<p>Hey guys, so I took the SAT I in January after minimal study (browsing through the Princeton Review book for about 2 weeks, took 2 practice tests) and my scores were
670 Reading
580 Math
610 Writing (10 essay)
Total : 1860</p>
<p>I'm planning on retaking in October and I fully intend to study heavily during the summer. I have the Princeton Review 2011 edition as well as the Collegeboard's Blue Book (practice tests). I also plan to use the forums here on College Confidential to supplement my study (Silverturtle's guide, etc..). I was thinking about doing an hour a day on each of the three sections and then 1 practice test a week. I know that I can perform a lot better if I dedicate myself to improving them.</p>
<p>How far do you think that it is possible for me to improve my score? Any advice on how to improve, what habits I need to get into for studying?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>I think you can definitely get about 2000 by October. I wasn’t so good at the reading section so I probably shouldn’t give advice there. For math there are some tricky questions, but they are pretty much the same from year to year. So I think if you understand how to do the problems on the practice tests you’ll do fine. Make sure you don’t use up all your practice tests too fast. You probably don’t need to work that much in order to improve your score up 150+ points by October. Shouldn’t 2-hour chunks once or twice a week be enough? If you go over your mistakes carefully, you shouldn’t have to work that much, I don’t think, because all the questions are generally similar.</p>
<p>Lucky for you, math and writing are the easiest to improve, especially if you don’t need to work on the essay.
^ Ditto to what murmillo said
Just practice a little bit every day. One practice test a week sounds fine. When you’re not doing practice tests, go over wrong answers/do practice problems/make flash cards/go over grammar rules.
2000 isn’t a stretch at all. With over 4 months, I would say that going up 150 is quite attainable. I’m saying this from personal experience; I got a 176 on my PSAT, and with one month of studying I got a 1910 on my SAT (+150 points).</p>
<p>Make sure that you</p>
<p>(1) learn all the necessary SAT specific strategies
(2) practice problems for 20 to 30 minutes per day
(3) do about 4 tests under timed conditions before test day (actual SATs or tests from the blue book)</p>
<p>An hour a day is too much for most students - you will probably burn yourself out, and this will LOWER your score on test day. Plus your mind can only retain a certain amount of info at a time. So studying an hour straight is a waste of your energy. If you really want to study this long, break it up into 2 shifts of 30 minutes, with a long relaxing break in between.</p>
<p>Also, a practice test every week is unnecessary. The purpose of practice tests is to make sure you are applying strategies effectively under timed conditions, prepare you for the endurance necessary to take the test, and make sure you’re not wasting time. This can be accomplished by taking about 1 test per month. </p>
<p>Your focus should be on practicing specific problems, implementing strategies, and periodically redoing problems you get wrong until you can get them right on your own.</p>
<p>Best of luck!</p>