<p>I know this probably has been asked many times, but my next (and last) SAT will be in November. I already do very well in Math and Writing (consistent 780+s) and I already achieved a Math score of 800 on a previous SAT for a total of 2160. I think I can do even better this time since I got a relatively low Writing score (680) rather than what I expected.</p>
<p>I'm hoping to score in the 780s in Math/Writing and at least a 750 on my CR section. My CR scores vary dramatically, which I believe will be my major issue in order to get a 2250+ at the least. This often has to do with the long passages specifically. I either get a perfect on them or I miss 4-5 questions regarding the same passage. I feel that I also do extremely badly in the sentence completions especially, since I quite literally miss all hard questions and several of the medium ones. This is because I always felt that I could focus my time on improving elsewhere (I partially blame for lame PR tutor for this). I have never actually directly studied vocab before.</p>
<p>Well, here's the question. Should I spend my one and a half months left grinding out vocab lists or reading tons of passages for those questions? Oh, and I was also wondering if I should still review some Math. As I said earlier, I got an 800 before, but will colleges care if I get only a 700 or something this next time? With score choice these days, I'm not sure what to do.</p>
<p>Well if your problem is the passages, definitely work on those. Try active reading: underlining important phrases, writing down the big ideas, etc. That will save time and energy because you won’t have to keep rereading the passage when answering a question. The more you do it the easier it gets. </p>
<p>As for the math question, I believe colleges will look at the highest score you’ve gotten out of all the tests you’ve taken (at least that’s what they say on their websites/info sessions). So I wouldn’t worry about studying/reviewing for math that much, but if it will calm your nerves then you might as well.</p>
<p>Study 20-30 vocab words per day and keep revising them the next day. It takes about 30-40 minutes per day to memorize them properly and it would amount to nearly 1000 words before your test. It would help you ace the sentence completions or at least largely improve on them.</p>
<p>Congrats on how well you’re doing already! I agree with the earlier posters that’s it’s not going to be worth your time to spend much time on either math or writing between now and November. I wouldn’t give up prepping them entirely, since you don’t want your scores to drop off precipitously, but just do a few questions here and there to keep yourself primed!</p>
<p>As for reading passages, try to analyze the types of questions you’re missing. Since you tend to be either all or nothing (missing quite a few or getting them all right), that seems to mean that you are influenced by the type of passage you’ve got. Maybe you struggle with the fiction passages, or something about the arts, or science or whatever. Maybe you just don’t like reading some passages. The thing to remember is that you don’t have to learn or remember everything and every word of every passage - you’re not going to be tested on it later, you know? You need to only understand the basic concepts, and most of the questions give you a line reference to go back and answer them. For those that don’t, remember to rely ONLY on the information you’ve read IN the passage. A trap that a lot of high achieving students fall into is that they start relying on information they’ve learned outside of the test to answer questions. Whatever you do, don’t use any outside knowledge when you think about the questions! Every word of your correct answer has to actually be reflected in the passage. Hope that helps a little.</p>
<p>That’s interesting what you’ve said about vocabulary. I’m really finding with my tutoring students that their schools, and even test prep classes, are giving them absolutely no help with vocab. It’s just getting no play even though it accounts for a lot of points! There was a thread recently on vocab you should be able to find with lots of recommendations. As for me, I recommend [Word-Nerd:</a> vocabulary test prep for the SAT and PSAT](<a href=“http://www.word-nerd.com%5DWord-Nerd:”>http://www.word-nerd.com) to all my tutoring students. It’s a really efficient program to learn a lot in a short time.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you. You’re clearly an accomplished student and you’re headed for great things!</p>