The Benefits of Using SATs Practice Papers

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Table of Contents

Introduction

When it comes to the SATs exam, there’s no such thing as too much practice. The more practice papers your child sits, the better prepared they’ll be for the actual exam. In this post, we look at the main benefits of using SATs practice tests.

Improved Time Management

Most children preparing for their SATs need to improve their time management skills. The more questions your child can get through on the day, the better chance they’ll have of achieving a high score.

Time management in the SATs exam is all about process. The more practice papers a student does under timed conditions, the better they’ll become at knowing how long each type of question typically takes. Once they know how long to spend on each question type, they’ll instinctively know when it’s time to move on.

At the end of each practice test, you can analyse your child’s time management based on how many questions (if any) are still left to do. If there are only a few questions left, then it may only take a few small adjustments to make up those extra minutes needed to complete the entire paper. Similarly, if you find that your child completes each practice paper with lots of time to spare, it could be that they aren’t answering each question in full. Or perhaps they need to use their extra time to double check their answers.

Practice SATs exams help students to pace themselves correctly by understanding which sections are likely to take more time than others.

Identify Gaps in Knowledge

It’s easy to assume that your child already has all the knowledge they’ll need to perform well in their SATs. However, in reality, most students do have at least one weak area. With the help of practice exam papers, you can identify these early.

Once your child has completed a few different papers, have a look to see if you can spot any trends in the types of answers that they get wrong. You might find, for example in the Maths paper, that they struggle with tables and charts. In which case, you can allocate more focus to these weaker areas, giving your child time to improve before the exam.

The only way to improve your child’s weaker areas is through regular revision and testing using SATs practice papers. Our guide to the best revision techniques provides some useful insights into how you can make your child’s study sessions more effective.

Progress Tracking

SATs practice papers are an excellent way of tracking your child’s progress in the lead-up to their exam. Although your child should certainly put in the hours when it comes to revising for their SATs, reading through notes alone won’t provide them with an indication of their progress.

Practice papers encourage children to think more critically about a topic or question and enable them to put their knowledge to the test. In some cases, children may have the knowledge and understanding but lack the exam technique to attain full points in certain questions.

At Exam Papers Plus, all of our SATs practice papers come with a full mark scheme, so you can check your child’s answers, identify their weak areas and see what they need to do to improve.

Recognising Question Types

Sometimes the most challenging part of answering an exam question is understanding what’s being asked exactly. The more experience your child has with answering different types of SATs questions, the more familiar each question type will become.

If your child is able to identify the type of question that’s being asked, they should be in a better position to form an answer along the lines of what the examiner is looking for. By following the process for that specific question type, they’ll be more likely to arrive at the correct answer, even if they don’t fully understand the wording of the question.

The more SATs practice tests your child takes, the better they will become at understanding exactly what each question is asking. And the more they work through SATs practice papers, the more familiar they’ll become with how the exam is laid out.