August 15, 2020

SAT Practice Tests

Update: I've removed Practice Tests 2 and 4 from the list, since the College Board no longer recommends that students take those two tests.

Table of Contents

College Board SAT practice tests
Ivy Global SAT practice tests, including answer explanations
PSAT practice tests

Suggestions

The PSAT practice tests at the end of the list provide useful diagnostic scores until you hit 700 in either Verbal or Math. If you're worried that you'll run out of practice tests, start with the PSAT.

The College Board no longer recommends that students take Practice Tests 2 and 4, so I've removed those tests from the list below and replaced them with newly available Practice Tests 9 and 10.

If you find yourself making small mistakes or running out of time on one or more sections of the test, consider following an objective set of timing rules so that you won't feel rushed.

I strongly suggest printing practice tests out onto real paper. It's almost impossible to take notes, cross off answer choices, or double-check your bubbling unless you're working on paper!


College Board SAT Practice Test 1

Test (Print this out onto real paper!)
Answer Sheet
Essay
Answers and Scoring Chart (This document has the scoring instructions!)
Answer Explanations (These are the College Board's explanations. The SAT Black Book has better ones.)

I've written detailed answer explanations for some of the supporting evidence questions in SAT Practice Test 1.

I've also written a detailed answer explanation for #29 in section 4 (calculator-based math).

College Board SAT Practice Test 3

Test (Print this out onto real paper!)
Answer Sheet
Essay
Answers and Scoring Chart (This document has the scoring instructions!)
Answer Explanations (These are the College Board's explanations. The SAT Black Book has better ones.)

College Board SAT Practice Test 5

Test (Print this out onto real paper!)
Answer Sheet
Essay
Answers and Scoring Chart
Answer Explanations

College Board SAT Practice Test 6

Test (Print this out onto real paper!)
Answer Sheet
Essay
Answers and Scoring Chart
Answer Explanations

College Board SAT Practice Test 7

Test (Print this out onto real paper!)
Answer Sheet
Essay
Answers and Scoring Chart
Answer Explanations

College Board SAT Practice Test 8

Test (Print this out onto real paper!)
Answer Sheet
Essay
Answers and Scoring Chart
Answer Explanations

College Board SAT Practice Test 9

Test (Print this out onto real paper!)
Answer Sheet
Essay
Answers and Scoring Chart
Answer Explanations

College Board SAT Practice Test 10

Test (Print this out onto real paper!)
Answer Sheet
Essay
Answers and Scoring Chart
Answer Explanations


IvyGlobal online SAT Practice Test 1

Test, Answer Sheet, and Scoring Chart (Print this out onto real paper!)
Online Scoring

Answer Explanations
Note: This practice test has an answer key error. The answer to Critical Reading question #18 is A, not D.

IvyGlobal's SAT questions are accurate, and their answer explanations are very well-written. Their practice tests are an excellent way to learn by doing, especially if you don't have a tutor.

IvyGlobal online SAT Practice Test 2

Test, Answer Sheet, and Scoring Chart (Print this out onto real paper!)
Online Scoring

Answer Explanations


College Board PSAT/NMSQT Practice Test 1

Test (Print this out onto real paper!)
Answer Sheet
Answers and Scoring Chart
Answer Explanations

College Board PSAT/NMSQT Practice Test 2

Test (Print this out onto real paper!)
Answer Sheet
Answers and Scoring Chart
Answer Explanations

IvyGlobal online PSAT Practice Test

Test, Answer Sheet, and Scoring Chart (Print this out onto real paper!)

Additional Practice

IvyGlobal's practice tests are almost as good as College Board tests, and the IvyGlobal answer explanations are detailed and complete. You'll find links to IvyGlobal's materials (11 practice tests in print and 2 online) in my list of recommended SAT books.

Use Khan Academy to practice for SAT Critical Reading. The answer explanations aren't great, and the practice questions haven't been tested as extensively as real SAT questions have, but it's still College Board material. If you really want to challenge yourself, you can prep for SAT Literature Subject Test and AP English Language, which make SAT Reading questions seem like child's play.

ACT English and SAT Grammar/Writing are nearly identical. The SAT gives you more time per question, but it also gives you a slightly higher proportion of passage interpretation and adding/deleting sentence questions. Khan Academy is also good here.

You can find several SAT Math practice resources in my list of recommended SAT booksKhan Academy also provides decent practice, but its answer explanations may leave you a bit frustrated.



4 comments:

  1. i disagree with the answer to question 7 in practice test 8. The square root of 4 could be -2. therefore answer should be C not B, am I missing something?

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  2. That's a great question! You mean question 7 in the no-calculator section, right?

    If you plug both -1 and 5 back into the original equation, you'll find that -1 doesn't work (giving us 2 + 4 = -1 + 3), but 5 does (giving us 4 + 4 = 5 + 3).

    The square root of 4 isn't allowed to be a negative number, unfortunately. The technical reason for this is that if we allowed the square root of 4 to be both 2 and -2, then y = x^1/2 wouldn't pass the vertical line test and therefore wouldn't be a function.

    Please let me know if I can clarify this explanation any further. Thanks again for commenting!

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