How to Prepare Your Student for the SAT

1. No studying. If a lifetime of education can’t get a person through the SAT, then… whatever.

2. Have the student prepare everything the night before the test:

-choose clothing
-set aside high protein breakfast in fridge (plain yogurt is good)
-pack a bag of snacks, ID, ticket, calculator, extra batteries and no cell phone

3. Make student go to bed by midnight (instead of the usual 2 am fare that keeps him/her sleeping until ten o’clock in the morning)

4. Go to bed late, because you are up trying to get student to go to bed by midnight. This will make you extra sleepy. So important! Set your clock for one hour before student is to arrive at test. You are to arrive no later than 7:45 am.

5. On the day of the test, sleep through your alarm. Get out of bed at exactly 7:44 am.

WAAAAA! [take a private Good Mother moment with the universe, then jar your student out of bed with a loud announcement of the final 30 seconds now available to show up on time. Take note of the uncanny speed with which your 17 year old is actually capable of moving. Save that knowledge for later.]

6. Race to the school (only 1 minute away, thank your lucky stars), try to enter by the wrong door, be chided by security, go to the right door with a hairstyle that would make any student proud of his mother, and deliver student to the SAT.

It’s all good. Student is awake (that counts for something) and couldn’t eat the plain yogurt in the car, because you forgot to sweeten it. You will, for the sake of expiation, accidentally eat the yogurt upon returning to your home (accidentally means the yogurt was sprinkled lightly with granola that has almonds, to which you are—not fatally—allergic).

That’s it. You are officially a good mother, who has successfully prepared your child to take the biggest exam of high school life.

Photo by Deborah Austin, Creative Commons, via Flickr.

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