<p>For those who have already passed the SATs, how did you prepare?</p>
<p>Books used,
time frame,
intensity of study,
obtained score.</p>
<p>Undisclosed, do you recognize that that question has been asked like a bazillion times?</p>
<p>Look at other posts. There's no one good book or anything like that.</p>
<p>Here's what I did:
Verbal: Read newspaper articles, worked on figuring out main idea, tone, purpose. Practice. For sentence completions you plug in words and see which matches the best, essentially. For vocab I like Gruber's list of 3,400 words, but it takes a long time to get from A to Z.</p>
<p>Math: I basically knew the math, so I didn't study for this.</p>
<p>Writing: The blue book. RocketReview for the Essays. The essays are about how well you write and how much you can impress your readers with your essay. You don't need a guidebook for writing. Elaborate, follow a suitable outline, have good examples and commentaries, that sort of thing. Make sure you know those idiom/preposition questions, like "compared to" instead of "compared with" and stuff like that.</p>
<p>Time Frame: I honestly didn't have a set study plan (I probably should have). I basically studied when I felt like it. I studied on and off. I guess you can say that I started to study when I took the PSAT in 10th grade (66 V, 77 M, 70W). Then I didn't study until about a month before I took the PSAT in 11th grade (64V, 80 M, 71W).
Scores on my first SAT (only one I've taken so far): V:680 M:800 W:780 Much better! </p>
<p>You can see that verbal is my weak point. </p>
<p>Also, I read Zen in the Art of the SAT. I didn't really use any of their techniques, but they supposedly works, so if I do decide to retake the SAT and take Subject Tests, I'll use those "meditation" exercises.</p>
<p>I'm already making headway in my preparation so I wasn't looking for books. I dunno; just thought it would be a good topic.</p>