<p>Hello everybody, I'm a non-native English speaker. I took the SAT after solving 2-3 practice tests and I don't often read a lot... I got 1600 on my first try and wondering how far I can improve this score. The scores are like 450 reading 450 writing and 700 maths. I saw my detailed score report and saw I did lots of careless mistakes on easy math questions... However I don't know how to get rid of the other parts. Is it possible for me to get around 2000s? I took it at the beginning of my sophomore year. What would you recommend me to do? You know I have like 1.5 year ahead. If I study really hard, how far can I improve it?</p>
<p>I recommend you try slowly immersing yourself into the language. Start by reading a classic book, such as The Scarlet Letter or The adventures of Tom Sawyer. Look up and learn any words you don’t understand. Make sure you pay attention to the structures of sentences. Google search the most common errors on writing…once you learn those you will see the increase in score. For CR remember that it’s all about some vocab and understanding what you read. Don’t assume things that are not in the passage.
Here are the steps I followed for passages:
- Read italicized summary (if any)
- look at questions with line numbers, then quickly circle them in passage.
- start reading, skim over the non circled parts (no questions on those parts) and read closely what you marked.
- as soon as you read the first circled line ref. then go to that question and answer it (ON your BOOK, don’t bubble in yet!!)
- continue doing question by question.
- once you finish, answer the general based questions with no line refs.
- bubble everything into answer sheet.</p>
<p>Doing it like this will ensure that you don’t lose focus or forget. </p>
<p>For writing, the #1 mistake in the correcting errors in sentences is subject/verb agreement.
Ex: he…have (needs to be he…has)
So make sure you look at your subject and verb and see if they make sense. </p>
<p>If you study hard, I’m positive your score can increase to 2000+ since your math score is great.</p>
<p>If your at 1600, you defintely can make a lot of improvement just working on test taking strategies alone, such as budgeting your time, pacing yourself, and practice practice practice, until you’re comfortable with the format/type of quesitons!!</p>
<p>Thanks to you all! I now feel better because at some sources indicate that it’s impossible to increase your score more than 200…</p>
<p>^^^ it’s true, mine went up 190 after the first try and hopefully I’ll see a few more points on Thursday</p>
<p>Given that you are a non-native English speaker, it is just a matter of how much time/energy you are willing to spend improving your English skills. Also the large amount of time you have before testing is good as well. Your mathematics score indicate that you clearly have the ability to do well.</p>
<p>Thank you very much everybody for everything! I now feel better and clearer! I will also be pleased to hear different comments if someone has!</p>
<p>Alright, i should be able to help you. English is my 3rd language, thanks to the English school i went to until 5th grade. I had to teach myself everything. I took the SAT last year, zero prep, and scored 1850(560/640/650) on my first and 1820(600/670/550) on my second. This was literally zero prep. I didn’t know what “isosceles triangle” and “arithmetic mean” meant and had to figure them all out on-the-go. </p>
<p>Anyway, this year i learned the mathematical terms and stuff in English. I also tried to read English books so that i had an easier time comprehending the passages and stuff. I read the “A Song of Ice and Fire” series over the winter. I didn’t really bother with Writing, since i don’t really need that where i’m going. So this year i took the test again and scored 2030(660/760/610). It’s a great deal of improvement, with minimal work. I’m ashamed to admit it, but had i actually put some effort into it i could have scored much better. I’m guessing you would have larger difference since you’d actually put effort into your Writing too. I got a TOTAL OF FOUR on my essay. Yeah, you read that right. Two guys were crying tears of blood as they read through the crap that i had scribbled down, wishing it was over with, cursing me for the excruciating torture i laid upon them. They then proceeded to give me 2’s, so i guess we’re even :b</p>
<p>I think that should provide a nice little graph for you to work with. Don’t give up, never feel bad, just do what you can and you should be able to improve heaps.</p>
<p>Start reading. Start learning how to read well and how to write well. You scored <500 because you are ESL and don’t have the fundamentals. Focus on these four things:</p>
<p>1) speed reading with high comprehension
2) Paraphrasing
3) writing compelling essays with real evidence
4) Fundamental english grammar with focus on comparisons, subject-verb agreement, and modifying phrases.</p>
<p>Good luck</p>
<p>Craig</p>
<p>Thanks abundantly again. Do you think only reading (immensely) itself would help improving score?</p>
<p>Learn how to recognize passive voice if you aren’t already able to. Passive voice is a more advanced kind of grammatical error in the English language… </p>
<p>Active voice: David plants a tree.
Passive voice: A tree is planted by David. </p>
<p>Incorrect answers on many questions are in passive voice, so if you can recognize passive voice and eliminate those answer choices quickly, you can save lots of time stressing over answer choices. </p>
<p>Also, don’t read the passage until you HAVE TO! This sounds nutty as can be, but trust me, I got a 750 on CR (I missed 2 vocab questions and made two bubbling errors, circled the right answer and bubbled the wrong one, curse my thoughtlessness!) without ANY prep… Anyway, in a lot of cases, you don’t need to read the passage until the last 2 questions about it (they usually ask about mood, tone, author purpose, style… Things that require you to read the whole passage); if a question gives you a designated line number that you need to read, read it, answer the question, and move on! When you havvvvvve to read the passage to answer a question, go ahead and read it. </p>
<p>Anyway, you should also read a lot, and look up words you don’t know… I read a lot, and for about two years, I used to read a new book (~400 pages) every day. I was reading Jane Austen in 3rd grade, so yes, reading definitely helps [with vocabulary and with getting a feel for English sentence structures]. </p>
<p>Best of luck, and remember… You can do it!</p>