How to Take Good SAT Prep Notes

Photo by  Marco Arment As you study for the SAT, certain note-taking approaches are especially helpful. Check out this comprehensive plan for note-taking strategies that has been tried and tested, which will help you on your way to SAT success! Notes on academic content vs. notes on test strategy As you learn how to take good SAT prep notes, its important to differentiate between the two kinds of things that youll take notes on. Some of your notes will focus on academic content, such as math operations, English grammar rules, and the meaning of SAT vocabulary words. Other notes will cover tips and tricks about SAT test strategy how to approach multiple-choice questions, pacing on math problems, ways to build SAT Reading comprehension skills, and so on. Learning academic content and developing test skills are very different activities, and they require different note-taking skills. In this post,  well go over suggestions for taking good SAT prep notes for both areas. Taking good SAT prep notes for academic content The academic content of the SAT is really a list of concrete facts. You have your SAT Math formulas and procedures, your SAT Writing and Language rules (grammar, punctuation, etc) and vocabulary for both SAT Math and Verbal (math terms, vocab for reading comprehension, transition words for writing, and so on). As you try to remember all of these academic facts, theres a risk that youll memorize them only through  rote memorization. Rote memorization happens when you remember facts simply by repeating the exact same words, phrases, and sentences over and over. This kind of memorization gives you a very shallow understanding of academic content. When you memorize by rote, you focus on getting the words right rather than truly thinking about  underlying academic concepts. So how you can make those underlying concepts stick? Revise your notes several times By revising your SAT academic content notes a few times, you get a chance to paraphrase and rethink the important academic info  the SAT. Write all of your notes about SAT Math and Verbal content once. Then go back through your notes and write them again but make sure you change the wording in  everything from  your original notes. Restate each academic concept in a different way. By changing the words you use to describe these academic facts, you force yourself to think about the underlying meaning behind the concepts. And you shift your focus away from  just memorizing words and phrases. Example of how to revise your notes Let me give you an example of how this kind of note revision works. In one set of SAT Math notes, you could write: A number to the power of 1/2  is the same as  the square root of that number And then your next revision of   your SAT notes, you could restate this SAT math principle as: X, with  1/2 as its exponent= the square root of  X. Then, in a third revision, you could express this same concept in pure mathematical notation, as follows: If you find it hard to change up your wording when you  revise your  notes, theres another trick that can help you reinterpret your notes. You may have an easier time coming up with paraphrases if you alternate between writing your notes by hand and typing them. Handwrite your notes once, then make a typed revision. Then revise your typed version in a third hand-written revision. From there, in your fourth revision, type your notes into a computer again. Changing your physical method of note-taking can help you shift your whole perspective and think of fresh new ways to word the academic content of your SAT prep. As you revise your notes on the SATs academic content over and over, two things will happen. First, youll find that youre able to remember the academic content  of the SAT  more and more clearly with each revision. Second, youll find that each set of notes gets shorter and shorter. This is because you find simpler and more elegant ways to explain academic content as your understanding increases. Your notes will also get shorter because youll start to know some SAT academic facts so well that you dont have to write them down at all. Of course, this is just one approach to taking good SAT prep notes for academic content. There are other approaches that may work for you as well. But Ive seen the multiple revision note-taking technique work for a lot of my students. And this approach has also allowed me to score well on several standardized tests, including the SAT. Taking good SAT prep notes for test strategy As you prepare for the SAT, be sure to record important things you learn about the exam. This includes basic facts about the SAT that you can get from the College Board, such as the number of questions in each section, the academic topics that come up on the test, SAT section time limits, rules for calculator use in SAT Math, and so on. This test knowledge is the foundation for your notes on test strategy. Test strategies that you take notes on can come from the College Board or from third party sources like our very own  Magoosh SAT.  But a lot of the SAT strategies you write about in your notes will come from  you.  As you prepare for the SAT, youll notice your own strengths and weaknesses and start making a personal  SAT success plan. This brings me to one recommended  approach to taking good SAT prep notes about test strategy. Treat your notes like a journal I always encourage my students to keep a journal of their progress as they prepare for the SAT. This journal is not like a diary where you write your experiences in narrative form. Instead, its a series of self-observation notes. To inform your SAT strategies, take notes on how you do with practice question sets. Ask yourself questions like: How many answers are you getting right and wrong? What parts of the SAT are easiest for you? Which sections are the hardest? What question types, academic content, or skills are you the strongest and weakest in? Jot down the answers to these questions as you continue to build your SAT skills. As this journal of your SAT skills progresses, the answers to the questions above will change. By reviewing your notes on your practice performance, youll be able to see the ways you are improving as an SAT test taker. Reflect on these improvements, and make note of the strategies that are working for you. Recording useful SAT strategies as you discover them will help you create a final list of strategies that youll use on test day. Taking good SAT prep notes: Visual note-taking for both academic content and test strategy The visual note-taking approach is especially useful for notes on SAT test strategy. But visual notes are also helpful for recording SAT academic content. So what is visual note-taking? Its the use of graphic organizers to connect, highlight, and illustrate ideas from your notes. If you have some artistic ability, or at least a love of amateur doodling, your visual notes can include pictures that act as memory aids. (Lucas touches on this in his post about how to take notes on the SAT.) But if you dont feel comfortable drawing, dont worrythe two best visual techniques for SAT prep notes do not require you to be an artist. Use visual notes to create your test day strategies On the home stretch to test day, look back on your SAT journal notes. Review the SAT strategies that worked the best for you. A final set of strategiesone you can use on the test itselfshould come into view. This is when youll want to take a new set of notes, outlining your test day game plan. As you take notes on the strategies youll use when you actually sit for the SAT, I recommend using  visual note-taking methods. In visual note-taking, concepts are organized graphically on a page, so that you can picture the way that ideas connect to each other. Think of each tip, trick, and strategy as part of a bigger picture, a picture of the approach youll use to beat the SAT. There are a number of different methods for visual note-taking. Two methods that work especially well for notes on SAT test strategy are mind maps and flow charts. Lets see how these work and why they can help you take good SAT prep notes. Taking good SAT prep notes: Creating a mind map Mind maps are good for showing how different ideas and activities are linked together, such as ideas and activities related to SAT Reading comprehension. A mind map places the most important idea in the middle of your notes. From there, you draw lines that connect other less important ideas to the main ideaand to each other. Here is an example of some mind map notes for SAT Reading strategy: In the mind map above, the main conceptthe SAT Reading sectionappears in the middle of the map, circled. Lines lead out to other three other circled ideas (OK, theyre actually squared) that connect to SAT Reading. These branch ideas on the mind map are  vocabulary, structure, and author.  Ã‚  Then the map shows the elements of these three big SAT Reading ideas. Vocabulary has elements of word definitions and contextual meaning, the structure of an SAT reading passage involves main ideas, themes, and paragraphs, and so on. Taking good SAT prep notes: Creating a flowchart Flow charts show how a process is completed, and can be used to illustrate things like the steps to solving complex algebra in SAT Math. Flowcharts use arrows to show steps in a process. In your SAT prep notes, flowcharts are very useful for showing how to select  the right multiple choice answer. Below, you can see a flowchart for  SAT multiple choice strategy. As you can see, the arrows show two different paths to getting the correct answer on an SAT multiple choice question. Taking good SAT prep notes: Combining mind map and flowchart techniques The visual elements of mind maps and flowcharts can be blended for dynamic visual note taking during SAT prep. Check out this page of SAT prep notes that combines mind map branches and flowchart arrows: Here, we see a mapped connection between SAT math and its two sections (the calculator and no-calculator sections). And we see further mapping of mental math and estimation strategies, as they connect to the no-calculator section. We also see the way certain activities in the calculator section of SAT math flow into calculator use. And we see the way that mental math and estimation techniques  flow into multiple choice strategies. How to use visual note-taking for academic content In the examples above, I focus on notes related to SAT test strategy rather than the academic content of the SAT. However, you can use these kinds of visual notes for academic content, too. You could make a flowchart, for instance, for the steps in a geometry operation from SAT Math. And a mind map could be used to show an SAT vocabulary word and its branches of meaning: different definitions, parts of speech, connotation, etc. There are really many possible ways to use these visual devices to take good SAT prep notes. Be flexible, use your imagination, and your notes for the SAT can become powerful visual memory aids. Interested in more strategies for taking notes? Check out our video below!