Okay, so maybe taking the SATs on January 22 won’t be quite as much fun as the time you were bit by a rabid crawfish and had to spend three days in a quarantine tent in Chickasaw, Mississippi, but it's gonna be CLOSE. Why? Because we're about to give you the best present EVER: ab-so-lutely FREE NookBooks from Kaplan Publishing, including all the SAT workbooks and practice tests you could want. PLUS, free AP exam workbooks AND study guides for the GRE, GMAT, and other standardized tests. So what are you waiting for? Click RIGHT HERE to download the FREE NOOK apps (readable on PCs, iPads, iPhones, and Android smartphones), and then throw your hands up in the air like you just don't care. TODAY JUST BECAME THE BEST DAY EVER.

This Saturday is your last chance to take the SAT until the fall. For some of you, this will be your final experience taking the test. Once you get over the euphoria of putting the SAT behind you forever, you may think, That sure was a lot of time to spend getting ready for one stinking test. Now that it’s over, is there anything else I can get out of my test prep materials?

Those of you planning to take the SAT this Saturday, read on: this post will help you prepare! We'll be wrapping up our series on the SAT Writing section with a look at Improving Paragraph questions. Improving Paragraph questions test your ability to critique both the overall content and the sentence composition of multi-paragraph passages. Here’s an example passage:

Now that we've reviewed Identifying Sentence Error questions, let's move on to a section of the exam that's a little less straightforward: Improving Sentence questions. Even if you've got your grammar rules down pat, these questions can be tricky. Here's an example:

Your last chance to take the SAT before fall is coming up on Saturday, June 5, and if you're taking it, we want you to hit your target score! We've covered a lot of SAT topics here on the Test Prep Tutor Blog, and reviewing a few could help ensure that your summer beach reading won't include any SAT study guides. If you browse through our older posts, you’ll find everything from tips on solving SAT Math money problems to methods for writing great essay conclusions. However, we've never really focused on the SAT Writing section's Identifying Sentence Error questions (or ISE questions)—so we've decided to devote an entire post to them today!

If you get your SAT score and the results aren’t pretty, does that mean you're doomed to having a low score on your college application, and no school will take you, and you'll therefore spend the rest of your life at your current grocery-bagging job? Not by a long shot. Here's how you can recover from bombing the SAT:

Wouldn't it be nice if your SAT essay prompt asked you something you really wanted to write about, like whether you're on Team Edward, Team Jacob, Team Nobody, or Team Dan? Or whether Modern Warfare 2 or Assassin’s Creed 2 is a better video game? But no, when you take the SAT you'll be given generic essay prompts like these:

1. Is it always best to follow one's own belief of right and wrong, or should one sometimes consider society's opinions?

2. Is talent or dedication a more important factor in achieving one's goals?

3. Is it important to be truthful all of the time no matter what, or is deceit acceptable in some circumstances?

Recently, we’ve heard from a few Sparklers who have been unsure about how to tackle SAT prep. When should you start? What should you do to best prepare? How much time should you spend getting ready for the big test? To give you a general idea of what you should be doing and when, here's an ideal four-year SAT prep plan to follow. If you’re thinking Hello, I’m already a junior and I haven’t done any of this stuff, no worries. As we said, this is an ideal plan. Read it and see if you have some catching up to do, if you’re way ahead of the curve, or if you’re right on track with your SAT prep.

We received this email from a Sparkler who needs some advice on how to study for the SAT and ACT:

I am in eleventh grade and have taken the ACT and SAT at least once each. I did not know until a week or so ago that people studied for these tests! I was always told that you couldn't study for them. (My counselor is not so good and my parents don't know much about this sort of thing.) I have gone onto the respective websites and done practice questions/tests, but I don't know what else I should be doing to prepare. My friend was memorizing formulas and looking at definitions for words and I have a working knowledge of formulas, but should I be committing certain graphs/triangles/formulas/sciencey stuff to memory? My weak points are Science/Math for the ACT and Math on the SAT. Another thing, I am not at liberty to just go out and buy fancy cards and test prep books ( which is what my friend was using). HELP! I just want to go to college!

The word mantra derives from Sanskrit and was originally used to describe the sacred sounds employed by religious practitioners to free their minds. These days, we use mantra to describe any kind of empowering phrase one draws on for strength when trying to get through a tough experience. A tough experience like the SAT this Saturday.