How to Excel on the CLT10
Seven Tips From
National Award Winners
Each year, we recognize the highest-scoring sophomores on the CLT10 with our CLT10 National Award. In addition to recognition for receiving one of the top fifty scores in the nation, CLT10 National Award Winners receive a $2,500 scholarship to any CLT Partner College!
We asked our 2024 CLT10 National Award Winners what they would suggest to other students seeking to excel on the exam. Here’s what they said.
- Turn on Paragraph Numbers
“A tip to CLT10 takers: always, always, always turn on paragraph numbers when analyzing passages. That allows you to find what you’re looking for much quicker. Also, try to finish with enough time to check your work, especially on the math section.”
—Jacob Johnson
2. Keep an Eye on the Clock
“The only [tip] I have for other test takers is to always be watching your time.”
—Noah Ledbetter
3. Take a CLT10 (or CLT) Practice Test
“What helped me most was the opportunity to take a free online practice test prior to the exam. This familiarized me with the types of questions and the testing format.”
—Clare Hayes
“It was helpful to take some CLT practice tests prior to taking the CLT10. After those more challenging tests, the CLT10 seemed easier.”
—Nathan Spangler
“The CLT10 is much quicker and easier to take than other exams such as the PSAT. This makes it more easily accessible and leads to an overall better experience…Studying using the provided practice exams is also a very beneficial feature of the CLT10 when preparing for test day.”
—Conrad Steelman
“It really helped to look at the example problems in areas that I had previously missed questions in, because they not only tell you why the right answer is right, but also why each of the other answers is wrong. That might sound weird, but trust me, it really helps if you just try it.”
—Isaac Eagle
4. Read, Read, Read
“Read everything and often, start reading early, and don’t stop! I learned to read fairly young and have been devouring books ever since, and that has been hugely beneficial for me. Just besides the exposure to the written word, reading for my whole life has given me a natural sense of punctuation, spelling, and grammar that would have been much harder to learn otherwise. When you are a strong reader, you can look at a sentence and think, ‘Does that look right?’ Reading a book is always a good idea!”
—Lily Steel
“Reading a lot of books helps with reading comprehension.”
—Jared Ashford
“How I felt about the reading passages has to do, in part, with how I got my high score. One of the passages in the reading comprehension section was not only from a book I had read for school, it was the passage I had based my essay off of and thus extensively quoted. Thank goodness for a classical education!”
—Josiah Porter
5. Delve Into the CLT Student Guide
“[I]n all honesty what really made the difference for me was getting the CLT study book, and spending about half an hour for a week or two studying. I also took practice tests and other things, and studied the specific areas I was struggling in.” —Elijah Turner
6. Rely on Your Critical Thinking Skills
“It was helpful for me to keep in mind that CLT designs their exams to assess our knowledge, not our test-taking skills. This helped me not waste time overthinking an answer, or worry about getting ‘tricked’ by the question’s wording. Instead, I was able to focus my time on working carefully and even double-checking my work with any extra time I had.”
—Joshua Oh
“Just stay focused and think logically!”
—Jude Hollis
“[W]hile studying for the quantitative reasoning portion of the exam, I focused less on general math concepts and spent more time on logic/reasoning. This turned out to be helpful.”
—Madeleine Lecair
7. Stay Focused … But Don’t Forget to Take a Breath!
“I enjoyed the simplicity of the test. Though the questions were challenging, and the time was always ticking, the CLT10 was set up in a way that I could just block everything else out and give my full effort to answering the questions. In the end, I think this was what helped me achieve my score.”
—Joshua Read
“Make sure you take the time to understand what the questions are actually asking you. Some of them are a bit higher-level, so seeing what they’re really getting at is important.”
—Daniel Staudt
“Pro tip: when you have the ten-minute break, get up and walk around. It truly helps to clear your head. Also, during said break I ate Smarties and joked that it’d make me smart.”
—Maria Trujillo
Ready to put these tips into action and work toward being one of our next CLT10 National Award Winners? Find upcoming CLT10 test dates on our website and be sure to check out our practice tests available in your free online account.
Thank you for reading the Journal and supporting the Classic Learning Test!
Published on 23rd October, 2024.