<p>I need to improve my SAT score by about 50 to 100 points this december. Any strategies for accomplishing this goal? I esp. have a problem with critical reading...that's the one I always mess up on.</p>
<p>Word Smart is an amazing book. It'll improve your verbal like whoa. Also Kaplan's "1600" book is good at getting the harder questions right.</p>
<p>where do you get word smart?</p>
<p>I got it at Borders books, but you could get it off amazon.</p>
<p>whats your best verbal score wickedsmaaht or how much did it improve from using those books</p>
<p>The last time I took SAT was October 2003 (Junior year). My verbal then was a 630. I took the SATs again this past Saturday, so I don't know how much I improved yet, but I was scoring 700+ on practice tests. A lot of people claim their score went up 100+ points. It's great. I highly recommend it.</p>
<p>are 2 retakes tolerated at all?</p>
<p>Sure! Most people retake it at least 2 times. There is no limit. Plus, colleges might interpret multiple retakes as a sign of trying to do better. It's good to retake because your score usually goes up. However, it's not so good if you go overboard and retake like 10 times.</p>
<p>Ah, and going beyond that:
Does anyone have any information about taking the test as a "walk-in" / "standby" ?</p>
<p>Thanks Wicked! I have 2 wordsmart books already. Did your increase in vocab memorization increase ur score? Or was it something else?</p>
<p>Re: Standby testing</p>
<p>you just have to get there early, since it's usually first come first serve. If your school is a testing center, you might get special treatment there. Just go there, tell them you want to take a test as a standby and they'll call you in if they have room.</p>
<p>MTC - Yes, memorization helped. But also the book reused a lot of the new words in context throughout the book so you got used to using them. I believe this helped my critical reading.</p>
<p>Wicked, do you suggest that i just go through my wordsmarts really quickly and just look at the words and definitions? Or should I slowly go through 1 book and read everything carefully? What's the best approach for the next 27 days?</p>
<p>Read through them quickly and memorize the words. You will know the words for the SAT, but they wont stick. Since you have only 27 days, read through it as quickly as you can but still memorizing the words. Leave about a week or two before the test to just review all of the words you learned. This will refresh your memory for the test. However, if you want them to stick in your mind, continue reviewing after the SAT and try to use the words in conversations as much as you can. Eventually you wont even have to think about them and they'll feel natural. But cram as much as you can for now and review review review. That's basically what I did.</p>
<p>um. kaplan 1600 suxs butt. i used it, and it helped me none..and i still did poorly on the verbal..(660)...i listed good vocabulary books/websites on a post before..lets see if i can dig it up again...aah. here it is after 5 minutes of searching...</p>
<p>that is very good for vocabulary..i missed an avg. of 1 SC and 2 Analogies using these words...</p>
<p>for critical reading..which still killed me...use PR's tactics..i went from missing 13 CR to missing 8...which suxs...so i guess that i have no say in this...</p>
<p>I though kaplan 1600 was great! But I guess it's different for everyone.</p>