<p>Hey all,</p>
<p>I'm taking the SATs for the second time on May 5th
Thas about 8 weeks from now</p>
<p>Im shooting to raise my verbal score from 610 to 700s
Any suggestions on how I can make the best use of my time to raise said score</p>
<p>I need to build my vocab a bit and work a lot on slammin those comp questions</p>
<p>Help me homies,
Word
Ptang69</p>
<p>OOh thats ample enough time. First start reading an advanced "great novel" book something like Invisble Man or Nineteen Eighty Four should help If you havent already read them. Then get a Practice Book. Search the forum to see which books are best. Do a few problems in the book and when you get them wrong ANALYZE why you got them wrong. Then continue from there</p>
<p>of course, look up the collegeboard.com website on SAT test practice. Some of their tips are general, but the specific ones about each test, strategies, examples of graded essays (for the writing part) really help.
I think the most important thing is to be familiar with the kinds of questions they ask. For example, you can bet that some of the multiple choice ones on the Writing (part 3) will test whether you can choose the correct form for:
It's time to go.... vs. The dog bit its tail.</p>
<p>and they'll surely do some subject-verb agreement:
Anyone who loves the poetry of Langston Hughes can recite all of (her, their, his) works by heart.</p>
<p>Correct use of pronouns:
Give the money to (her and I) (she and me) (me and her) (her and me) (ME! just ME! I need all that money!!!) just kidding</p>
<p>use of possessives 's in the right place
I looked at all the spaces before I parked my car.<br>
I considered the last remaining space's size before I parked my car.
I checked out all the spaces' sizes before I parked my car.</p>
<p>The child's eyes are brown. The children's eyes are brown. The peoples' eyes are brown.</p>
<p>There are other examples of tricky word usage problems that are always on every test, and the above examples are rather easy compared to what might appear on the test. The ones above show you the principle.</p>
<p>Also, understand the format of the questions. There's a section in the WRiting Multiple Choice where they ask whether a sentence is "correct as is" and that means it's correct in every part. The other mistakes asked on the other answers will cue you into what could be wrong in the sentence. If you check each of the other 3 letters (a-c) and none of those are wrong, then you go for "(d) correct as is."</p>
<p>Read on this site for essays marked Please Grade My Essay, especially Best Help for Essay on Saturday, for more guidance on the essays.</p>
<p>If you don't already know that the essay is 25 minutes and that it needs a thesis, supporting examples and a conclusion...then you DON'T know enough to take that essay test...so CHECK IT OUT NOW here on CC and at the College Board site.</p>
<p>For the Writing, the essay is one part, and the multiple choice are another part. The collegboard will eventually send you how you did on each part, which is helpful to know if you retake it, which part ot focus on to improve.</p>
<p>For fun, look up a thread in the Parents Cafe, l0l Words College-Bound Kids Need to Spell. It also gets into word usage mistakes that many kids make here on CC.</p>
<p>I think she was only talking about the CR, paying3tuitions</p>
<p>Oops, Naidu you're right.</p>
<p>On CR: I've also read that the biggest trouble kids have in the Critical Reading is weak ability 1to make INFERENCES from what they read. Look beneath the obvious meaning, for what the text IMPLIES.
Get sneaky, in other words.</p>
<p>Suppose a text says something like this: "The soldiers sat around the table, looking glumly at the book of oblique orders that would decide their fate."</p>
<p>Even though it doesn't spell it out for you, you should be able to INFER that the soldiers are dissatisfied with the situation, worried and concerned, because they feel that their orders are poorly explained, too vague. </p>
<p>Read between the lines, just as you do among your friends when somebody says something and you kind of feel what's the message behind the words.</p>
<p>i am re taking the sat1 as well, but in june.</p>
<p>i want to raise my scores too, especially math.</p>
<p>Yeah thanks for all your help so far guys...
I need to work on raising my essay score, I understand the format an intro w/ thesis, main body, and conclusion, but I struggle to come up with good examples to support my position... any way I can work on this? Maybe I shood read a lot of prompts and practice on my own?</p>
<p>Also what book or reference material do you guys suggest I use to raise my vocabulary and enable me to answer the hard sentence completion and reading comprehension questions.
Im using this Princeton Review Word Smart jawn piece rite now...</p>
<p>About the reading - I'm startin up on that with a book I thought I wood like "Fight Club" by Chuck Palahniuk
Any other good books that can help me w/ comprehension and vocab</p>
<p>Thanks for ur help
Ptang69</p>
<p>Fight Club uses a lot of slang-not a lot of fancy vocabulary.<although, i="" do="" like="" his="" works.=""></although,></p>
<p>I would recommend you read something by W. Somerset Maugham. Old Sherlock Holmes stuff is good, too-comprehensively-wise.</p>
<p>See Scorpio08's latest thread, "SAT Writing Topics" = all the old prompts.
Pick out a few and think how you'd approach it, what would be your thesis, and which 2 examples you could use to support it.</p>
<p>guess what I just bought a cadillac</p>
<p>Is that a prompt? :)</p>
<p>Ptang, I love my Cadillac - we bought it USED on EBAY. Completely crazy.</p>
<p>If you have 8 weeks, don't bother starting up with a new novel. Just read some Economist articles, some NY Times Op-Ed pieces and a New Yorker story each week as your supplementary prep.</p>
<p>The Blue Book should be your bible. If after 2-3 weeks, you can't plow through, hire a smart college kid to be your tutor =) Reasonable rates like 20/hr can't be touched.</p>
<p>Gotta rep the profession.</p>