<p>First of all, let me say that I'm an intl. student and I'm still not feeling totally at ease with the english language. Done. </p>
<p>So I've been testing myself with the blue book since Idk when (tryin to improve my scores on the June SAT), but every time I need to get my scores, I don't exactly know what they are. In the Blue Book, they don't give you an exact score for a particular raw score. It's always a scale between two numbers. Maybe I skipped that part, but I've seen nowhere, in the book, any mention of how to deal with that scaled score.
The same goes for the real test. I took it on May, got my scores and my scores report. In it did I also found scaled reports, and I didn't understand how they chose my final scores. </p>
<p>On this forum, I often encountered the word "curve", regarding the SAT. Can someone please explain to me what it really means ? I've got an idea but better be sure of it..</p>
<p>I just average them and from experience on this forum round it thattaways. For example, on a practice test I took I missed 8 in Writing but I got maybe a 10 or 11 on my essay, so that would give me a raw scale of 39 (41 correct -[8/2]), then it tells me 640-770, averaged together is a 705, and I rounded up to a 710.</p>
<p>The curve is the amount of points weighted. For example, the Math section for one test was EXTREMELY hard – they are more likely to give out a lenient curve. Instead of requiring 0 for an 800, they might require a -1 or a -2. </p>
<p>Now, if the test is EXTREMELY easy, they are going to create a steep/harsh curve. If you get -1 wrong, you might be dropping down to a 770 or lower.</p>
<p>That’s what the ranges are for, by the way. Since these tests have not been administered, they do not know where the bell curve ranks. So, depending on all the people who take the test, the score may sway. If a lot of people do poorly, the more likely there is for a generous curve (the higher number). If a lot of people do great and ace it, then there will be a harsh curve (the lower number).</p>
<p>The rule of thumb is to generally average the two out. :)</p>
<p>@smartchap > They give it to you when you sign up for the idontrememberhowitscalled thing (you know, that thing that shows you how many wrong answers you made, how many rights, and a scan of the essay you wrote). </p>
<p>@strosfan, Monoclide > Thank you for your answers, at least know I can say I understand perfectly what the people on this board talk about. Just to make sure I did understand correctly, which I don’t really doubt with those explanations, when people said, after the May SAT, that the curve was “great”, it meant that the questions were hard and they were expecting collegeboard people to score their test kindly ?</p>
<p>The thing I don’t like about taking the lower score is that it doesn’t boost your confidence as much and you need to be as pumped as you can be for your SAT
For example:
-4 M, -4 CR, -4 Wr (10 E)
would give you a 680M, 690CR, 690W = 2060
but averaged would give you a
710M, 740CR, 750W = 2200</p>