<p>Hi, so all summer I've been doing SAT prep. I've read various books on strategies and I've gotten pretty good. I was able to score in the high 2100s and low 2200s. But now, idk what happened. Now I can barely get a 700 in each section. I used to get 750s+, sometimes 800s in math, high 700s in writing, and low 700s in critical reading. I know all my strategies and grammar rules but my scores have been dropping. For math I've been making the stupidest errors. I have the right answer in my head but I circled the wrong answer because I didn't look carefully enough, or that the answer that I thought I circled, wasn't actually the answer I came up with in my head (sorry if that doesnt make sense lol). For critical reading the reading passages have actually gotten A LOT more challenging for me. I have no idea why. I used to find them pretty easy and only stumbled upon tricky critical reading questions, but now I can barely understand the reading passages. On top of that I've been reading extremely slowly lately. I was never the fastest reader to begin with; I'm actually super super slow, but now I'm even slower than that. For writing I keep circling errors when there is no error, and I'm barely finishing on time. I used to be SUPER good at the writing section. I would finish with 10 minutes to spare, but now I finish with 2-3 minutes to spare. IDK am I over exhausting myself? Like this past week I was spending a long time working on my AP language paper, then my cross country practice started. So i thought this break from SAT was the cause so I forced myself to do more SAT prep each day. Since i've been doing each section very slowly I reduced the time to 15 minutes per math section, and 20 minutes for critical reading, but my scores still dropped. No matter how much time I have to check my work, I still make stupid errors. I've been super exhausted lately (mostly physically from practice), could this be why? Should I just take a long break and possibly do SAT practice on weekends when I have no practice? I'm afraid if I do this I'll forget my strategies and get rusty. Has this ever happened to any of you guys where you were doing so well with SAT prep then suddenly experienced a rapid decline? Sigh... I just don't know what to do.</p>
<p>You may be just exhausting yourself. Take a break for a while and just relax. Then get back to studying after a couple days. I know I perform really bad when I am just tired and have no brain power left. </p>
<p>Another option could be to attempt the ACT. You may be better at that.</p>
<p>@nagintapls Ya I’ll take a 1 week break. And btw I’ve only been using college board material, if that helps.</p>
<p>@nagintapls I’ll take a break from testing, but I’ll definitely do some reading and vocab practice.</p>
<p>How many hours of sleep do you average per night? Has that changed? Some of my students cannot function on less than 8 hours of sleep. Studies show that students who REGULARLY get 8+ hours of sleep retain more and function more effectively.</p>
<p>@testadvice Oh maybe that’s why. I get about 6 hours of sleep at the most. So i’ll try to get more and see if there’s a difference. Thanks!</p>
<p>@jpmac13 – definitely sounds like it is why. Keep us posted. Also, keep in mind that it takes more than a few nights of 8 hours of sleep. Take a few days off, but get back to studying while getting eight hours of sleep a night. Try to get more to pay off your “sleep debt.”</p>
<p>@testadvice Thanks! I’ll update you</p>
<p>You’ve been testing with the same material, right? You’re not using a different source?</p>
<p>@ThanksIKnow Yeah I’ve only been using blue book material/tests created by collegeboard</p>
<p>How did the extra sleep work out?</p>
<p>@testadvice It actually worked really well thanks so much! except i hvnt been getting sleep lately AGAIN, since school started so im gonna try to get a good night’s rest before the PSATs. Thanks again.</p>