Recently, Carla Bayot of Swoon Learning shared more insights for families of high school Sophomores and Juniors as they’re determining how to best prepare for the SAT. The following is additional insights, edited for clarity, which we ran out of time to discuss during our March 20th Fifteen on Fridays, Facebook Livestream.
Q: Do you view the SAT as primarily a knowledge test or a reasoning test?
A: [The SAT] is a reasoning test, built on foundational knowledge. [As such, students’ reasoning [requires]: pattern recognition, decision-making, and strategic thinking.
Q: What distinguishes a student who improves 20–30 points from one who jumps 150+ points?
A: Usually, a large jump [in scores from one test date to the next], students have content familiarity but have never looked at the test before. [Thus, with] strategy [devised in collaboration with a test prep expert], students can yield huge jumps.
With the smaller point jumps, students are actively correcting mistakes identified by prior tests or incorporating new content knowledge.
Q: What’s one thing families misunderstand about test prep?
That more hours automatically lead to better results. In reality, quality of practice and strategy matter far more than quantity.
While content review matters, transformation happens when students start viewing the test as a game which can be decoded. Once they understand the logic [to properly decode] questions [thus choose correctly from the] answer choices, the test [is] less intimidating.
Q: How has the Digital SAT changed standardized test taking?
A: The Digital SAT is shorter and adaptive, but more importantly, it’s more strategically sensitive. [A student’s] performance in the first module determines the difficulty of the second, which directly impacts [one’s] scoring ceiling.
So…strong early performance is critical because it sets the trajectory for the rest of the section.
It also requires students to be comfortable with digital navigation, tools, and pacing in a different way. It’s not just a format change, it’s a performance shift.
Q: What are the most common mistake students make?
Treating every question as equally important. High scorers are selective, knowing when to invest time and when to move on [to the next question. Then, students can circle back to the skipped questions.]
Q: What’s one habit that improves scores the fastest?
A: Maintaining a detailed error log and actually reviewing it. Understanding why you got something wrong is far more powerful than just [practicing] more questions.
Carla Bayot is Co-Founder & CEO of Swoon Learning, combining her engineering background with years of math tutoring experience to deliver energetic, patient inquiry-based instruction to help students build confidence and mastery.
Creative Marbles’ consultants empower families in crafting an individualized college admissions strategy that reflects each student’s strengths and evolving purpose, especially within a test-optional landscape. By blending thoughtful guidance with strategic clarity, we help students present an authentic path aligned with their aptitude and long-term direction.
