August Regents Exam and SAT® Exam Season: How to Use the Next Few Weeks Wisely

July 20, 2026

For a specific group of students, July isn’t just about staying sharp, it’s about active preparation for exams just a few weeks away. If your teenager is retaking a Regents exam or sitting for the SAT® Exam in August, this post is for you.

These two situations look different on the surface, but they share something important: both benefit enormously from starting now rather than waiting until the final two weeks of summer.

Preparing for an August Regents Retake
Students who didn’t pass a Regents exam in June have an August retake opportunity. It’s a real second chance, but only if it’s used well.

The most common mistake we see is treating the August Regents the way students treated the June one: as something to cram for in the final week. The difference is that summer offers something the school year doesn’t, time without competing academic demands. That’s a real advantage, but only if a student actually uses the weeks available rather than letting them slip by.

A strong August Regents preparation plan, starting now, typically includes:

A focused review of the specific content areas that caused difficulty in June, not a full re-teaching of the entire course, but a targeted return to the gaps.

Practice with actual past Regents exams under timed conditions, which builds both content familiarity and the specific endurance these exams require.

A structured schedule across the remaining weeks, rather than a single intensive cram session right before the test, spaced practice is simply more effective for retention.

Students who begin this process in mid-to-late July, rather than the first week of August, consistently walk into the retake with more confidence and less anxiety because the material has had time to actually settle.

Preparing for the August SAT® Exam

For students taking the SAT® Exam in August, whether for the first time or as a retake,  July offers a similar advantage: real time to build skill, not just review tricks.

The SAT® Exam rewards both content knowledge and strategic test-taking skill, and both take time to build properly. A student who starts in late July has roughly a month to work with, enough time to identify specific weak areas, build targeted skill in those areas, and then layer in timing and strategy as the test date approaches.

We typically recommend starting with a, evaluation exam to establish a clear baseline. From there, a few things make the biggest difference in the time remaining:

• Focused work on the specific section (math or reading and writing) that’s pulling the composite score down, rather than generic review across everything.
• Regular, timed practice sections to build the pacing and stamina the test actually requires, which is different from simply knowing the content.
• A final full-length practice test about a week before the real exam, to build familiarity with the test’s length and rhythm under realistic conditions.
• Students who follow this kind of structured, several-week plan tend to see more meaningful score improvement than those who attempt last-minute cramming, which tends to raise anxiety more than it raises scores.

Why Starting Now Changes the Outcome

Both of these situations share the same underlying principle: meaningful academic improvement requires time, and time is the one thing that disappears quickly once August

begins. Family vacations, the return of fall sports, and the general chaos of back-to-school preparation all compress the calendar fast.

Right now, in late July, there’s still real room to prepare well rather than scramble. That window is worth using.