The Best SAT Prep Websites You Should Be Using

The SAT

has been around in one form or another since 1901. Through all its changes, probably the most helpful one for you is the rise of

free online practice questions

and

guides

covering every aspect of the test.

Rather than having to carry around 400-page practice books like the students of yesteryear (i.e., the 90s), you can use these online resources to

prep from anywhere with the Internet.

To help you discern high-quality resources from low-quality ones, this guide will break down the SAT prep websites you can use to review content, learn strategies, and find practice questions.

Disclaimer: Free SAT Resources at PrepScholar

This article is one of many detailed guides offered (for free!) by

PrepScholar

. By exploring our other articles, you’ll find in-depth information and analyses of all aspects of the SAT and ACT, from suggested

study schedules

to

how to read passages

to how to

choose your test dates

. Plus, we like to keep on top of those high-profile

cheating

scandals

that often result in SAT score cancellations across the globe.

I personally think PrepScholar offers the most

insightful, high-level guidance around every step of the testing process.

Our customized

online test prep program

tracks your progress and does a lot of the heavy lifting for you. That’s why I’ll link to our

various guides

when appropriate in order to give you a sense of the different areas we cover and

continue to add to every day.

At the same time, there are several other sites with highly useful information for your SAT prep. Rather than listing them in a row, I’ll organize them by the testing steps you’re looking for,

starting with test registration and followed by guides for scheduling, test-taking strategies, and practice questions.

Official SAT Website: The College Board

If you’ve heard of the SAT, then you’ve probably heard of the

College Board

. This group administers the SAT and sends your score reports to colleges.

To

register for the SAT

,

you must create an account on the College Board website and upload a picture of yourself.

You can then use this site to register for the SAT, learn about AP tests, and

research colleges

across the country.

But this isn’t all the College Board does. For one, it

breaks down the SAT’s overall format and skills:

you can go ”

inside the test

” to see what concepts are tested on the

Reading

,

Math

, and

Writing

sections. Some descriptions are a bit wordy and confusing, so you’ll have to look elsewhere if you want to

learn about the test in more accessible language

.

This website also offers

free prep material

, including

SAT practice questions

and

eight full-length practice tests

. SAT questions from the test makers are the

gold standard when it comes to test prep.

You can access dozens of sample questions for

Reading

,

Writing

, and

Math

, and you’ll get to see all correct answers and answer explanations.

Because the full-length tests are the same as those in

The Official SAT Study Guide

(plus two extra tests

not

included in the book), I advise printing them out on your own rather than buying the book. Make sure to

time yourself as you take the practice tests,

and spend ample time correcting your answers with the answer keys provided.

Best SAT Websites for Content and Strategy

What concepts are tested on the SAT? What are the different skill sets you need for Writing and Reading? What kinds of tricks can you use to keep yourself from running out of time?

One key part of your SAT prep that you won’t find much of on the official SAT website is

strategy.

The College Board doesn’t want you to know that questions follow certain standardized templates, or that

you’ll usually find the same kinds of wrong answers on Reading questions meant to distract you from the correct one.

Nor will it give you strategies for reading passages quickly and efficiently or managing your time on tricky math questions.

So what resources should you use instead? The following SAT websites are the most useful for

learning the content and format of the SAT and getting down critical test-taking strategies.

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PrepScholar Informational and Strategy SAT Guides

Our SAT blog offers

in-depth coverage of each section of the test.

Read about what’s tested on each of the four sections, learn every detail of the

SAT structure

, and get a comprehensive look at the most recent SAT data, including

average scores

and

percentiles

.

Unlike the College Board, whose SAT-ACT comparison charts clearly favor the SAT, our

breakdown of the two tests

has no agenda for you to choose one college admissions test over the other!

Some of our best guides to help you understand the

content and format of the SAT

are as follows:

I also suggest exploring our

General Info articles

for information on topics such as

test dates,

scoring

,

sending scores

, and the

best books for SAT prep

.

Although learning about the content and format of the SAT is relatively straightforward,

finding effective strategies for answering questions and saving time on it are fewer and further between.

The following list contains 10 of our

most useful and popular SAT strategy guides.

You can find more under the

SAT Strategy

category as well:

This is just a small sampling of the SAT strategy guides we offer. In addition to these, we’ve written tons of guides specific to Math, Reading, and Writing for students in

grades 9

through 12, and for

middle schoolers

who are starting prep early or taking the SAT to qualify for talent competitions.

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Erica Meltzer’s The Critical Reader

Erica Meltzer’s blog

is extremely useful for prepping for the

SAT Reading and Writing sections.

Over the years, Meltzer’s blog has evolved from covering standardized testing to addressing many issues facing students today. That means you will probably have to dig through the site’s extensive archives to find SAT prep articles. Many of those posts cover general topics, like

learning vocabulary in context

and

comma usage

. Additionally, some of her

SAT Reading tips

have been merged with ACT Reading tips since the tests are so similar these days.

That said, Meltzer offers several useful posts and will most likely continue to add to them.

Here are some of her posts that are definitely worth checking out:

I suggest exploring the blog for more tips for the verbal sections. Although her posts are engaging, Meltzer ultimately leaves it up to

you

to seek out examples and sample questions when trying out her advice.

Erik the Red

While Meltzer’s blog focuses on verbal skills,

Erik the Red

is all about SAT Math.

This website lets you

download PDFs containing critical math facts, formulas, strategies, and vocabulary.

However, it’s important to note that this website is even less updated for the SAT than Meltzer’s blog is. The math resources here have remained unchanged since the old (pre-2016) SAT and thus

don’t reflect the current SAT format, question types, and skills tested.

I decided to keep this website on this list because many of the math concepts explained here—especially the algebraic ones—are essential to your performance on SAT Math.

The PDFs Erik the Red has are still useful review for content areas like linear equations, nonlinear equations, functions, quadratic equations, and graphs. You could use them as review, but be sure to focus on the

skills that will actually appear on the SAT

(and leave out the ones that are less important). For instance, you don’t have to focus too much on geometry since it’ll only show up in about 3-5% of SAT Math questions.

Ask the Dean on College Confidential

If you have general questions about the form or content of the SAT that aren’t answered in the resources above, try

College Confidential

. This website offers several

student and parent discussion threads about the SAT,

which you can peruse or even comment on.

The

Ask the Dean forum

in particular has some helpful advice about how many times to take the SAT. It suggests three—that’s more than what the College Board says to do and

about the same as what we recommend doing

(depending on your circumstances and goals).

If you have questions about the logistics of the SAT, read up on the test on College Confidential before

signing up for a test date

.

Best Websites for Free SAT Practice Questions

The College Board isn’t the only website that offers an assortment of free, high-quality SAT practice questions. Below are our top three picks for the best online resources for practice questions for the Reading, Writing, and Math sections. Some of them even offer

full-length tests!

Khan Academy

Khan Academy has designed a scaffolded

SAT prep program

that diagnoses your level and takes you through practice questions, step by step. It was developed in collaboration with the College Board, so all of its practice questions are official and realistic. Its combination of

video and written explanations

will also appeal to different learning styles.

On Khan Academy’s interactive site, you can

set up an account

and

take diagnostic tests

on each section of the SAT.

Then, Khan Academy will suggest what level you should focus on and, much like our own customized approach, present you with targeted question types to help you improve.

The site breaks down each section into subtopics and gives you helpful tips on how to structure your prep schedule. Because it

keeps track of your progress,

you can log in from anywhere to pick up where you left off.

In addition to SAT practice questions, Khan Academy offers

resources that explain the structure of the SAT

.

The website also contains a helpful

glossary of SAT terms

that go over what terms like “percentile” and “raw score” mean. If you’re tired of reading about the SAT and prefer to watch explanatory videos, then Khan Academy is your best source for

video explanations

of what’s on the SAT.

Though its SAT material is thorough,

the limited number of practice questions and lack of test strategy

mean that Khan Academy, while incredibly useful, shouldn’t be your only source of practice problems.

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PrepScholar Collection of Old and New Official SAT Practice Tests

We’ve compiled PDFs for all

ten official SAT practice tests

,

which you can download, print, and take on your own. In addition, we’ve collected

four old SAT practice tests

(using the 2400 system) and

four very old SAT practice tests

(using the old 1600 system).

While these tests use old versions of the SAT, they can still be useful for your prep as long as you

focus on relevant question types and skip the ones no longer tested

(such as Sentence Completion).

You’ll have to score these tests on your own as well as take the time to

understand your mistakes

and analyze your answer choices.

You can also try out a

5-day free trial

of PrepScholar’s online test prep program. For these 5 days, you’ll have access to the entire program and can try out whether this approach to test prep works for you. PrepScholar helps break down your SAT prep into manageable goals, tracks your progress, and

customizes your studying so you’re focusing on the practice problems where you need the most improvement.

If you enjoy this approach to test prep, then you can continue on with the entire program. If not, then you can call it quits after your 5-day trial.

CrackSAT.net

Like PrepScholar,

CrackSAT.net

offers free, official, old SAT practice tests (with answer keys) that you can download for free as PDFs. While the site does have some resources for the New SAT, there aren’t very many. Having said that, even old SAT practice tests are great resources for practicing test-taking strategies to maximize your time…and your score.

Like some of the other resources we’ve mentioned,

you’ll have to score these practice tests yourself.

Be sure to set aside time to understand and analyze any mistakes you made. Also, this website is a bit tough to navigate, but once you wind your way through it, you’ll have access to plenty of SAT practice questions.

Altogether, this collection of websites and blogs can give you a ton of information about the SAT, from its content and form to strategies and official practice questions. Read on to learn

the steps you should take to best use these online SAT resources in your prep.

How to Use SAT Websites Effectively

In order to get the most out of the websites listed above, you’ll need to know how to approach and use SAT websites effectively.

For both the College Board and Khan Academy, you’ll want to

make an account and keep track of your usernames and passwords.

To post on College Confidential, you’ll also need to register on the site to connect with community of students and parents going through the same college application process as you.

For our own SAT strategy guides and Erica Meltzer’s blog, you can just read through the different articles to answer any questions you might have or to learn new tips. You can then

try out the various strategies

you’ve learned on official

SAT practice tests

.

Although the College Board is the official site for all things SAT, I recommend

against

taking all of its advice as definitive. The College Board’s resources don’t focus on test-taking strategies, which are the key to making sure you’re scoring as high as possible.

In the end, your best shot is to

search for high-quality strategies and insights into the SAT on these other websites,

and then try them out on official practice questions or during

our free, five-day SAT prep program trial

. By combining strategy and content readiness with official SAT practice questions, you’ll be able to improve your score a great deal across

all

dates you take the SAT!

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What’s Next?

I gave you links to some of our most popular SAT articles—but these aren’t our

only

SAT strategy guides

.

Browse our blog to get more tips on the Math, Reading, and Writing sections of the SAT. Many of our articles cover crucial test-taking approaches like

managing your time

,

guessing effectively

, and

using the process of elimination

.

For more information about the college admissions process,

check out our

complete guide to applying to college

. We also have individual guides on how to get into the best colleges in the nation, including

Harvard

,

Yale

, and

Princeton

.

Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points?

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Harvard grads and SAT full scorers

, the program

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through advanced statistics, then customizes your prep program to you so you get the most effective prep possible.

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