Note Taking Strategies for Sat Reading Section
How to Have Practiced 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 y'all on your mode to SAT success!
Notes on bookish content vs. notes on test strategy
As you learn how to accept good SAT prep notes, information technology's important to differentiate betwixt the ii kinds of things that you lot'll take notes on. Some of your notes will focus on academic content, such as math operations, English grammar rules, and the meaning of Saturday vocabulary words. Other notes will cover tips and tricks near SAT examination strategy– how to approach multiple-option questions, pacing on math problems, means to build SAT Reading comprehension skills, and and then on.
Learning academic content and developing exam skills are very unlike activities, and they require unlike note-taking skills. In this post, nosotros'll get over suggestions for taking good Sat prep notes for both areas.
Taking good SAT prep notes for academic content
The bookish content of the Sabbatum is really a list of concrete facts. You lot accept your SAT Math formulas and procedures, your SAT Writing and Language rules (grammar, punctuation, etc…) and vocabulary for both Saturday Math and Verbal (math terms, vocab for reading comprehension, transition words for writing, and so on).
Equally you endeavour to remember all of these academic facts, there'southward a risk that yous'll memorize them merely throughrote memorization. Rote memorization happens when you recollect facts merely past repeating the exact same words, phrases, and sentences over and over. This kind of memorization gives you lot a very shallow agreement of academic content. When you memorize by rote, y'all focus on getting the words right rather than truly thinking about underlying academic concepts. So how you can brand those underlying concepts stick?
Revise your notes several times
By revising your Saturday 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 Saturday Math and Verbal content one time. Then become dorsum through your notes and write them over again… but brand sure y'all change the diction in everything from your original notes. Restate each bookish concept in a different way. By changing the words you use to draw these academic facts, you strength yourself to recollect about the underlying significant behind the concepts. And yous shift your focus away from just memorizing words and phrases.
Example of how to revise your notes
Let me give you an case of how this kind of note revision works. In one fix of Saturday Math notes, you could write:
- A number to the power of one/2 is the same as the square root of that number
And so your next revision of your SAT notes, you lot could recapitulate this Sabbatum math principle every bit:
- X, with one/two as its exponent= the square root ofX.
Then, in a 3rd revision, y'all could express this aforementioned concept in pure mathematical notation, equally follows:
If y'all observe information technology difficult to change up your wording when you revise your notes, there'south another fox that can assistance you reinterpret your notes. You may have an easier time coming upwardly with paraphrases if you lot alternate between writing your notes by manus and typing them. Handwrite your notes once, and then make a typed revision. And so 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 tin can assist you shift your whole perspective and think of fresh new ways to word the academic content of your Sabbatum prep.
Equally you revise your notes on the Sat's academic content over and over, 2 things volition happen. First, you lot'll find that you're able to remember the academic content of the Saturday more and more clearly with each revision. 2d, you lot'll 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 volition too go shorter because you'll kickoff to know some SAT bookish facts and then well that y'all don't have to write them downward at all.
Of course, this is just i arroyo to taking practiced SAT prep notes for academic content. There are other approaches that may work for you likewise. But I've seen the "multiple revision" annotation-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 Sabbatum.
Taking proficient Sabbatum prep notes for exam strategy
Every bit you prepare for the SAT, be sure to record important things y'all learn about the examination. This includes basic facts about the Saturday that yous can get from the College Board, such every bit 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 and then on.
This test knowledge is the foundation for your notes on test strategy. Examination strategies that you take notes on can come from the Higher Board or from third party sources like our very own Magoosh Sabbatum. Merely a lot of the Sat strategies yous write well-nigh in your notes volition come fromyou.As you prepare for the Saturday, you lot'll notice your own strengths and weaknesses and start making a personal Sat success plan. This brings me to i recommended approach to taking proficient SAT prep notes about test strategy….
Treat your notes like a journal
I always encourage my students to continue a journal of their progress as they fix for the Saturday. This journal is not like a diary where you write your experiences in narrative class. Instead, it'southward a serial of self-observation notes. To inform your SAT strategies, take notes on how you do with exercise question sets. Enquire yourself questions like:
- How many answers are you getting right and wrong?
- What parts of the SAT are easiest for yous?
- Which sections are the hardest?
- What question types, bookish content, or skills are you lot the strongest and weakest in?
Jot down the answers to these questions equally you continue to build your Sat skills. As this "journal" of your Sabbatum skills progresses, the answers to the questions to a higher place will change. By reviewing your notes on your practice performance, you lot'll 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 lot. Recording useful SAT strategies as you discover them will help you create a final list of strategies that you'll apply on test day.
Taking skillful Sabbatum prep notes: Visual note-taking for both bookish 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.
Then what is visual note-taking? It's the use of graphic organizers to connect, highlight, and illustrate ideas from your notes. If you lot have some artistic ability, or at to the lowest degree a love of amateur doodling, your visual notes tin can include pictures that deed every bit memory aids. (Lucas touches on this in his mail about how to accept notes on the Sat.) Only if you don't feel comfortable drawing, don't worry–the 2 best visual techniques for SAT prep notes do not crave y'all to be an artist.
Use visual notes to create your test day strategies
On the domicile stretch to examination day, await back on your "SAT journal" notes. Review the SAT strategies that worked the best for y'all. A final set of strategies–i you can use on the test itself–should come into view. This is when yous'll want to take a new set of notes, outlining your test day game programme.
Every bit you take notes on the strategies you'll use when you really sit down for the SAT, I recommend usingvisual note-taking methods. In visual note-taking, concepts are organized graphically on a page, and then that you can pic the manner that ideas connect to each other. Call up of each tip, trick, and strategy every bit function of a bigger flick, a picture of the approach you'll use to beat the SAT.
There are a number of dissimilar methods for visual annotation-taking. Two methods that work especially well for notes on Saturday test strategy are mind maps and menstruation charts. Permit's see how these work and why they tin can assistance you take skillful SAT prep notes.
Taking good SAT prep notes: Creating a mind map
Listen maps are good for showing how different ideas and activities are linked together, such every bit ideas and activities related to Sabbatum Reading comprehension.
A mind map places the most of import idea in the heart of your notes. From at that place, you draw lines that connect other less important ideas to the principal thought…and to each other. Hither is an example of some mind map notes for Sat Reading strategy:
In the mind map in a higher place, the main concept–the SAT Reading section–appears in the eye of the map, circled. Lines lead out to other 3 other circled ideas (OK, they're actually squared) that connect to SAT Reading. These "branch" ideas on the mind map arevocabulary, structure, and author. And then the map shows the elements of these three big Saturday Reading ideas. Vocabulary has elements of give-and-take definitions and contextual meaning, the structure of an SAT reading passage involves main ideas, themes, and paragraphs, and and then on.
Taking proficient SAT prep notes: Creating a flowchart
Flow charts show how a process is completed, and can exist used to illustrate things like the steps to solving circuitous algebra in SAT Math.
Flowcharts use arrows to testify 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 lot tin can see a flowchart for Sat multiple option strategy.
As you tin can see, the arrows show two different paths to getting the correct answer on an Sat multiple choice question.
Taking good Saturday prep notes: Combining listen map and flowchart techniques
The visual elements of mind maps and flowcharts can be blended for dynamic visual note taking during Sabbatum prep. Check out this folio of Sat prep notes that combines listen map "branches" and flowchart arrows:
Hither, we run across a mapped connexion between SAT math and its two sections (the calculator and no-computer sections). And we run into further mapping of mental math and estimation strategies, as they connect to the no-calculator section. Nosotros also come across the mode certain activities in the reckoner section of SAT math "flow" into calculator use. And we see the way that mental math and interpretation techniques period into multiple choice strategies.
How to use visual note-taking for bookish content
In the examples above, I focus on notes related to SAT test strategy rather than the academic content of the Sabbatum. However, you can use these kinds of visual notes for academic content, too. You could brand 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: dissimilar definitions, parts of spoken language, connotation, etc…. There are actually many possible ways to use these visual devices to take good Saturday prep notes. Be flexible, use your imagination, and your notes for the Sabbatum can become powerful visual memory aids.
Interested in more strategies for taking notes? Bank check out our video below!
By the way, Magoosh can help y'all study for both the SAT and Human action exams. Click hither to learn more!
Source: https://magoosh.com/hs/sat/take-good-sat-prep-notes/
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