An eight-week SHSAT study plan that respects a school week
Eight weeks is enough time to move an SHSAT score without taking over a student's life — if the weeks are spent in the right order. This plan runs on 20 to 30 focused minutes a day, works back from the test window, and tells you what to do when, and why that order matters more than total hours.
When to start: count back eight weeks from the test window. The exact Fall 2026 dates are not announced yet — the test-date page tracks what is published and what is not, and starting a week early costs nothing while starting late costs the taper.
The eight weeks
Week 1
Diagnose, then aim
Sit the 20-question diagnostic, pick a target school, and write down the two or three weakest topics from the report. Everything after this week is spent on that short list — a plan aimed at everything is aimed at nothing.
Weeks 2–3
Accuracy on the weak topics, untimed
Short daily sets on the weakest topics only, no clock. The goal of these two weeks is to change what the student can do, not how fast — speed built on a wrong method is just faster wrong answers.
Week 4
Add the clock
Same topics, now timed. The real paper allows 108 seconds a question on average — practising at that pace now surfaces the slow-but-right problem while there is still time to fix it.
Week 5
The full mock, under exam conditions
One weekend morning, one sitting, 100 questions in 180 minutes. This is the right week to spend the free Mock Exam 1 sitting — after the first round of work, so it measures progress, and early enough that its topic breakdown can still steer the remaining weeks.
Week 6
Rebuild from the mock's breakdown
The mock's topic breakdown replaces the diagnostic's as the working list. Some week-1 weaknesses will be fixed; something new will have surfaced under time pressure. Practise the new list, and re-do every question the mock got wrong.
Week 7
Timed sections, mixed topics
Full timed sections — an ELA block one day, a math block another — with topics mixed the way the paper mixes them. The skill being built now is switching: the exam never asks ten of the same question in a row, and neither should the last fortnight of practice.
Week 8
Taper — review, don't cram
Light days: re-do old mistakes, skim the weak-topic notes, stop new material entirely. The last week's job is arriving rested — a student who sleeps normally the final nights keeps more points than one who studies through them.
How the free mock works →How to read the diagnostic report →
Three rules that outrank the schedule
- Daily beats weekend. Twenty-five minutes every day builds retrieval habits a three-hour Saturday binge cannot — if a day is lost, drop that day, don't double the next.
- Weakest topics first, always. The points are in what the student cannot yet do; the comfort is in what they can. Every practice session that opens with a strong topic is comfort spending points.
- Mistakes are the syllabus. A wrong answer re-done a week later, from scratch, is worth more than three new questions — the plan above schedules re-dos on purpose.
The parent's five minutes a week
The plan is the student's; the cadence is yours. One check-in a week — did the days happen, what is this week's weak-topic list, when is the mock booked — is enough. Asking for the score every day teaches score anxiety, not math.