<p>I've taken the january and march sat's and received consecutive 740's.
I look at myself as being very strong at math, however my score comes down from making stupid mistakes and/or misreading questions.
I'm taking the sat again in may and am determined to get that 800.</p>
<p>Do I just pray that I'm on my game on the day of the test, or do you have some advice/tips/anything that could help?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance</p>
<p>i have the same problem
i always make 1 mistake on the math section and the points are lowered by 30-50 points each time -.-</p>
<p>Do you finish just as time runs out, or do you have plenty of time? If you have lots of time left over, there are a few different strategies to tty. The first would be just to SLOW down, as many careless mistakes are caused by unnecessary rushing. If, like me, you find that you cannot slow down, or even at a slow pace you continue to make mistakes, you could try a different strategy. Instead of checking over your answers when time is finished, redo the problems. It is quite likely that you will make the same mistake checking an answer that you made when originally completing the problem, as you are already pretty sure that answer is right. By redoing the problem, or trying it from a different direction, you can be more confident that your answer is correct. If two different methods give the same answer, its probably right. At the end of every question, ask yourself: Was this what they were asking for? This lessens careless question reading mistakes. While it is quite likely that not all of these strategies work for everyone, I hope that you can find one or two that click with you, and raise your score.</p>
<p>Don’t let it bother you. All it shows is that you are mortal. Unfortunately, the people that score 800 could do it even if the test had 10 extra questions, and that kills the curve.</p>
<p>Actually, the curve is predetermined so it doesn’t matter. Personally, I think a 740 is still pretty strong.</p>
<p>If you made careless mistakes, you were probably too confident during the test and you’re not meticulously checking your answers. The point is that you won’t spot your own mistakes if you’re already sure that you’ve done everything right. When checking answers, make it a game. train yourself to think that you’ve somehow made countless errors on the test and it’s now your mission to find them.</p>
<p>when you’re doing the problems, convince yourself that there’re tricks in each of the questions so that you’ll slow down and stay alert. It’s a mental trick that usually works for me.</p>
<p>Great… thanks for all the help</p>