<p>This came through my email: <a href="http://blog.prepscholar.com/how-to-get-a-perfect-sat-score-by-a-2400-sat-scorer">http://blog.prepscholar.com/how-to-get-a-perfect-sat-score-by-a-2400-sat-scorer</a></p>
<p>Thoughts?</p>
<p>Some things repeat popular ideas (like get the blue book, duh) but I liked the sections on how to hone down on your mistakes.</p>
<p>I also scored a perfect SAT and I agree with what this guy is saying. There aren’t many tricks to it; practice really does make perfect. Repetition and consistency are of the utmost importance. When I was studying, I took over 20 full practice tests. At the end of each one, I went back to every question I got wrong and ripped it apart, analyzing my mistake, and learning from it. Admittedly, I only scored a perfect practice test once or twice. And the Blue Book really is the best resource, but there are previously administered official SATs online if you know where to look.</p>
<p>He’s wrong about how unforgiving the curve is, though. It definitely varies from test to test. Yes, there isn’t a lot of room for error at the top of the scale for each section, but the test I took (Oct 2014) had an easier curve. I missed 1 writing question with an essay of 11 and still got an 800. </p>
<p>The guy hits all the right notes and shows he understands the SAT. I’d like to add that the review of the practice tests should also include the … correct answers to avoid the occasional lucky guesses. </p>
<p>@xiggi yes totally. when studying, every question that one is even slightly unsure of should be marked and then checked later.</p>
<p>Thanks @xiggi - that was my impression as well, just wanted to check with the board. Reviewing your mistakes the way he suggests is highly important and in my experience the critical way that I raised my score. </p>
<p>As he already notes in the article, you don’t need a 2400 to apply to top schools (I would say a 2300+ already lifts you past the SAT benchmark) but I thought this advice was good for all people trying to raise their score.</p>
Hi all - original author here. Thanks for the comments and suggestions.
I’m happy to answer any questions you might have about the suggestions in this article, or about attaining a high score in general. Anyone want to take a shot?
Thank you soo much for posting this!
I scored a 2190 (I’m a sophomore) on a practice SAT I took at my tutoring place, and I really want to improve my score to a 2400. If I aim for a 2400, I’ll at least become close to it. (I do want a 2400 though)
I got 760s in writing and math, and a 670 in reading. I’ve been doing practice tests out of the blue book for reading, and I’ve noticed my scores increasing. How many hours you put into studying is a HUGE factor in increasing your score.
I went from scoring 1700s-1800s only five months ago to almost 2200 now. You really have to drill your mistakes to truly understand where they’re coming from. I’m not someone who scores high without studying, so I had to put in a lot of effort, and I will continue to do so. Hopefully, I’ll reach my goal.
I’m taking the SAT as a sophomore in January 2015, and I’m really hoping I can score 2300+, and then score 2400 in March 2015.
@studyislife Congratulations on your progress! I totally agree. If you pull up your reading score a bit more you’ll be able to break the 2300 range, which is more than good enough for the top schools. Do you find yourself missing sentence completion questions or reading passages questions more often? This can help figure out where your last points will come from - whether it’s vocab training or passage training.
I’m curious about how each student approaches drilling your mistakes. What have you found particularly helpful in terms of identifying where your weak spots are, and how do you focus on building up those mistakes?
Finally, good job deciding on taking the current version of the SAT, before it changes to the new format in 2016. I agree with this decision for all members of the class of 2017.
Hi.
I’ve been scoring around low 2000s on my practice tests. And on the first SAT I took in November I got 2000.
CR: 570, M: 750, W: 680.
Since reading is my lowest score, I really want to improve that. Do you have any tips for the reading section specifically?
My goals for reading is at least 680.
Thank you.
don’t waste a ton of time memorizing long vocab lists, because most of those words won’t show up on your next SAT.
when you get a passage-based question wrong, make sure you go back and review the question to understand why the answer you chose was wrong and why the collegeboard chose the answer that they did. a lot of times, two answers will both seem to be strong contenders, and (honestly) it sometimes just comes down to luck in being able to make the argument for the right answer in your mind.
@rosa1748 I usually students at your score range with two problems. See if they apply:
For this problem, I recommend this strategy: skim the passage first to get the general idea. Then for each question, go back to the passage to read more of the context around the question. This will save you time because you don’t focus on passage details that don’t have questions about it.
Some students even go to the extreme and scan the questions before reading the passage. They’ll briefly look at the question, and if it has a line reference number, mark this on the passage so they focus on it. This personally didn’t work as well for me, but each student is different, and I recommend you try both these techniques to see you score better with.
You need to realize that this is a standardized test, which means there is only ever one, unequivocally, unambiguously correct answer. If the SAT didn’t guarantee this, people would argue all the time about why their answer choice was better.
Therefore, you need to train yourself on eliminating answer choices. Instead of thinking about narrowing it down to 2 and picking the best one, think about it as eliminating 4 wrong answer choices.
Even a single word in one answer choice can disqualify it from being correct. For every single question you miss, you need to go through your thinking process:
-what answer choices did you narrow it down to?
-did this include the correct answer choice? why or why not?
-why could you not eliminate the incorrect answer choices? Is there a way that you can do this now?
As you do this, you might notice that you make errors more specifically on little picture/detail questions, or on inference questions, etc. You can then focus on those mistakes.
Read through the original perfect score article (in the first post) for more details on how you need to be ruthless about your mistakes.
We’ll be writing blog articles about this soon, so check out our blog and subscribe so you get updates when we write more detailed articles about this (http://blog.prepscholar.com). I’ll also be sharing the best of what we write on CC.