<p>I want to go up 300 points by the December SAT (from around 2000 to around 2300), going up 100 in each area. Any prep materials that would work for this?</p>
<p>Prep materials: lots of practice tests + your weekend
do 1 test every weekend and analyze why you got things wrong. that should bring your score up significantly. and if you want to get good at the essay, practice those too because its really formulaic.</p>
<p>looks like impossible =p</p>
<p>any particular prep materials that might be helpful? What about the Official SAT prep thing, is that better than princeton review/ barrons, etc.?</p>
<p>collegeboards material all the way.
QAS, 10RS</p>
<p>I don't know about impossible, but:
in May 2008, I had 750 in Math, 660 in Writing, 600 in CR. </p>
<p>I checked this morning on my October scores. 800 Math, 760 Writing (Essay went from 8 to a 12), and 680 in CR. I went up 230 points. </p>
<p>I did a bit of research on what essay techniques seemed to be most successful (I ended up writing, and giving one example from history, one from literature, and one from my life), and I did SAT questions of the day.</p>
<p>I was just more careful on the math, I tried to ignore my ADD tendencies and really focus on the CR section, and I read all of the answers in the writing before answering instead of just picking the first one that sounded wrong. I just... focused. </p>
<p>Buy a book, learn all of the english grammar rules. Get a vocab hit list. Practice not making mistakes on the math, and learning anything that you don't know that's covered. Do lots of CR sections (I've heard that for those who large numbers of CR tests, patterns start jumping at you with what kinds of questions are asked.)</p>
<p>The moral:
It's possible, but difficult.</p>
<p>At this point about the only thing you can do is increase your speed. Like the7thmagus says, lots of practice tests in real timed conditions should help you in this area. Think of your brain as a slowly filling bag (last 11 years). For SAT purposes it's practically full. What you need is a way of looking thru it faster to find the stuff already there not to add a ton more stuff that you won't be able to find. Pajkaj had 5 months you have 6 weeks.</p>
<p>@aranyria: It's highly possible. On my second sitting I improved 310 points(200 in CR, 70 in Math and 40 in Writing) and got a 2300(790/780/730). Master vocabulary and practice till you die or run out of tests(<--my case)!</p>
<p>I know that +210 is possible, that's the increase that I got.</p>
<p>What I learned:
Essay Score: 11/12; For the essays, make sure you try to use literary examples from books like Hamlet and Grapes of Wrath, if you're lazy like I am, pick two books that you liked and recently read in your English class. Use these books on the essay part. Looking back at past essays, I think you can use Hamlet, Grapes of Wrath, Great Expectations, and Great Gatsby to answer pretty much all the essay questions. Fill out the two pages when writing the essay. Don't try to use personal examples or sci/tech examples, they are weak, and I'm pretty sure the readers won't be able to understand them as much as they understand Grapes of Wrath, etc. i.e., don't be talking about differential equations, Mathematica, etc in your SAT essays. Essay Increase: 9 -> 11</p>
<p>Writing: 780; Writing a good essay helps, it really boosts your Writing score. This is probably the easiest section to see an increase in, I went from 690->780. Just do practice real tests from the Blue Book or QAS, make sure you go back after the test and look at all the questions (including the ones you got right) and know why you got that questions correct/incorrect. Books: RocketReview (read Writing section if you want some basic refresh in grammar), Barrons 2400 (just do the practice questions, don't read the text)</p>
<p>Reading: 730; This one I'm not really sure, I bought Barrons 2400 to do the CR section practice, again just do practice questions, you probably don''t need to read the text, but you can if you want. For the sentence completion, I decided that word lists suck, so I never used them. Here's what I did: For each (including the ones you got right) sentence completion question look up any of the 5 word choices that you don't know even if it isn't the right answer. Improve you're vocab using a dictionary, don't use word lists, I think they're rather worthless. Reading increase: 660 -> 730</p>
<p>Math: 800; I can't really say much, I'm a math person, so the math section is pretty easy for me. Do practice tests. 750 -> 800, make sure you don't make stupid mistakes.</p>
<p>That said, pick and choose from the suggestions and just go with it, I'm sure none of the strategies that we give will completely work for you.</p>
<p>It's possible, it's just very difficult. I just got my October score and I improved by 330 points, from 1860 to 2190. When your current score is already 2000, 300 point improvement is hard. Although it was 10 months after the first sitting - December 2007 (LOL), I believe it's still viable to raise your score by 300+ but only if you spend the time you have left from now up until Dec well, because in fact after my first sitting I wasn't really serious about SAT, and when I suddenly realized it was 3 weeks away from my second test, I freaked out and accelerated. I agree that the only thing you can do now is spend more time on the SAT, increase your speed and efficiency. Set a plan and concentrate on the section(s) you want to improve the most. During that last 3 weeks, I spent about 2-3 hours per day studying the SAT using RocketReview, and the last 8 days I took practice tests in the Blue Book in virtual testing condition. </p>
<p>regarding materials, I did study Barron's, Princeton review and Kaplan for my first test, but RocketReview was the only one that really worked, especially for CR. I would highly recommend taking as many REAL practice tests as possible, this is VERY important. If you run out of tests, those from PR is decent but don't bother taking practice tests from other books.</p>
<p>Went up 220 in two months, yay! Thanks all.</p>
<p>i went up 100 points in 2 months. </p>
<p>all in writing.</p>
<p>overall in my SAT career (yeah it's a career!) i went up 290 points</p>
<p>first sat -> now
M - 650 -> 690 (lets not talk about it. i was pretty sure i had 740+)
CR - 630 -> 690
W - 550, 51MC 9 Essay -> 740, 67 MC 12 Essay</p>
<p>+290</p>
<p>all i did was study Grubers grammar rules..... and sparknotes essay formula (since that is all the essay is. a formula.
)
not quite 300.... but pretty close! (although improving from an 1800 is easier than improving from a 2000+)</p>
<p>I went from a 166 on the PSAT sophomore year to a 2190 on the December SAT by not studying at all. I really attribute it to some great teachers I have had.</p>
<p>^ lolz my 136 PSAT sophomore year -> 2120 SAT senior year pwns your story!!!!!!!!!</p>
<p>Congratulations aranyria. To what do you attribute your success?</p>
<p>Sophomore PSAT: 196
Senior SAT: 2320</p>
<p>It certainly is possible.</p>
<p>1880->2300
its possible :D</p>
<p>"Congratulations aranyria. To what do you attribute your success?"</p>
<p>Mostly a bad first SAT since my PSAT result predicted higher, lol. But I also familiarized myself with the test by taking practice tests.</p>
<p>anhtimmy</p>
<p>what did you study? and what was your study schedule after school- every day?</p>