<p>I'm a junior this fall, studying in an international school in Shanghai, China. I haven't take any SAT tests yet. I only took PSAT when I was a Sophomore and the score was dreadful.</p>
<p>I will take the PSAT again as a Junior in October, and take the SAT on either November or December. I wanted to know how should I construct my plan for SAT? </p>
<p>My father wanted me to take a SAT prep class this summer. I am not sure that is good or not. Should I take one?</p>
<p>Well it depends. There is a sort of intro class. Then a three/four weeks problem before SAT exam. They are really expensive and hard to tell the effectiveness of the courses. I took a TOEFL class in the winter and I don’t think I learned a lot, although got a 110 on the exam.</p>
<p>Personally, I would recommend just buying the blue book and studying from there. It has everything you need to study for the sat and is much cheaper than a class. I would only recommend a class if you lack the focus to set distractions aside and do the work at home. Good luck!</p>
<p>If you have nothing to do this summer but study, then why not take the prep class. Are you thinking about Kaplan or Princeton Review? Does Shanghai have different prep classes than US? Just know that prep class is intense. They try to jam lots of info in a short period of time. You should also buy the blue book and study that on your own too.</p>
<p>whoa… albertzchen… just what i expected from an asian… a 180 for a psat in the fall of soph. year is not “bad”, its a pretty well decent score. you want a 2280? that’s going to be a reach, frankly, not to discourage you or anything, try to aim for a 2100 or, 2000, you just can’t jump such a huge gap in a short period of time. But of course, you’re just a rising junior, so you still have a year and something months to raise your score.</p>
<p>and you study in china? do classes in china provide english classes? or are you self learning it? i can provide you with a few tips if you’re self learning it. tell me about it first, so i know what position you’re in</p>
<p>Are you going to take IB next year? Only take a prep course if you are willing to put in the work. They don’t have much time with you, so you’ll need to actually do the HW and the reading.</p>
<p>If you can, find out if their past students did well – not all schools in Shanghai are created equal.</p>
<p>Your PSAT is not bad at all. Why do you set your target at 2280??</p>
<p>You’ll have time if you start now – the best advice is to start early and stay consistent. If you self study or take a course, it may not matter, provided you actually do the work and don’t assume listing to a lecture will put the knowledge firmly into your brain.</p>
<p>It’s not what the score concerned me, it was the mistakes that makes me worry. I got a 80 on math, but only 98 from the other two (well i should’ve say 178). I am taking PSAT again for two reasons, one is to treat it like a pre SAT test, second is to try and grab the scholarship it provides. </p>
<p>To answer MathTeamExtraPro, I am studying in an International School in Shanghai which provides IB/AP courses for students. I took 4 APs out of 7 courses (Stats, Chemistry, World History, Macro econ), the rest of the courses (Chinese, English, Physics) are all in Honors. They are all taught in English except for Chinese of course.</p>
<p>To answer Craiggonzales, my father intended to get it done one time so I could focus on my GPA and extra curriculums. But he and I both know that’s not really realistic. The best thing to do is take twice but showed substantial increase at the second time. Why 2280? I am not sure. I intended to apply for good state universities because of financial reasons (My parents are willing to pay for my tuition, but I intended to pay them back. Besides all, even a state college tuition will be a big burden. I’m an American citizen but never had a state citizenship because I lived in China most of my life. So if I goto a public university I will pay out of state for the first one or two years, but as soon I claim a state citizenship than i’ll just pay in state tuition). Schools like UCLA, UC Berkley, UVa, UNC-Chapel Hill etc are definitely my goal. </p>
<p>Maybe I should know myself a little bit more before rushing to decisions like this. But so far I’m not a man who could sit down and just focus on one particular thing, especially something frustrating like the SATs. So I definitely need to take time to make an rational decision.</p>
<p>so the bulk of your psat score came from math. Though that’s a really good factor to include in anyone’s score, you also need to strengthen up your writing & CR scores. are you better in writing or CR? what did you score on each section? </p>
<p>Oh okay, so english is like your main thing, just like us americans. I highly recommend you taking an SAT prep course. If not, and you’re going to self study, then here are my few tips to you:</p>
<ul>
<li>review your wrong answers ALWAYS ALWAYS DO THIS</li>
<li>fish out some help from others on CC</li>
<li>take as many practice tests as possible</li>
<li>try to find some free guides, I 've seen some one this site, but I don’t remember any of them because none worked for me.</li>
<li>BEST TIP I CAN GIVE YOU!!! —> NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER force on yourself a method of doing CR passages that you don’t like.</li>
</ul>
<p>If you are disciplined enough to work regularly out of the Blue Book (and look up all the answers), you don’t need a prep class, but if you need a little motivation and some structure, I prep class could be a good fit.</p>