<p>Let me start off by saying that my situation is somewhat unusual but not unheard of. Plenty of people have gamed the SAT to gain high scores from low scores-it is really all about practice.</p>
<p>Before I begin, I want to explain what role the SAT has in the college admissions process as I have seen it over the past year. The SAT is very very very important for a few reasons. First, it allows colleges to compare students around the world. Second, it allows colleges to determine if your grades are inflated and whether your school is easy or hard. That being said, the SAT will be important to some of you more than others. For schools that do not rank applicants, the SAT and indeed all standardized testing will be heavily emphasized. If a school does not know whether your 85 is the highest people score in your class or whether it is the lowest, they will look at your standardized tests. Its pretty logical really. Next, the SAT will be more important for well off privileged kids and less important for poor kids. Studies show that kids who are on the privileged end tend to score better and for obvious reasons. If you are a minority, your SAT scores can really give you a strong boost in the admissions process. What I have noticed is that very few URMs with 2250 or 2300+ scores tend to get rejected by many schools. Now, it's not a sure thing but if you apply to enough top schools with those scores as a URM, you should expect some good news in march. If you are not hooked--white or asian-- your scores will usually need to be higher. This is especially true for asian and international applicants. Since there are so many qualified students applying from overseas and who are asian, it becomes almost a requirement to have top SAT scores. This is usually taken in context of one's socioeconomic situation as well. </p>
<p>Now for my story</p>
<p>In the fall of my sophomore year I took the SAT and scored a 1420/2400. This was obviously a big blow to my self esteem since I always thought that I was smart and would be applying to top schools. Every one of my scores was below a 500. Many of my friends scored higher than me (I go to a really bad school) and so, I was noticeably down. So I decided to come on to college confidential and develop a strategy to study. I started studying at the end of my sophomore summer. First I decided to take practice tests from the blue book un-timed. I did not initially focus on writing since that is the easiest section to pull up. </p>
<p>For the reading section-FROM A 480 TO A 770</p>
<p>-Get direct hits volume 1 and 2. This book will have almost every if not every word you need to know.</p>
<p>review your mistakes and rationalize why the correct answer is the correct answer.</p>
<p>-when reviewing the answer choices for CR try to find the subtle difference between similar answers. For instance I remember doing a section where the author said he liked to get lost and he gave an example of some mountain where he skis. The question asked what does the mountain represent or something like that. The two answer choices were-it was a desolate place or a was it a place that the author liked to get lost. The answer was the latter as the passage never mentioned the place to be desolate but you would associate the mountain with the words desolate and isolated because mountains are inherently just that. Thus find the subtle diffrences supported by the passage.</p>
<p>-try LSAT CR as it is harder and similar. I learned how to think better for CR with the LSAT questions and passages.I found that the LSAT allowed me to learn how to find the subtle differences that are crucial for cr.</p>
<p>-Also try to read the questions first and then underline in the passage but dont read all the questions at once. Go one by one. For instance if the questions says in lines 20-21 blah blah blah then underline those lines and read up to that point with careful analyses of those lines. If your struggling for time then this will most certainly help you. At the end of the passage answer the main theme questions. This saves time because you can read the passage once and answer the questions rather than read the passage then look at the questions and then reread the passage which wastes time. This might not work for everyone but it helped me.</p>
<p>-Try taking the SAT on a Sunday. For religious convictions I took the SATs on Sundays however, if you can take it on Sundays do that. The reason is that the SATs are always recycled on Sundays as they sometimes are for internationals. Since they recycle 'em, the words for direct hits--which are based on previous SATs-tend to show up more often. On one of my SATs, I had a blue book question.</p>
<p>Finally don't get discouraged by CR. Critical Reading is the hardest section to improve and my score stayed the same for a long time. </p>
<p>For the math section-FROM A 460 TO A 710</p>
<p>Math was never my best section but I improved nonetheless. Take the practice tests, again un-timed initially, to gauge where you are. After taking the practice test, look up the answer explanations in the blue book or the online SAT course which offer 9 tests. I used Dr. Chungs book somewhat but mainly relied on just taking practice tests. If you ever need more of an explanation, type in the question into google and you will almost always find the question discussed on CC. This is really awesome since after the 19 practice tests run out, you can still get answer explanations.</p>
<p>For the writing section- FROM A 480 TO A 730</p>
<h2>I just used Erica Melzter's SAT Grammar guide. This book is golden, literally, and is the main reason why I improved so much on this section. Work through this book, take the practice tests, and look up answer explanations not from the college board, since they suck for the writing section, but through CC. </h2>
but I wanted to ask from where can I get the blue book ,Erica Melzter’s Grammar book and the CC ? :)</p>