SAT Sleepover Party

Trying to make studying for the SAT a little less painful? Why not schedule a super awesome (okay, moderately entertainingly) standardized test slumber soiree??

First things first, gather your fellow test-taking pals. If you want to completely geek out, make invitations from your old SAT vocab flashcards (which you must be sick of by now, since you practice with them every single day, right?). If you'd rather tone the geekness down, feel free to whisper gently to your friends that you are hosting an all-night SAT study party, which will combine great fun with solid studying. Also whisper, “Don't forget your toothbrush!”

And now to squeeze a little bit of fun out of the SAT! Round up your practice books, flashcards, and scrap paper. Have your friends to bring their stuff, too. Make some “Pace Yourself Popcorn” and “Sentence Completion Cupcakes,” and play the following amazing SAT party games:

Grooving to the SAT: Grab a stack of vocab cards or a vocab list. Press play on your iPod/CD player/8-track tape player and see who can get the most vocab definitions correct by the time the first song is over.

Pick up the Pace Race: Two contestants race each other to see who can get through a math, reading, or writing section (or part of a section) first and with the most correct answers.

SAT Trivial Pursuit: Take a Trivial Pursuit board and assign different sections of the test to each color (or take the die from a game and assign test sections to the numbers). From there, it works just like the actual game: Simply go back and forth, asking questions out of your practice book, and keep track of points. First team to get 15 (or set your own goal) right wins.

SAT Jeopardy!: Give the definition of a vocab word, and have contestants write down the word you are describing. Extra points for synonyms and correct usage in a sentence.

Formula Racing: See who can write out the math section's given formulas the fastest—and correctly! (If you're wondering why you need to memorize formulas that are printed on the first page of the test, just consider how much time you'd waste flipping from page to page as you're racing against the clock.)

Passage Pacing Game: Allow 5 minutes or less for contestants to read a long passage from the Critical Reading section. Once time is up, everyone must individually write down, in a few words, the purpose, tone, and style of the passage. The rest of the group will decide who has best answer. Use actual passage-based questions as well if you'd like to test the contestants' understanding of the passage.

Essay Olympics: Everyone completes a 25-minute timed essay using the prompt from a practice test. After time's up, everyone grades each paper using the SAT guidelines, assigning a score of 0 to 6. (Try not to spend more than 5 minutes grading an essay; the SAT graders only spend 3 minutes grading yours!) The person with the highest combined score wins.

SAT Pinata: Grab a stack of index cards and write an SAT question on each. Next, tape a piece of candy to each card. Fill the pinata with the cards, then release your SAT frustrations by wailing on that poor pinata until it bursts. You get to eat the candy—but only if you solve to problem on the attached index card.

So there you have it: A complete lineup of SAT slumber party events. We suggest doing the most difficult games early on, before everyone's brain has turned to mush. And being the gracious host that you are, you can give out prizes to the winners, like power packed protein bars, snazzy No. 2 pencils, or color coded index cards. Make your weekend plans now!

Got your own ideas for making SAT prep a bit more fun? Drop them in the comments. And, as always, email your questions to testpreptutor@sparknotes.com.

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