Practicing taking the SAT makes you better at it. That’s no surprise, but exactly why we get better just may be. According to recent research, your improvement is all in your head . . . literally. Recent brain research has shown that as you practice an activity, your brain produces new neurons and connections that make it, and by extension you, more skilled. It does this whether you like it or not. Evidence for the effects of practice and repetition on skills exists everywhere. For example, how easy is brushing your teeth? Not that it takes much practice to get good at that, but if you’ve ever watched a little kid concentrate on making the toothbrush do what he wants before he’s had much practice, then you’ve seen the difference between a person who has grown neurons and connections for a particular skill and one who hasn’t.

Granted, the tooth-brushing example is overly simple. But the growth of neural connections helps us in our abilities from the simplest to the most complicated: everything from brushing our teeth to solving complex mathematical equations.

Why does this matter to your SAT score? The answer is simple – practice taking the SAT. And practice doing the sorts of activities that the SAT demands – everything from reading complex and unfamiliar pieces of writing, to solving quadratic equations, to writing essays that contain your opinion about some obscure topic, to sitting in an exam room taking long tests and filling in scantron sheets until your eyes water. You will get better at all of it.

Does familiarity breed contempt? Maybe, but it also breeds excellence. Keep up that practice, and your score will go up, whether you want it to or not.

This concept is called neuroplasticity. For a bit more information, check out this Wikipedia article, or read one of the many new books on the subject.

Tags: SAT Practice, SAT Prep, SAT Scores, SAT Test, Test Prep