<p>I'm a very smart person, but mostly in my life I have not really tried extra hard to be on top, I only recently realized I wanted to go to an Ivy League. Anyway, my SAT scores are nowhere near where they need to be, and I was wondering, do all you people who get 2k plus study a lot in your spare time, or does it just come to you? OR do my classes not provide the proper curriculum? I mean I'm an all A student with a 4.3 GPA, but my test scores are so low, I'm confused.</p>
<p>The SAT is all about studying and pacing yourself. You can’t get a 2400 from being diligent alone, but you can get above a 2000.</p>
<p>hey,
i felt the same way as you do with my SAT one month away…
I took it once and did well(2350+). I simply worked half an hour every day for a month, and did a practice test every weekend. You don’t need to study all day, but ake sure you study EVERY day</p>
<p>Practice really really works.</p>
<p>The SAT isn’t the most important factor in your acceptance to any university. A lot of colleges do pay attention to your high school grades, and extracurricular efforts. So don’t get bogged down thinking the SAT is the key. Who you are as a person plays just as big a role if not more than the SAT.</p>
<p>I sucked at the SAT, and did fair on the ACT, but my high school GPA is great. Don’t sweat it too much. Everyone wants the perfect score, but not everyone will get it, which only means you can be unique in your own intelligent way. :)</p>
<p>Alright, guess I’ll just practice a lot. Honestly I suppose I’m not used to studying for anything that much. Thanks to all who answered, you made my rainy day go away. I know, that was a cliche baby term. : D</p>
<p>Depending on how confident you are in math, just doing 5-6 practice tests minus the math section is very helpful and is not that time consuming either.</p>
<p>Otherwise, it can get pretty time consuming.</p>
<p>Practice will only get you so far, but a few practice tests should definitely help you avoid a few mistakes on the actual test (as long as you review your tests after taking them, figuring out why you got every question wrong). Also, like l_payne implied, the SAT isn’t for everyone. If you can’t seem to get your SAT where you want it, try taking a practice test for the ACT and see how you do. But if you really want to go to an Ivy, acing the SAT should not be at the top of your to do list.</p>
<p>It’s sort of a combination. I can only speak for the verbal and writing sections (I scored an 800 verbal on the old exam, and when I took the new one so that I could tutor for Kaplan, I got a 770 writing), but in that case it was natural but not natural.</p>
<p>What I mean by that is I got a 760 verbal the first time I took the test, as a sophomore, with virtually no studying – but that’s because I had been “studying” my whole life. I started reading when I was very young and have always been an avid reader, and my vocabulary was much larger than my peers’ at that age because of the material I had been reading. Likewise, I have always been a writer – I started writing stories when I was in elementary school, and wrote furiously all through school – so my reading and writing skills were already good.</p>
<p>I always tell my SAT students this. You can’t give yourself a lifetime of reading and writing in a couple of weeks or months. If you’ve never been a reader or a writer, and you’re getting a 450 or 500 on the CR or writing section…you likely won’t get up to a 700 with a few weeks’ worth of memorizing vocabulary and stuff. Although the strategies are useful and will help you raise your score, the SAT (at least the verbal sections) tests skills that have to be learned over a long period of time and aren’t easily acquired in a couple weeks.</p>
<p>But you CAN improve upon your scores by learning the strategies and practicing. Part of the test is, after all, knowing how to take it.</p>