How realistic am I being?

<p>So um, I checked my SAT scores and I got a 1740 :(
But I didn't study for this, just took some practice kaplan exams..so my question is..
is it a realistic goal to study my a s s off this summer and hope for at least a 2200? reading lots of books, buying the blue book, memorizing vocab, practicing a lot of math and the such..
do you guys think it's possible?</p>

<p>anything is possible.</p>

<p>All ya can do is try... if you didn't have any prep the first time, it's very possible that you could improve a couple hundred points.</p>

<p>Thats a big jump but I think if you study really hard you'll get at least a 1900.</p>

<p>can't be done</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=190326%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=190326&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>this fella lived, breathed, and completely obsessed over the SAT for a month, trying to improve his score 400 pts, but he couldn't even manage a satisfactory score</p>

<p>not to mention the curve eases up around 500-600 scores, so you would need to improve your raw scores by about 7-8 points on each section just to hit the 2000 mark</p>

<p>study a lot, learn to omit hard questions, and you might possibly squeeze out a 2000. to score any higher you would have to actually understand the subject matter</p>

<p>Dude, 7 or 8 raw points is like, 6 questions per section.</p>

<p>Besides, that's just 1 guy. It depends on how capable you are. If you're capable of 2200, a summer should be long enough to pull it off. It's short-sighted to assume that just because the OP got sub-1800, the OP's incapable of the 2200s.</p>

<p>However, chances are, it will be extremely diffcult to improve your score more than 2 to 3 hundred points. I'm just saying it's possible.</p>

<p>well we'll see about that... :)
<em>goes back to her book</em></p>

<p>I agree with Murasaki, and I think I'm capable of getting that score, I believe that all I need is to study a lot, and do all of the blue book's work</p>

<p>try it, it just might work</p>

<p>I thought you had a 2300.</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=166829%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=166829&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>yeah, I'm sry as I said b4 somewhere else, my cousin has been forgetting to log me out so my cousin posted this one</p>

<p>sigh if i went up 400 points i would die literally. but according to most on this site, they say that you basically have to know the test inside and out dream the sats ;) oh yesssss..and getting a score in the 1700s isnt as bad as it seems (the majority of this site apply to places like harverd and co)</p>

<p>ok, despite all the scoffs and discouragements from other people, I think that you could achieve a VERY decent SAT score and improve a lot, but that you should also have a somewhat MORE realistic goal. I am not saying that it's not possible for you to get a 2200 or even more, but within only a few months it's not enough time. do you have any other SAT subject testst to take? b/c if you don't, then why don't you aim for a 2000 in the october SAT's and then take theh december SAt's and aim for a 2100-2200? I think that would be a much better approach. Here's my reasoning. It is quite easy to raise your sat score up to the 2000 mark by intense studying and unrelenting dedication, which I am sure you have. But statics have proven that it is nearly impossible to improve beyond the 300 point range in such a short time. SEcondly, the 2000 mark is a BIG landmark for most students. Many have trouble getting above it not b/c they don't study hard enough or b/c they are not smart, but simply the SAT is designed in such a way to make it difficult to score that high. The curves also get MUCH harsher the higher you score. For example, on some tests if you miss 1 question out the entire math sectoin you can get a 750, but if you miss 2 questions you can still get a 720. So the points deducted for getting one ques wrong is 50, while for the 2nd ques it's 20. So you increasing get punished more as you score higher. </p>

<p>Look at teh example of a marathon runner trying to set new records. If he already ran a 4 minute mile, it would be very difficult to decrease his mile time to 3 mins and 45 seconds b/c he is getting closer and closer to the human limit and he is ALREADY a really fast runner. But if you take a couch potatoe who runs a 10 min mile, it would very comparably easier to decrease his mile time by 15 seconds. As for your situation, it would be VERY possible to increase your score by 300 points to get a score in 2000 range (by the way, I am not comparing you to a lazy couch potatoe).But to increase your score to 2200.... well in such a short period of time I think it will take a miracle. Not impossible, but it will take something supernatural. </p>

<p>So I guess my suggestion would be to set a smaller goal that will get you in the 2000's, and then working from there. Unless you are aiming for top notch ivies, if you have anywhere from a 2000-2100 SAT score, you can get into very desirable schools. So aiming for an ambitious 2200 might not be necesssary for most schools.</p>

<p>Good answer tofulover.</p>

<p>What about going from an 1810 (700M, 560W, 550CR) to about a 2150-2250ish? Is that realistically feasible? I thought I would get at least a 650 in W when I took it - I usually got like a 680-740 range on the blue book writing section on practice tests. I know for M I can get at least another 50 points. It's CR I'm worried about. Do you think its realistic for me to be aiming this high? (I'm a good student in school....3.9 UW GPA out of 4.0)</p>

<p>I swear to God i'm tossing the blue book into the trash right now. I feel like i'm completely wasting my time. Are the tests in the book really that much easier than the actual SAT? What's the deal?</p>

<p>The blue book is quite similar to the real thing.</p>

<p>the blue book is very similar.</p>

<p>as for the thread maker, you can do it, but it's extremely hard and sadly, unlikely.</p>

<p>i'm semi-struggling to go from a 1900 to a 2100 which isn't nearly as large a jump as you need to cover.</p>

<p>I'm going to be honest with you...it's possible. Although a 460+ point increase is incredibly impressive, I've heard of test takers going from 1900 to 2200-2300 over summer. Just keep in mind that quality is better than quantity. It is much more beneficial to take 10 tests and completely understand why you got your missed questions wrong, and why you got your right questions right. Trust me, taking 30 tests over summer and not reviewing the questions is harmful to you because you're not only wasting your time, but you're just cheating yourself and producing multitudes of similar scores.</p>

<p>I went from a 1570 to 2110 in a few months without much effort, but I consider myself to be an intelligent person; it really depends on your natural ability. Smarter people will have a higher rate of improvement than less smarter people. For example, a smart person might take a week to increase by 100 points, but someone less intelligent would need to spend a month to increase by that number.</p>