Do a few questions before you get to the test

For those of you taking the SAT tomorrow (and scouring the Internet for a few last-minute tips), heres a small one that could actually have a significant effect on your score. To introduce it, a personal  anecdote (notice how many time the word I appears in the following sentences). About five years ago, I was going over a students QAS score sheet from her first real SAT. She was a good  student and strong  test taker, and in fact shed  scored a 2200. It was pretty much  in line with her practice tests, but when I looked at the scoring breakdown by section, something leapt out at me: virtually every question she had gotten wrong came from the first three sections. And when I read over her essay, I saw  that it was, well†¦ Let us say it was not her best work. At that point, I put two and two together. G, I said pointedly. Were you awake when you started this test? She smiled guiltily and ducked her head, then shook it slightly. Well, that solved that mystery. Before that incident, I didnt  do much coaching about what people should and should not do on test day beyond the basic (dont stay up until 2am, dont have  two cups of coffee if you dont normally drink coffee, eat a good breakfast†¦), but that conversation made me rethink things a bit. Along with most other people, Ive never truly understood just why the College Board and the ACT should put a bunch of already stressed out, sleep-deprived teenagers through the torture of waking up at 6am on a *Saturday* to take a test that in some cases will have a  significant impact on the rest of their lives. Since it doesnt look as if that policy is going to get rethought any time soon, though,  you need to be prepared. Unless youre the lucky sort of person who can go from 0 to 100 and be totally  on the second you open that test booklet, even if youve been dozing through the (endless, endless) instructions, this for you. You cannot afford to have a warm-up period   questions from the beginning of the test count just as much as those anywhere else on the test, and you need to be in the zone  from the moment you break the seal on your test booklet. And one way to ensure that youre already in full test mode is to do a handful of questions before you get to the test. When I say a few, I mean a few. Not so many that you start to freak yourself out,  one or two easy/medium ones from each section.  You dont even need to check your answers   and in  fact, you probably  shouldnt. The goal isnt to score yourself, just to get things  working  so that the transition to starting  the test doesnt feel quite so abrupt. If your brain groans in protest, let it. At least youll get that part over without any damage. By the time you start the real thing,  youll be past that stage and able to focus much more clearly.