Desperately Need Help with Math

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>Hello. This is my first time posting here, as I am a brand new member, so please forgive me if I'm posting this in the incorrect location.</p>

<p>I'm in dire need of help with the SAT Math section. I have been struggling with it since Day 1 and I can't seem to improve my scores. I'm currently a Junior in High School, and I took the PSATs in October 2010 and received a 64 in math (640 SAT equivalent). During this time, I was attending a one-on-one SAT prep course with a great instructor, and she had helped me to bring that PSAT score up from around a 48 the year before to a 64, and I was very happy with that. I continued taking the prep course after I took my PSATs in October 2010, and I proceeded to take the real SATs in November of 2010. I was dismayed when I received a Math score of 640 on the SATs, showing no improvement since my PSAT in October. Frustrated, I decided to study math a bit harder in preparation for the SAT again. So some time went by (several months, in fact) and today I just took the May SAT Subject test in Math Level 1. It was going just fine for the first 25 questions, but the next 25 gave me immense trouble. I must have skipped at least 10 out of the total 50 questions in the Math Level 1 subject test, and I know that my score will be mediocre, at best, when I receive it at the end of May.</p>

<p>I just can't understand what's wrong. I'm ranked #1 (out of about 300) in my Junior class, I have a 4.0 GPA, and I have a high-90s grade in Honors Pre-Calculus right now (would've taken AP Calc, but that's not offered at my school until Senior year...). I can perform well on classroom-setting math tests with straight-forward questions and word problems, but when I get to taking any type of SAT math test, I never perform well. With the colleges to which I'm looking to apply, this SAT Math score will be the key factor getting in my way.</p>

<p>I desperately need to raise that 640 to at least a 750 on the SATs. I'm retaking the SAT about a month from now in June. Is there anything I can possibly do to raise my Math score by at least 110 points in the next month? My AP classes will basically me finished after I take my last two AP exams next week, so I should have plenty of time to review SAT Math from then until the June SAT - I just have no idea of what strategy to use or where to go from here. This is going to seriously harm my chances of being accepted into the colleges I've been exploring, and I can't let this happen.</p>

<p>Thank you for your time in reading this lengthy message; I just needed to put the whole picture into perspective in my own verbose manner. I would greatly appreciate any advice that anyone has to offer.</p>

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<p>Sounds to me like there’s only one small missing component for you. I’m willing to bet that on many SAT questions, including the harder ones you’re doing the problems the same way you would do them in school. I was just working with a student that was doing this. I met with him twice, and just by showing him a few simple SAT specific strategies, and making sure he used them on the harder questions instead of doing algebra, he went from a 670 to a 760 (on actual SATs he used as practice tests). </p>

<p>So you need to do 2 things - one that can be taken care of immediately, and one that you will need a bit of effort for.</p>

<p>(1) make sure you know as many basic SAT specific math strategies as possible.
(2) make sure that every time you do hard practice problems you use these basic strategies instead of doing the problems the way you would in school. </p>

<p>Number (2) is where the work comes in. You need to be very active about this. You will see a problem, and think “I can do this using algebra.” You will do the algebra, get tricked and get the question wrong. After looking it over you will see your mistake, and think “oh - that’s right, it was just a careless error. I can get this one right.” This is your mind tricking you into thinking that you’re doing things the right way. Don’t fall into this trap.</p>

<p>Best of luck!</p>

3

<p>I got an 800 in math and I raised that score from a base of 690, so I know what you are going through. I am also an AP calculus student.
I went through TONS of strategy guides and such to get better at math but they only raised my grade to 700. However, strategy IS important to tackling the SAT math section.
What you need to do, as the above poster said, is to learn SAT math strategy, because most of the SAT is all about tricky questions and such, and also drastically improve your fundamental math knowledge. This includes things like basic geometry, algebra, exponentials, and such.</p>

<p>Since you have all the way until June to get ready, I would suggest doing what I did to get ready for the math section. I bought a barrons, princeton review(the 11 test version, NOT the review version), and most importantly, a Blue Book and went through every single math section in there. If you cannot afford all those books, just buy the Princeton Review and the Blue Book, and if even that is a problem, stick with the Blue Book.</p>

<p>Use the Barrons book to learn strategy ONLY. There math questions are significantly harder than the ones on the SAT and this can actually be detrimental to your score. After you feel good with the strategy part of the SAT (which should take you 2 days MAX to finish), go through ALL the math sections in the Princeton Review AND Blue Book. When you start off, don’t time yourself. Do only one section at a time and try to do the problems as accurately as possible. After you finish a single section(not an entire test worth, comprising of three sections), check your answers for that section and read the answer explanations for ever problem (even the ones you got right) so that you will learn faster ways of doing the problem if your attempt was too complicated. After a while, you should be getting MUCH more accurate in the math section and you should still have a bunch of tests left to practice with. Now, you have to practice with time.
[Rubik’s</a> Cube Timer - CubeTimer.com](<a href=“http://www.cubetimer.com/]Rubik’s”>http://www.cubetimer.com/)
is a good online timer to use to time yourself.</p>

<p>At this point, you should be getting most, if not all, the answers right when there is no time. As you do more and more practice with time, you will see your score improve drastically.</p>

<p>Some things to note about my strategy and the math section:
-whatever anyone tells you, the SAT math section is very redundant; they will test you on the same concepts in the same way every test. This pattern may not be obvious at first, but as you work through the practice tests (espeically the Blue Book), you will notice this pattern</p>

<p>-One thing I like to do in the math section is to finish off all my problems IN BOOK before I bubble in the answer. I ran out of time alot in the beginning, but as my speed improved, i usually had 2-3 minutes to spare to bubble in (you don;t have to use this one, but just something to keep in mind)</p>

<p>-YOU MUST go through every test in the Blue Book!!!, I cannot stress how important this is because the Blue Book is from the maker of the SAT and represents the test better than anyone else’s tests</p>

<p>-There are no answer explanations in the Blue Book, but you can usually fins them online if you google the problem.</p>

<p>-You must analyze every problem after doing a section to see alternate ways of doing it, once you become proficient, you can stop doing this and just focus on the problems you missed.</p>

<p>-My strategy is based off of how strong a person’s fundamental knowledge in math is. You need clear understanding of concepts and if you feel weak in that, focus on that as well. A list of all concepts tested on the SAT math is given in the math section of the blue book. Note that the section is a review only, not a place to LEARN concepts.</p>

<p>-The last thing I can think of right now is: PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE
The most important “strategy” or “secret” to the sat is practice. this applies t o ALL sections.</p>

<p>-that is all I can think of right now, please don’t hesitate to post questions, and GOOD LUCK!!!</p>

4

<p>I just want to say thank you very much for your insights, DrSteve and theScintillate. They are going to be very helpful in my pursuit to improve my SAT Math score.</p>

<p>Now that I think about it, I have been doing exactly what DrSteve mentioned - trying to solve every SAT question the same way I would in school, using Algebra. That must be a major flaw in my approach to the SAT Math section. Also, thanks a whole lot, Scintillate, for your helpful and descriptive post. I will try to follow as much of it as possible, as it sounds like a plan that would help me here. I do have the Blue Book, and I’ll purchase the Princeton Review book, as well. I’ll start this method and I’ll come back if I have any questions.</p>

<p>Thank you again to both of you for your help here. Hopefully I can improve this score.</p>