having since been replaced by Custom GPTs, which you can make yourself. Or you can use one of the many amazing options from other developers, AI fans, and prompt engineers.

Interested in learning about how to make the best custom GPT for you? We have a guide for that. If you're more interested in the best custom GPTs available now, we have a guide for that too.

OpenAI needs to watch out because Apple may finally be jumping on the AI bandwagon, and the news doesn't bode well for ChatGPT. Apple is reportedly working on a large language model (LLM) referred to as ReALM, which stands for Reference Resolution As Language Modeling. Made to give Siri a boost and help it understand context, the model comes in four variants, and Apple claims that even its smallest model performs on a similar level to OpenAI's ChatGPT.

This tantalizing bit of information comes from an Apple research paper, first shared by Windows Central, and it appears to be an early peek into what Apple has been cooking for a while now. ReALM is Apple's own LLM that was reportedly made to enhance Siri's capabilities; these improvements include a greater ability to understand context in a conversation.

The ChatGPT chatbot is an innovative AI tool developed by OpenAI. As it stands, there are two main versions of the software: GPT-4 and GPT-3.5. Toe to toe in more ways than one, there are a couple of key differences between both versions that may be deal-breakers for certain users. But what exactly are these differences? We’re here to help you find out. 

We’ve put together this side-by-side comparison of both ChatGPT versions, so when you’re done reading, you’ll know what version makes the most sense for you and yours. What are GPT 3.5 and GPT-4?

Breaking News

Opinion: I live in Northern California. Why do I have to travel hundreds of miles to take the SAT?

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I live in Northern California, but I’m traveling to Texas to take the SAT on Saturday.

It’s not due to lack of planning on my part. I went on the College Board site to register for the June SAT the first hour of the first day that students could sign up. But within minutes, all the seats in my county and across Northern California were gone. Registering for the SAT in the Bay Area is as difficult as snagging tickets to a Taylor Swift concert.

I’m not the only one in California going to extremes to find a place to take a college entrance exam. One mom in my community posted on her Facebook page, “It took two months of effort and three calls into ACT to get a spot that is over 100 miles away!” Other California families joined the conversation explaining: “Same thing in SoCal. Last year we had to drive 100 miles for an 8AM test so we spent the night… so irritating.”

Editorial: Why it’s smart for universities to bring back the SAT requirement

Making the SAT optional hurt college admissions. Universities such as MIT, Brown and Dartmouth are returning to tests. That’s a good trend for students.

March 17, 2024

I know SAT and ACT tests are controversial. I’m not here to debate whether they should exist. The fact is, they still matter whether we like it or not. As it stands for the 2025 college application cycle, only 4% of four-year colleges are test blind, meaning they don’t accept test scores. Most schools (87%) are test-optional (a.k.a. test-preferred) and the remaining 9% are test-required, according to Fairtest . If a good test score could potentially increase my chances of getting accepted to 96% of four-year colleges, I want access to that test. And as long as most colleges are test-optional, those exams should be readily available to all high school students.

So yes, I am traveling 1,800 miles to take the SAT . (We chose Dallas because they had lots of seats available and cheap flights.) Having parents with the financial means and the flexibility in their work schedules to get me to a testing site far from home is an advantage many others don’t have. The lack of testing sites in California is not just an inconvenience, it’s an equity issue.

Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor: If the inequitable SAT is back, bring test prep to all high schools

There’s a huge gap between students who can pay for test prep and those who cannot. Until that’s closed, the SAT should not be brought back.

March 21, 2024

California students who can’t take the test because of lack of access will miss out on admission opportunities to some colleges and to scholarships that consider or require SAT/ACT scores in their decisions. For many students, especially those from low-income families, this could mean losing out on aid that would make college affordable.

Lack of adequate testing sites seems to be especially problematic in Northern California. Looking at the Aug. 24 SAT testing date demonstrates this. If you’d searched the College Board website earlier this week for testing centers within 100 miles of San Francisco, Dallas and New York City, you’d have found 103 testing sites in the New York area, 49 of which still had available seats. In the Dallas area there were 69 testing sites and 65 of them still had availability. But in the Bay Area, there were only 12 testing sites and they were 100% booked for the August test. In fact, the nearest test center to San Francisco with availability was 405 miles away. This lack of access puts Northern California students at a disadvantage.

California obviously needs more testing sites. But I would advocate for college entrance exams to be offered to every high school student at their own school during a regular school day, as is done with other standardized tests such as the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress.

After my family and others raised the issue of lack of available testing sites to our superintendent, our school district agreed to host an SAT School Day in October. This will allow the students in the district to take the SAT at their school during regular school hours. But change in one school district is not enough. Students and parents across California need to demand more testing sites at more schools so that more California kids can pursue their college dreams.

Sebastian Gillmore is a junior at Tamalpais High School in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Choose Your Test

Sat / act prep online guides and tips, 15 sat tips to improve your sat score.

Improving your score on the SAT isn’t always easy, but it might be a little easier than you think if you use these tips! They're not necessarily magical, but here are 15 tips and tricks for different sections of the SAT to help you improve your scores with minimal extra study time.

Writing 

Tip #1: choose succinct answers.

The most concise answer choice is usually the correct answer to most SAT Writing questions that ask you to revise a portion of a sentence. High quality writing doesn't use unnecessary extra words that could make the statement unclear.   

Tip #2: Tread Carefully with “NO CHANGE” Answers

Most questions on SAT Writing give you the option of choosing “NO CHANGE” as an answer. This can be a very dangerous choice if you’re shaky on grammar rules.  If you don’t see any errors in the sentence right off the bat, you will probably be tempted to choose “NO CHANGE”.

Double check yourself before you do this! If you notice that more than one in four questions seem to be “NO CHANGE”, then you might be missing something.  Reread the other possibilities to yourself, and make sure you’re not overlooking any grammar errors. 

Tip #3: It's Not About You

The SAT Essay is all about analyzing another person's argument. Don't start giving your opinion on the topic or letting your perspective creep too much into your writing. Focus solely on how the author builds his or her argument. It's best to come up with three different techniques the author uses that are supported by concrete evidence. Then, structure your essay around describing those techniques. Write at least two pages to ensure that your essay thoroughly covers all the relevant points.

Tip #4: Write an Intro with a Clear Thesis and a Conclusion 

When a grader looks at your essay, the first thing they want to see is that you’ve answered the prompt clearly and logically. This is why it’s so important that you write an introduction in which you spell out your thesis and outline how your essay will be structured.  This will show the graders that you are capable of organizing your thoughts and know how to write effectively.

You should also be sure to write a conclusion to wrap up all the points you made in your essay .  Once again, this shows that you are able to organize your thoughts and bring your examples together to formulate a coherent opinion.  The first and last paragraphs of your essay are disproportionately important to graders , so you should always devote a good chunk of your time to making them awesome. 

Tip #5: Skim Passages

This tip applies to most people. If you’re a very fast and thorough reader, you might be able to read passages closely without a problem.  If you struggle with time pressure, however, I would recommend skimming the passages instead.  You’ll save time and shouldn’t have much more difficulty answering the questions if you skim strategically.

An effective skimming strategy is to read the introduction and conclusion paragraphs of the passage and the first and last sentences of every paragraph. You should be able to get a good sense of the main points of the passage and answer any big picture questions you come across after skimming this way. When you get to detail questions, you can go back and read specific parts of the passage closely on a question-by-question basis.

Tip #6: Read Passage Introductions

Many students are tempted to skip the little blurbs before SAT reading passages because they don’t seem important. This is a mistake! They can help you by providing context for the information in the passage.

Often, these blurbs will tell you the setting, the name of the main character, or key details about when it was written and for what purpose.  This can be extremely helpful when you’re trying to get your bearings on new reading material. Especially if you plan on skimming the passage or skipping straight to the questions, you should always read the italics!

Tip #7: Use Process of Elimination

This applies to all sections of the SAT, but I find that it’s especially important on the Reading section. This section has many questions that can be mistakenly interpreted to be subjective, so they choose an answer that they should have eliminated.

The only correct answers are the answers that are supported by direct evidence in the passage or the sentence you’re referencing. All other answers will have something definitively wrong with them.

In using process of elimination, you'll learn to be very picky about what constitutes an accurate answer, which is the secret to beating the test.  See my article on the fundamental strategy of SAT Reading for a more in-depth look at how this works!

Tip #8: Find the Evidence Questions Are Your Friends

Find the evidence questions can help you detect incorrect answers and understand the reasoning behind correct answers. These types of questions refer to the previous question you answered, asking you to identify which quote from the passage provides the best evidence for your answer. By reading through the options for find the evidence questions, you can determine whether your answer to the previous question makes sense. Can you form a logical bridge between one of the choices and your previous response? If not, you should reexamine your response to the previous question in conjunction with the evidence options.    

Tip #9: Use the Diagrams

On SAT Math questions, specifically geometry-related questions, you're often provided with diagrams that depict the problem you’re expected to solve. These diagrams aren't just there for show. You can  use them to make logical deductions about which answers make sense and which don’t. Paying attention to what you see in a diagram might allow you to eliminate a couple of answer choices without even doing any calculations.

Tip #10: Underline Your Goal

A major pitfall for students on SAT Math is that they solve for the wrong values. This is a frustrating mistake to make, but it’s easily fixable.

If you come across a question that includes multiple variables or dimensions, underline what it is that you need to solve for so you don’t get lost in your calculations.  The SAT loves to provide wrong answers that students might pick if they only get halfway through their calculations or accidentally solve for a different variable. Don’t fall for them!

Tip #11: Plug in Answer Choices

Plugging in answer choices is a key strategy in the Math section.  If you’re not sure whether your answer to a question is correct, plug it in and see if it works.  It's the easiest and most foolproof way to check your responses. 

You can also use this method to solve problems if you have time. Just plug in all the possible answer choices, and see which one fits. The advantage of multiple choice is that the correct answer is always right in front of you, even if you’re not sure which one it is yet.

Overall 

Tip #12: skip tough questions.

If you want to stop running out of time on the SAT, you need to learn to skip questions that are taking up too much of your time.  How much time is too much? It depends on the section.

• Reading: <45 seconds
• Writing: <30 seconds
• Math: <60 seconds

If you find yourself struggling with a question, move on and come back to it later. You can circle it if you want to make it easier to spot on your second pass through the section.  Don't miss out on easier questions later on in the section because you got stuck on one toughie.  Skipping a difficult question that you might not have gotten right anyways will damage your score far less than missing a bunch of questions at the end of the section.

Tip #13: Double Check

You should do your best to finish with extra time on every section of the SAT and double check your answers . If you’re even slightly unsure about a question, put a star next to it so that you’ll know to pay special attention to it when you double check your answers at the end.

If you have enough time, double check all of your answers to control for careless mistakes. Even though it's tempting to take a rest at the end of the section, you'll thank yourself later if you find any easily fixable errors. 

Tip #14: Bubble at the End

This is something that not many people think to do but is actually very helpful in saving a couple minutes of time per section.  Waiting until the end of the section to bubble in all your answers means eliminating the annoying hassle of switching between your test booklet and answer sheet constantly.  Circle your answers in the test booklet so you can easily record them on your answer sheet later.

One caveat: Only use this tip if you can consistently finish each section of the SAT with at least two minutes to spare. You don’t want to end up solving all the questions but leaving your answer sheet blank!   

Tip #15: DEEP BREATHS

Keeping a cool head on the SAT is essential. Test anxiety can have a severe impact on your scores, and it’s especially easy to fall victim to it if you’re shooting for a high score goal.  If you have to skip a question, don’t let it derail you - just keep going.

Answer whatever questions you can, and don’t get distracted by worries about your ultimate scores. Try to stay in the moment. If you don’t do as well as you hoped this time, it’s not the end of the world!

Use these 15 tips and tricks to help you quickly boost your score on the SAT!

1. Choose the Most Succinct Answer 2. Be Careful with “No Error” Answers

3. Remember: It's Not About You 4. Write an Intro and Conclusion

5. Skim Passages 6. Read Passage Introductions 7. Use Process of Elimination 8. Find the Evidence Questions Are Your Friends

9. Use the Diagrams 10. Underline Key Points 11. Plug in Answer Choices

12. Skip Tough Questions 13. Double Check 14. Bubble at the End 15. Take Deep Breaths

Tips won’t get you everywhere, and if you’re looking for big improvements, you should still be studying hard and using more in-depth strategies. The advice in this article is just here to give you the little extra boost you need to reach your full score potential!

What's Next?

Now that you've learned some quick tips for each section of the test, take a look at our more in-depth study strategies for SAT Reading , Writing , and Math .

You should also check out our complete SAT study plan so you can stay on the right track with your test prep!

If your SAT test date is coming up soon, check out this list of the most important last minute strategy guides you need to read to get through the test.

Samantha is a blog content writer for PrepScholar. Her goal is to help students adopt a less stressful view of standardized testing and other academic challenges through her articles. Samantha is also passionate about art and graduated with honors from Dartmouth College as a Studio Art major in 2014. In high school, she earned a 2400 on the SAT, 5's on all seven of her AP tests, and was named a National Merit Scholar.

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