4 months till SAT. Need a study plan!

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
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<p>I took the May SAT thinking I would easily get 1800ish without studying. I received my score the other day and turns out I got 480 reading, 580 math, and 520 writing. I was so disappointed in my self for not studying. </p>

<p>I told myself that for the next 4 months, I'll study as much as I can and hopefully increase my score to around 1800. 1900 if I try really hard. </p>

<p>I mainly need to get my reading section up since its my weakest. I ordered the blue book, Princeton Review's, Cracking the SAT book, and Barron's vocab flash cards. </p>

<p>My question is, how can I best utilize my time to get the highest increase? When people say they do a practice test every week or so, do they mean all 10 questions? It's really tough for me to do that since they're so many people in my house and I can never concentrate. </p>

<p>What is the proper way to study for the SAT? I can't afford a tutor so i'm not going yup be deterring one. Id like to do everything on my own please. </p>

<p>Thank you.</p>

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<p>I meant to say all ten sections, not questions</p>

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<p>I can’t afford a tutor so i’m not going to be getting one* sorry typing from phone</p>

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<p>Don’t take a test every week, spread out the tests over the four months. Save the first 3 for last because they were actual tests so they provide a more meaningful score. And yes take all 10 sections at once because it will help build stamina. If your house is too noisy, go to a local library to take the test.</p>

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<p>Wow, I can’t believe I never even thought of going to the library… Lmao forgot they still had those</p>

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<p>Huh… I don’t have a strategy for studying, because I didn’t study the first time I took the SAT. Now I need to study though! I got a 1900, and I want an 800 CR, 700 W, and 600 M. So I have my work cut out for me… Anyway, I can’t really help you with studying, but I have two tips that will most likely help you a lot. </p>

<p>1) If time is an issue – or if it’s not (you really never know if it will be or not, you could always be doing fine on time and then hit a super hard passage) – when a question gives you the line number, go to the line an answer the question before you read the passage. If you do this, a good bit of the time, you can answer all of the questions for a passage except the last two, which usually ask about mood or tone or author purpose or whatever. This is something I just figured out independently – it works very well, and even after checking my answers, I’m usually one of the first ones done with the CR sections. I think I might have missed one passage-based question on the SAT the last [and only] time I took it – I made a 750. Just read a lot too, I attribute this score to the fact that I read so much, ahah. Maybe try those SAT vocab-teaching books?</p>

<p>2) As far as grammar (writing section) questions go, being able to recognize passive voice is a LIFESAVER! On the sentence correction/completion ones, almost all of the questions can be made very easy by using checking for passive voice to eliminate answer choices. Usually all but two answer choices are in passive voice. Eliminate those and you now have a 50% chance of getting it right as opposed to a 20% chance. I find that it’s usually really easy to pick between the two remaining choices, as one will usually be flat out silly-sounding – the other will be correct. Sometimes though, it’s difficult to pick between the two non-passive voice answer choices, so I suppose that’s just be luck. </p>

<p>As far as math… you made higher than me – I’m awful at it. Mmm… The only tip I can give you is that if you take one answer choice and work backwards, if it doesn’t work, you can usually use that trial to eliminate 2 or 3 of the other answer choices just because they’re obviously far from whatever number is needed. You can trust me on that, I usually don’t get math problems wrong… I just omit almost half of them because I’m clueless. </p>

<p>I’ve been trying to just do one section here and one there, because I don’t have the time or patience to sit down and do a whole practice test. I only have the Kaplan Practice Tests book and a few old (1984, 2001) books that are like useless, lol. Half of the CR parts are analogies, and half of the Math parts are quantitative comparisons. Neither of these are on the SAT anymore. =P Anyway, I guess you didn’t need to know that… I’d just say that you don’t really need a schedule, any practice beats no practice! Good luck, let’s hope we both meet our goals in October!</p>

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<p>Thanks! That was really helpful! What exactly do you mean by, recognizing passive voices?</p>

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<p>ive heard taking practice tests is helpful in raising your score. just make sure you check WHY you got the problems wrong afterwards and you shouldn’t get them wrong on another test.</p>

<p>recognizing passive voice means if the sentence is in the passive voice (what you would use to write a scientific analysis-emphasizes the action) or the active voice (what you want to be using in all other situations-emphasizes the subject). for example, would you say “i ate dinner” or “the dinner was eaten by me”?</p>