High GPA, low SAT

Test Preparation
1

<p>I know what you're thinking: "His high school grades are inflated." It's not true, but I don't blame you. Let me shed light on a little background info though:</p>

<p>Weighted GPA: 4.4
Full IB courseload.</p>

<p>ECs:
Speech and Debate club president
Speech and Debate team captain
Awards:
1st place Lion's Club area competition (that's the 3rd level of competition)
1st place Rotary winner (club level)
3rd place California State Tournament qualifier in student congress
1st place A division student congress
2nd place American Legion club level
And a bunch of other things of lesser significance</p>

<p>JSA Secretary
Key Club Senior Rep
National Honor Society Web Tech (lol)</p>

<p>1st place in the county art fair as well as two honorable mentions</p>

<p>3 years varsity golf
1 year JV wrestling</p>

<p>Oh yeah, and a 1750 on my first unprepared SAT I and for SAT IIs I got 690 and 650 on history and physics respectively.</p>

<p>That was my first time taking the SAT but after many hours of practice I don't expect much better. Maybe an 1800 or 1850 if I'm lucky. I keep doing the 35 question writing section and reviewing the answers I get wrong (on different tests from the blue book) but after 7 times I still get a consistent number of problems wrong: 7. No matter what do.</p>

<p>I'm not sure why this is. High level calculus is a snap to learn and do, so are intricate and deep essays, but it seems I just can't do as well as my peers on the SAT. I know I'm as intelligent if not more intelligent than my peers who get 2050-2200+ so I don't quite understand why I can excel at anything but this test. I've done some sections from previous tests, reviewed and understood wrong problems, but it seems that I'll always make mistakes no matter what. It's like I plateaued at a point where I'd expect better. </p>

<p>A breakdown-
Critical reading: 620
Math: 570
Writing: 560</p>

<p>I'm not sure what to make out of this or what to do. Any ideas would be appreciated.</p>

2

<p>

</p>

<p>That is odd. There isn’t much of a reason for an intelligent person to make the same mistakes over and over. </p>

<p>Try my [url=<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/955109-silverturtles-guide-sat-admissions-success.html]guide[/url”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/955109-silverturtles-guide-sat-admissions-success.html]guide[/url</a>] if you haven’t already; perhaps you have not been preparing as effectively as you could (though you said that you were taking the time to understand your mistakes and that you were using official tests). If you still can’t improve, try the ACT.</p>

3

<p>I’m looking at your guide right now, thanks. I don’t necessarily make the same mistakes over and over again, but sometimes (I’m not sure to what extent) I look at the right answer and it bothers me because they worded it in a way it shouldn’t be worded. In trying to preserve good style and the original meaning, I guess, I pick the answer that’s technically wrong but is best in my opinion. But again, I’m not sure to what extent this is the case or how to fix it. It’s just that sometimes I disagree with the correct answer and no SAT explanation book can convince me otherwise or make me understand what seems to be their point of view.</p>

4

<p>Perhaps you could share some of those objectionable questions here and we could battle it out; and in the process you may be indoctrinated to the College Board’s mentality.</p>

5

<p>You are UC material.</p>

6

<p>Truffiliepuff, I don’t mind that at all if I can get to UC Berkeley, but even then my SAT scores barely meet the 25th percentile.</p>

<p>Silverturtle:
blue book test 7, section 4, number 11</p>

<p>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Readers of the novice writer’s recent book have said that it is at once frustrating because of its chaotic structure BUT ITS ORIGINALITY IS STILL A DELIGHT.</p>

<p>Pick the correct substitution for the text in all caps.</p>

<p>My answer: although it is delightfully original
“Correct answer”: and delightful because of its originality


&lt;p&gt;Why I think my answer can be the right one: "at once" is very ambiguous. That's why SAT sentences suck. It's like they do their best to give you ■■■■■■■■ sentences that are technically correct. Anyway, "at once" can have two meanings. It can mean something is several things at the same time, or it can describe how fast something happened. I interpreted it as readers immediately found the book to be X (in other words, the latter interpretation). The next thought in my mind was how can something be frustrating and delightful at the same time? This rules out their "correct" answer. If the play is frustrating then only a certain aspect of the play can be delightful. But this is all based on the interpretation of the ambiguous words "at once."&lt;/p&gt;
7

<p>

</p>

<p>No. Something can definitely be both frustrating and delightful, and the superficial contradiction between these ideas is often associated with the use of “at once” in the simultaneous sense. Here is the American Heritage Dictionary’s example sentence for “at once”:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Clearly, what the College Board considers to be the correct answer is completely correct. Your choice is incorrect in the same way that the original choice is incorrect, so I’m not sure why you chose that over how the sentence had been. Both choices lack parallelism with “frustrating because of its chaotic structure.” The correct answer preserves that syntactic form of “[adjective] because of its [noun].” </p>

<p>Even if we disregard the matters of parallelism and assume that “at once” is used in the “immediately” sense, we would still have to change the sentence in order for it to be grammatical:</p>

<p>Readers of the novice writer’s recent book have said that it is [immediately] frustrating because of its chaotic structure [but that] it is delightfully original.</p>

<p>When we drop the idiomatic form of “at once,” both “it is delightfully original” and “it is immediately frustrating” become direct objects of “said,” so we can’t merely connect them using the subordinating conjunction “although”; we need a coordinating conjunction (“but” is the logical candidate here).</p>

<p>I hope that this clarifies.</p>

8

<p>My cousin got into UCLA with 1950 SAT, rank 7/438 with I think a 3.6 or 3.7 UW GPA and 4.1 W GPA. Got mainly 3’s and 4’s on his AP exams.</p>

<p>His girlfriend got into UC Berkeley with 1920 SAT, rank 3/438 with I think a 3.8 UW GPA and 4.3 W GPA. Got 4’s and 5’s on her AP exams, with two 3’s I believe.</p>

<p>The valedictorian of my school got into UC Berkeley with 1840 SAT, rank 1/438 (of course) with a 4.0 W GPA and 4.67 W GPA. Got all 5’s on his 15 AP exams.</p>

<p>The salutatorian also got into UC Berkeley with 2010 SAT, rank 2/438 with I think a 3.9 UW GPA and 4.5 W GPA. Got mainly 4’s and 5’s on her 12 AP exams.</p>

<p>They all had mundane, generic extracurriculars too that reflected NOTHING of their interest and/or their major in college; a sport + some random clubs.
My cousin quit after doing 2 years of Frosh & JV tennis, was only in 3 clubs and held the position of Treasurer, Vice President, and Vice President.</p>

<p>His girlfriend did 4 years of tennis, was only in 4 clubs and held the position of President, President, Vice President, Vice President.</p>

<p>The valedictorian did 4 years of cross country, was only in 4 clubs and held the position of President, Vice President, President, and Vice President.</p>

<p>The salutatorian did 4 years of tennis, won some city speech competitions, was only in 3 clubs and held the position of President, Vice President, President.</p>

<p>It’s just UC. They mainly care about GPA and the essays and don’t really give a damn about the SATs.</p>