April 10 marks a crucial day for all juniors- taking the SAT. The SAT helps determine what colleges or universities students who take it will get in to. The College Board website provides additionalupcoming days after April 10 that students can sign up for to take the test.

May 5 and June 2 mark two other days that the SAT is available. With all of these important dates coming up, the SAT prep class has just come to a close. According to Lane’s website, the SAT prep class was available for juniors to take from Feb. 12 to March 2, and from March 5 to March 23. The two sessions were available in the morning from 7:00 to 7:50, and after school from 3:20 to 4:10.

Ms. Edwina Thompson, who was in charge of the registration process for the class, said that 400 students signed up for the two 3three-week courses, which was a greater amount than last year.

Ms. Kerri Thompson, an English teacher, taught reading and English during the duration of the prep class. She said that along with English and reading, students also learned different types of math.

“In reading we’re doing a lot of work around the history, social science, and science selections that they’re [students] going to find on the reading test,” Thompson said. “We decided that we were going to pick those particular portions of the test because students generally are having trouble with those portions at our school, so we figured that we’d get a lot of bang for the buck in working closely on those things,” Thompson said.

She also mentioned that she tried to make students feel comfortable with the science and social science portions of the SAT.

“We’re working for students to not get bogged down by some of the new terms that they might see in the selections and be able to access some of the skills that they have and knowledge that they have to have success on those,” Thompson said.

Along with getting students to practice on Khan Academy, she worked with students by going through an SAT prep book that they received when they signed up for the class. Mrs. Chambers, one of the math teachers for the prep class, said that the SAT prep book includes eight practice tests with explanations for all of the answers.

Chambers broke down the three main areas of the math portion of the SAT over the span of the four days that she was teaching.

“The first day is like an intro day, then the other three days we focus on, one day, of heart of algebra, one day on data analysis and problem solving, and then one day on the passport to advanced math,” Chambers said.

Chambers also worked with her students on reading graphs and getting her students familiar with the statistics of graphs.

Jack Gordon, Div. 985, said that taking the SAT prep class helped him learn new concepts.

“I actually did learn a couple new things about English, a lot of new grammar stuff, and with math I just have been kind of relearning some stuff that I forgot,” Gordon said.

After taking the class, Gordon said that even though he did acquire many new concepts from the class, he listed some things he thought would make the class more beneficial for students.

“I think giving us much more skills that will help with the time crunch of the SAT and teaching things much more in detail [can help improve the class in the future],” Gordon said.

Chambers said that if some students were not able to take the prep class, there are many other ways that students can prepare for the SAT, like using Khan Academy, which she said is very advantageous.

“Khan Academy is a great tool, it’s free, and your PSAT score from the fall is linked with your account and it can create personalized practice sessions,” Chambers said. “I would absolutely recommend that every junior take some sort of SAT prep, because every amount of hour that you are spending working on it, is going to help improve your score.”