How to Get in the Zone When Studying for the SAT or ACT

One of the biggest challenges about test prep over the summer is getting into the zone when you sit down to do your work. 

During the school year, you spend much of your day in a productive mindset, so sitting down to do an hour of prep work is, in some ways, more of the same. 

Contrast that with summertime: long, bright, warm days spent having fun with friends, participating in activities you enjoy, or simply relaxing. Even if you are working at a job or a volunteer activity, test prep challenges your brain in a totally different way. 

In the summer, test prep doesn’t feel like a continuation of the momentum you’ve already established, but an interruption. You may be able to get yourself to physically sit down and study, but it’s like your brain can’t catch up to your body. Your head may still be outside, or in front of the television, or reading your book, or playing with the family pet.

What’s the solution? Muscle through? Suck it up? Just do it? 

Those are options.

But even if there is an element of “just do it” to test prep, you can make your summertime prep easier and more effective by creating a warm-up ritual.

You probably warm up before many activities—dance, sports, theater, etc. But, for some reason, people usually don’t consider warming up before activities that involve using their brains in a different way than they have been. 

Creating a bridge between your mode of thinking in one activity and the way you need to think in the next enables you to make the most of the new experience.

Here are some ideas for activities you can use in your test prep warm up:

• Listen to music that puts you in the zone
• Stretch (seriously: it’s not just for basketball practice anymore)
• Meditate or close your eyes and count 100 breaths
• Go for a walk
• Review vocabulary words  (particularly if you are prepping for the SAT before the format change)
• Write your goals for the prep session

When you transition into test prep with a warm-up, the switch from summer-mode to study-mode will be much smoother and the time you commit to your test prep more purposeful. 

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