On days when I had a test in school my mother never let me skip early morning figure skating. She said that it would “clear the cob webs” and make me more alert for the the test. It turns out she may have been more right than even she knew. Researchers at a Taiwan University found that mice who were pushed to run on a treadmill, verses calmly jogging on the wheel, performed better in an “avoidance task” that all the mice had taken previously and then again after their exercise. The results showed that the mice who were pushed to do more strenuous exercise overall had better learning and memory skills. My mom made me study thoroughly the night before a test and then get up early the next morning and go skate just hours before a school test. Could it be that all that skating helped “jog” my memory of all those important facts I had memorized the night before?
If you apply this idea to how to improve your SAT score you will find that if you mix a rigorous workout with memorizing SAT vocab words your SAT score may very well go up.