How to decide whether to re-take a standardized test
This post is to help you decide whether to re-take a standardized test. It assumes your situation does not fall into categories where the decision is an obvious yes or no, so let’s get those out of the way.
Some obvious situations where you should not re-test are combinations of: your expectations are unrealistic, you cannot do any additional preparation, you are not learning new material in school that could appear on the test, your scores are well within the range of scores for your target colleges, you cannot submit new scores in time for application deadlines, etc. Combinations of the opposites of these indicates that you should re-test: your expectations are realistic, you did little preparation before but now you have time to do additional preparation, you are learning new material in school that could appear on the test, your scores are too low for your target colleges, you could submit scores in time for application deadlines, etc.
This post will focus on setting realistic expectations.
Early on, you can do some useful thinking about test score expectations. For most students the goal should be to get scores that are consistent with your GPA. Most public high schools publish their average standardized test scores (check your local newspaper or check with your guidance counselor). If you have a high GPA you should expect your standardized test scores to be above the averages for your school. If you attend a private school your college counseling office should be able to help determine what scores would be consistent with your GPA.
Although your GPA is a good guide, in my opinion the best way to set expectations is to prepare for the standardized test in a systematic fashion because this will enable you to set a realistic target score. When you get your standardized test results compare your actual score to the target score. If you are close to the target, you can declare victory and stop testing.
Yes, but how do you develop a target score? Your preparation should consist of taking a series of practice tests. After each practice test calculate your score. Then review every problem you got wrong. Classify your mistakes as easy to correct or difficult to correct. If you got a problem wrong because of a silly mistake or because you forgot a simple math formula, those would be easy to correct. If you got a problem wrong because you have no idea how to solve it then those would be difficult to correct. Add half the number of easy-to-correct mistakes to your raw score (the raw score is the number of correct answers) and calculate a new scaled score based on the new hypothetical raw score. That would be your target score. As a guide, I suggest using half of the easy-to-correct mistakes because some silly mistakes are inevitable for most humans.
Please note that your target score will fluctuate with your practice test scores, but eventually your practice tests should stabilize. If they do not, then maybe you did not take enough practice tests. In my tutoring practice, I do not bring up the topic of a target score until four or five practice tests have been completed and a pattern is emerging.