So, you’re thinking about taking the SAT or the PSAT, but you’re not sure you’re ready. Naturally, you’re nervous. What to do?

Don’t panic. The following tips can help you can take control during the days leading up to the test, manage the pressure, and prepare for a successful test taking experience.

Order of Difficulty (OOD)
Each SAT section is divided into three levels of difficulty: easy, medium and hard. The first third of each group is easy, the second third is of medium difficulty, and the last third is hard. (The only exception is the Reading Comprehension passages, which do not follow this order.) An easy question is one that almost everyone gets right. A hard question is a question that almost everyone gets wrong.

So, if a group has nine questions, the first three are easy, the second three are medium, and the last three are hard. Since easy, medium, and hard questions are worth the same amount, spend the majority of your time making sure you get the easy and medium questions right.

What Can I Do Before the Test?
Organization, planning, and time management are essential to becoming a successful student; so start studying as soon as classes begin. Read assignments, listen during lectures, and take good classroom notes. Then, reread assignments, highlighting important information to study. Regular reviews help you avoid cramming and reduce test anxiety. The biggest benefit is that it gives you time to absorb information.

Read difficult assignments twice. Sometimes a second reading will clarify concepts. If you are having difficulty with a subject, get help immediately. Meet with your instructor after class, use an alternate text to supplement required reading, or hire a tutor (ask faculty members and other students for referrals).

Study abroad – traveling to another country for formal academic study – isn’t just for language majors anymore! Most universities have some kind of study abroad program, allowing students to earn academic credit while participating in an overseas educational program.

Historically, study abroad in the United States has involved a very small percentage of college students who decided to study and travel for a summer, semester or year abroad. Typically their focus was limited to destinations in Western Europe.

Today there is a growing realization at all levels of education that students must be better prepared for a global society. This is resulting in a dramatic increase in the choice of study abroad options, enabling students to experience a diversity of the world's cultures. Opportunities in Africa, Asia, Latin America, or virtually anywhere in the world abound. Programs offer intensive language study, home-stays, direct enrollment in foreign institutions, or multicultural experiences in several countries.

The word "globalization" is dropped so often at the end of a sentence, or even used as an adjective, and the speaker never attaches much meaning or substance to it. Words without meaning are useless. Does globalization mean having thousands of corporate branches representing and selling something in all the countries on earth? Does it mean unfettered access to an ocean of information, through both digital and traditional media, forcing each of us to confront the myriad of challenges facing every society on the planet? Or is there a more useful definition? Is globalization having the courage to make globally responsible decisions in the most informed manner possible? Or having the currency of a "global vocabulary" to distinguish culturally relevant information and distill it with interpersonal sensitivities and classroom study in order to be able to embark on a dialogue with any other human being on the planet?

A small group of women from Philadelphia were among the nation's first college students to study abroad. They boarded ship in New York and set sail for Europe in the summer of 1948 to study the economic effects of World War II. They bicycled from England to Belgium to France over bombed out roads and stayed in hostels on a budget of $2 a day.

By the next summer, conditions began to improve, and the Arcadia University faculty leaders added art history to the curriculum and replaced the bicycles with buses. Today, Arcadia sends more than 3,000 students a year overseas, and Congress is considering a measure that would set a national goal of 1 million students a year studying abroad.

The world has changed dramatically in the last decade and business is now more global than ever before. Just pick up the phone at work to call tech support, and the person on the other end of the line might be from India. Join a U.S. firm and it will likely have offices overseas, requiring employees to not only communicate but establish trusting relationships with foreigners.

For students to succeed in today's competitive marketplace, they should seek an education in which they are exposed to other cultures. Studying abroad prepares students for the increasingly global nature of the world in which they live and will work

Every year, thousands of students from all over the world pack up their books, belongings, and ultimately their lives - and travel to Canada to study. No matter where you choose to go or your length of study, you’ll find that Canada has a great deal of opportunities to offer, and more importantly, you’ll have the chance to change your life for the better. Before you pack your bags, there are a number of things that you have to do before you get to Canada...and preparation is key!

I was 16 when I first traveled abroad to London with my high school theater group. That experience awakened a desire in me to see the world. I later taught English in Japan after graduation from college. In graduate school I returned to England to study at the British Library. Now as a college professor and Study Abroad Director, I share the world with my students. Every summer I take students to Oxford to study Shakespeare. This summer we saw Jude Law on stage in Hamlet. Right before going to Oxford, I spent two weeks with another group of students in Egypt climbing the Great Pyramids of Giza and cruising down the River Nile. It sounds like bragging, but it’s not. When you travel the world, these are the kinds of things you have to talk about—and people listen.