<p>I never considered myself a dumb student. I am a Junior and so far, I have had a consecutive 4.0 GPA for 3 years. I have already taken 7 AP classes and have all gotten 5s on all my AP tests. At the same time I am also involved in a variety of extracurricular activities and am the the president of our school's Academic Decathlon team. The only problem is that I have a horrible SAT score of 1800. I have many friends that get around 2300 on their first try on the SAT and it makes me feel really bad. I have to lie about my SAT scores whenever they ask me what I got because I feel ashamed to tell them my true score. I have been working on the SAT for half a year now, but I have only improved my score by 100 points. I have done around 15 full practice tests and have been working on it every day. I study the SAT way more than my friends, but I am nowhere near my their results. I can get above 700 on the math section of the SAT, but I am really bad at the reading and writing section. I get low 500s on both my reading and writing section and I really want to improve my scores, but I find it really hard to do so. If you have any advice, please tell me. </p>
<p>I would take some approaches other than practice tests. For one thing, I would recommend Erica Meltzer’s “Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar” and “The Critical Reader”. Obviously, study vocabulary you don’t know. There are lists in “Barrons SAT” and elsewhere. For the writing section, you can improve a lot by learning a few grammar errors. Also, search this forum and the best of thread at the top. There are a couple of posts of how to pwn the critical reading section.</p>
<p>There are many students who struggle with improving their reading scores. With 15 tests under your belt, it is obvious that your practices are not well-designed, and that you are simply repeating the same mistakes in your approach. This is probably a matter of not having received much guidance in critical reading. The books by Erica should help, but you should NOT abandon the use of official tests in favor of of studying lists of words, and especially not the Barron’s one. </p>
<p>Not improving the writing section is rather puzzling. It is usually the easiest one to improve with a bit of effort. You do not seem to have a problem with testing since you have numerous scores of 5 on your APs. </p>
<p>All in all, my suggestion is to make sure you are actually using official tests such as the ones found in the Blue Book and to purchase the Black Book by Michael Barrett for gaining guidance in the verbal parts. </p>
<p>Your math also needs work, but there are plenty of sources to help you. Lastly, make sure to divide your sections in smaller stacks, and spend enough time on each before moving on. Consider forming a study group where you will alternate teaching and learning. </p>
<p>My son found “Direct Hits” useful, and there is a vocabulary book with cartoons that helped him, can’t recall the name.</p>
<p>My son couldn’t improve his CR section, but did improve his writing a bit. </p>
<p>Being well-read helps a LOT. And taking a course can help a lot, it helped my son improve. The online College Board course is cheap ($60) and can help.</p>
<p>I have a couple of options for you:
if you study extremely hard and feel confident enough you can take the SAT again. Since you are a senior, it won’t hurt you. And, I recommend you to take it in May
OR
you can take the ACT - if you are good at science as well then you should the take the ACT. And, most kids typically do better on the ACT than the SAT. The SAT is also much trickier than the ACT because the SAT tests kids’ IQs and tries to trick them with the questions. The ACT tests on how you comprehend stuff.</p>
<p>And, I am a senior and I’ve been looking at other threads of who gets into college with what kinds of grades.
If you are a really good student in school, do a lot of extracurriculars, volunteer, and have good essays - you will be fine. Colleges understand that not all kids are good test takers. You can be smart and not be a good test taker </p>
<p>So although SAT scores are very important, so are the other parts of your college application.
AND, if you are really good at something, colleges will be looking for that too. </p>