<p>I don't know your exact situation, but if I were you, I'd probably do the following... I would reduce your number practice tests; it's entirely unnecessary. If you can't get something by the 15th test, you probably won't ever get it. I would cut it down to maybe 10 (still a lot, but it is summer) and use extra time to read books. If you can, I'd also get a subscription to Harper's. The SAT uses articles like its own all the time. Also, it's my personal belief that most of your preparation should go into understanding the material. Study grammar; any grammar book will do. The multiple choice are very cut and dry and it's hard to be tricked if you know the rules. You may also notice that your writing improves as you become less encumbered with grammatical problems. For critical reading, just keep reading. Focus on understanding. Realize that for each correct answer, it really is what the author meant to say, what the word means, or the tone of the essay, excerpt etc... There are no shades of gray in the answers. They specifically take parts of the selection to trick you. If you truly understand the passage, what the author is trying to say, his or her position and tone, you'll get the reading comprehension questions correct. I don't read particularly quickly, and there are a lot people who advocate a "skip or skim the passage; go to the questions; go back" approach. Myself, I spend the majority of my time on the reading. Not at a crawling speed, but definitely not rushing. If I don't understand a sentence, I take a 10 second break to try and understand it; if you still can't understand it, then go on, and check back. Once I'm done with reading the passage(s) for comprehension, the questions are easy. Realize that there is a purposeful structure in writing, each word, sentence, and paragraph has a purpose. Try and be interested in what you're reading. The test writers don't want to bore themselves with boring, prosaic passages. If you look to reading the passage with interest, it can make going through the passage easier. I've only read through two books' sections on critical reading (Princeton Review being the other. Except for the tests, maybe, I would avoid Princeton Review like the plague for its review sections) and McGraw-Hill worked extremely well, even as hard it can be to study for the critical reading section. You may find some of its ideas, if you read it, in my suggestions :) I don't know what, but the book just "clicked" something in my head and I was able to approach a lot of questions a lot better, and the "enjoy what you read" suggestion was invaluable.</p>
<p>For math, go through a workbook or read through the concepts in books. Your time will be better spent there. Personally, I can, again, recommend McGraw-Hill's book for its math section (and for its writing and reading section; it's quite good). Make sure you understand the lessons, do the concept reviews. If you get a question wrong, go back to the lesson. Use your mistake to understand the concept better, not just to be more familiar with a certain type of problem. People who score well without preparing simply have a good conceptual understanding of the topics that the math section tests. They don't just have an encyclopedic knowledge of all possible questions, which it seems like what you're trying to do, with your 17 tests. You'll put in less time (depending how strong you are in math already) and will actually be able to use your studying to strengthen your overall math skills. If you use that book, then I'd go through a Math workbook (I used Barron's, but Kaplan might be just as good, I don't know). Ignore its lessons as they're useless for anyone that doesn't already understand the concepts and just go through the practice questions. There are about 20 to 30 questions for each concept, if I recall correctly.</p>
<p>For what it's worth, we may be somewhat similar. I've never been an exactly studious student, I rarely study (more so recently though), and like to do one class's homework in the class before it. But I've generally always understood the topics taught in class, which helps. I took the PSAT last November and got a 640 (adjusted to "SAT numbers") on critical reading, 490 on math, and 590 on writing skills. At the time, I didn't really understand the numbers much other than that my friends all had much higher scores than I :) Since then, I planned to take the SAT in March. I purchased some books, I read through a lot of writing/grammar books (this was unrelated to studying though, as I did it months before I even thought about the SAT), and read through Princeton Review's book in about 2 days (did I mention it's horrible? :)) and went through a practice test. It was enough to familiarize myself with some of the questions and get a general feel for the test. I took it in March and got a 680 in critical reading, 600 in math, 680 for writing. Obviously better than my PSAT scores, but a lot worse than I knew I could do. I signed up the May test. I took about 1 month of hard core studying (to be fair, it's really hard for me to call it hard core, because I really found it enjoyableShock! Horror!to actually work through McGraw-Hill's study sections. I guess that actually understanding new math concepts was encouraging). For the first 3 weeks or so, I worked through Barron's math workbook, usually working mostly on Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Then on the last week and a half, I would get home from school, screw around until about 4, and then go to a library (a college library, if you have access to it, can be a lot quieter and with fewer people) and work until about 6/6:30. I took 4 practice tests on the last 4 days before the test. I took the test and got a 720 in critical reading, 700 in math, and 730 in writing (this was a surprise as I was expecting to do much better in crit. reading, but worse in writing). Overall I've gone up 430 points from my PSAT. I am almost certain I can get at least a 750 on each with just 2/3 more weeks of studying, but honestly I don't care. I'm going to focus my summer on studying Math IIC (I think I'll do better with it, initially, as I am more familiar with its concepts. A lot of the SAT's concepts are from beginning classes and had questions I had just never seen before. I never took Pre-algebra or Integrated math. I sat in on a class once, and noticed that practically all the questions were just like SAT ones. So that may have had an effect on me.) and perhaps French. I'll also take Literature.</p>
<p>Well I don't know how I got from my suggestions for you to talking about my taking that SAT II Literature (I have a tendency to ramble :-D), but hopefully you can wade through my post and glean something useful from it :)</p>
<p>PS: I almost always proofread my posts (I actually like to use forums for a discussion of ideas, rather than a chat room, but it often seems like I'm in the minority, unfortunately), but I've already spent far too much time with this and need to study for my last 2 finals. So try to look over any errors (and they are there). If anything obfuscates the meaning of what I tried to say, please ask and I'll clarify.</p>