<p>I’m a junior right now, so I didn’t have much time to study for it (AP classes TT.TT)
For Math, I already took Calculus BC, so I didn’t study much for it, and just winged it. </p>
<p>For Critical Reading, I read tons of classical books starting from 7th grade. I mostly learned most of the difficult vocabulary from talking to some of the smartest kids in my grade and my english teachers. Learning from a book really didn’t help me…</p>
<p>For Writing…I’m asian, I just naturally suck at it. </p>
<p>Get a good night’s sleep the day before and relax. I watched She’s the Man with my sister and had some popcorn. ^^ The SAT is considered a relatively easy test, so don’t psych yourself out. ^^</p>
<p>The first time I took it, I got 2310, and I’m taking it a second time in June. But the first actual SAT I took was probably around my 70th full test I’ve taken.
There are 3 types of people that can potentially score very high on the SATs.
The people who aren’t good at any of the sections but started studying since elementary school.
The people who rare good at Writing and Math and fail at CR (me v.v)
The people who can’t do math and writing but rock at CR.</p>
<p>These are the general types i’ve seen, but i’m sure there are other cases. When I started studying in the summer of grade 8, I could score approx 650 CR, 700 W, and 800 M.</p>
<p>My teacher recommended me a grammar book: The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. I read it over twice, and have scored 780~800 ever since.</p>
<p>As for CR, if you aren’t inherently good at it, then read more literature and do practice tests.</p>
<p>And for math, I find the best way to practice is do the old AMC tests. Many of those questions (probably #1-#15) can prepare you well.</p>
<p>Overall, I think the trick is to think outside of the SATs themselves. Instead of trying to “beat” the test, learn and practice with harder concepts that incorporate the concepts that will show up in the SATs.</p>
<p>This is very sound advice. I think the main reason I went from 680 to 770 on the math section after one week of studying is that I used Barron’s textbook, which, while covering the same material as the real SAT, uses problems that are consistently harder than the ones on the test. After getting used to Barron’s more complicated problems (it takes more steps to solve them, or they test several concepts at once, etc.), the SAT was a piece of cake. (And I still managed to miss a question, but hey, I’m a C+ student in math.)</p>
<p>I took it last saturday and I did really bad. english is not my first language (I’ve only been here for 2 years) so I wasn’t able to finish my essay. because of that I got really distracted…I got so confused even with the easy questions. It was my first time taking the SATs and I didn’t know what’s going to be on it. Thanks to this thread now I know what to do the next time I take it. But im wondering if retaking it will make a difference…the results aren’t out yet but im predicting that i didn’t do well on it since I only got a 137 on the PSATs…do colleges look on the one the you did good at or do they only look at your first score? any advise on this? sorry for being off topic I didn’t bother to make another thread</p>