Extreme Makeover: SAT Edition

<p>Hey Guys</p>

<p>I am an international student taking the SATs in about the next 6 months or so. English is my first language, I am fluent in it but jeepers have I been struggling with the Writing and the Critical Reading sections (Even when I look at some of the answers, I still have small disagreements).
I use the Master The SAT book by Peterson's to practise (How good is this book?) and have done abysmally on the practice tests, 1760-1960. Math is my saving grace though, i'm always roughly in the 700s (sometimes 750+), I just need to familiarize myself with the US units of measurement. I usually get 650 for CR and then in the 500s for MCW.
How can I get my CR and MCW scores up drastically? Could someone please link a vocab list which they think is essential? Any other tips out there about acing these sections? </p>

<p>Thanks guys - i need to do well on these, everything depends on them.</p>

<p>First off- 1760 to 1960 is NOT abysmal, and if you think so, you’re being way too hard on yourself. Many people would kill to get scores in that range.</p>

<p>Next- you should not use any book but the blue book, at least for practice tests. Any third-party author will not have a test that accurately reflects the SAT’s content, whereas the blue book is published by the CollegeBoard itself.</p>

<p>I’ll reaffirm my belief that Writing is by far the easiest section to improve, because of how simple you can make the multiple choice to be. A quick Google of “sat grammar rules” will give you a pretty solid pdf as the first link. Know those rules, and you pretty much have the multiple choice beat- they test the same exact stuff… every single time.</p>

<p>Thank you very much for your help - I will learn the Grammar Rules and Vocab off by heart! I like that Peterson’s gives explanations with their book, other than that… there’s nothing to write home about.
I just took the online college board practice test: 1870 (M:700;CR:590;W:580) - distraught, i need to get my scores up to at least 2100. :(</p>