Hi! I wanted to make this post because a lot of test prep advice is either aimed at extremely low scoring students or naturally high scoring students who are looking to get near perfect scores.
I took the new SAT a total of 4 times. The first two times I took it I scored a 1120/1600, I was really upset because I knew that I could achieve higher. I decided that I was gonna have to work extremely hard to raise my score.
The best advice I can give someone looking to raise their score, or just have a high score in general is to START EARLY. I truly believe I would have been able to increase my score even higher had I have studied for 6 months rather than 3. I used the summer to study because I had a lot of free time and didn’t have school work to do, I suggest you do the same. I started my prep by reading through the Official College Board prep book, yes the tests are free online but I liked using the book, in fact, I bought this book 3 times. If you are a low-average scorer like myself, I suggest you read the whole book, College Board actually has some decently helpful info in there. After I did some practice questions that they have in the chapters of the strategies, I then started going online to read high scores testing techniques, there really is an art to standardizing test and being a “bad test taker” and a “good test taker” is a real thing. After you figure out a game plan on how to answer the questions you need to figure out content holes so take a practice test either online or out of the book ASAP and make a book of all the questions you got wrong (or got right but guessed on) and start pin pointing content holes. Honestly, my one mistake was spending time trying to improve my reading score. I spent a large amount of time with reading prep but it didn’t help. For the most part, the reading section is the most difficult section to improve because reading skills are something that are developed through out your life and it’s hard to improve in such a short amount of time. If you are trying to improve your reading score, I suggest you spend a whole year on it. READ A LOT. The SAT is very lingustic so the better reader you are the better you’ll overall. My next advice is perfect your writing score, it is the easiest score to improve because this part of the test is extremely straightforward and there are little question variances from test to test. I did this by using khan academy everyday during my the first month of my prep. Some grammar rules I didn’t really understand at all, so for those (eg- subject/verb agreement) I would go to youtube and watch 10 minute videos on the rules that were not SAT directed. Then I would come back to Khanacademy and re-practice those skills. For math, I did really poorly in Algebra I my freshmen year so I didn’t have a firm grasp on a lot of SAT math topics, which really hurt me. I got a math tutor who didn’t know the SAT but was an algebra teacher, and that helped me raise my score in math by 60 points. Honestly, unless you live in an area that has an amazing SAT tutor, I would say save the money and teach yourself, especially because there are so many amazing free resources for content out there.
I prepped for about 20-45 mins a day for 3 months, and I did practice tests every two weeks. If you put in the time you should see results! Also, the new SAT is specifically designed to reflect what you’ve learned in grades 9-11th, so the best advice I can give you is to just try really hard in school, take rigorous classes, and read a lot!
My score ended with a 1250!
…1120 to 1250 in 3 months
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