<p>My PSAT / SAT score ranges:
Critical Reading: 480-590
Math: 510-620
Writing: 500-620</p>
<p>As you can see, I need improvement in all sections of the SAT. I'm looking for good book that teach me everything I need to know for the SAT. I have practice books, but what good is practice if I don't know how to do the problems. I really need to re-learn everything.
Does anyone know any study books that do this? Also, what do you recommend to improve each of my scores? I know I'm supposed to read to improve critical reading, but I'm a month away from my test and I need something quick. </p>
<p>I really need something that'll make a HUGE difference. I want to apply to competitive college that usually get students with 2000s on their SATs. I know it's unrealistic right now, but I know it's been done. I want to get an 1800-1900 AT LEAST. </p>
<p>Please help with any advice or recommendations.</p>
<p>Official SAT Study Guide for practice problems
Direct Hits for vocabulary, I have heard
Do not know about the rest</p>
<p>You are exactly right in that practice (i.e. practice TEST books) aren’t going to help if you don’t actually learn how to do them in the first place. And for people in this situation, explanations are also extremely important. I had the same problem, so here’s what I did.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Get workbooks, i.e. books that focus on individual topics and concepts that are tested. I’ve used almost every book out there, but here are the ones I found useful for me. For math, I liked Barron’s best, but most people say it’s harder than the actual test. I also agree, but it worked for me. However, here’s my caveat for the math. I was already scoring above 700 consistently so I think it was good for me that I used something that was more difficult than the real test. For the writing, the best book was a new one called Bellbright, which my friend recommended to me. It’s really expensive compared to other books, but it had more practice drills than my other books combined and the key was the video explanations that worked every problem from scratch. This showed me how to approach and think about the problems, even the essay, which I had almost given up on before this book. I wish they had books for the other sections, but they aren’t out yet. For the CR, I couldn’t find anything with good enough explanations, so I ended up using just the blue book, but I didn’t time myself at first. I read each question and covered up the multiple choice answer questions and tried to come up with my answer first by going through the passage and pin pointing exactly where my answer was. This method helped me a lot because often we infer answers without thinking and by forcing myself to find the answer in the passage (without subconsciously being directed in anyway since I covered the answers) it made me dissect the passages in a way that helped me tremendously on the test. And even when I missed the questions, I went back and located exactly where the real answer was and looked at it to make sure that I can at least see in hindsight how I should have arrived at that answer. If I couldn’t figure out the right thinking to get me from point A to B, then I made it a point to find a friend who could show me exactly how they were able to arrive at that answer. I only started timing myself after 5 tests worth of non timed practicing.</p></li>
<li><p>After the workbooks/drills, I started to do practice tests timed in the blue book. After each test, you have to be very systematic and figure out what and WHY you missed each question. Tally up the type of questions you missed and aim to not make the same mistake twice. This helped me mentally because I had the same score for like 3 of the 5 practice tests I took, but I still knew that I was making good progress since I was missing different types of questions. You don’t want to get unnecessarily discouraged when you are actually making good progress.</p></li>
<li><p>General Tips: Math and writing can improve very fast with effective practice, like 100 points each in just a few months because these are rules based things. CR can take longer to improve. However, if you need a quick fix, just memorize vocab (I used the barron’s vocab list, although it is overkill. You may want to just stick to direct hits like what most other members recommend). Memorizing vocab helped me improve around 70 to 80 points. (I went from mid 600 range to low 700 range from the vocab memorization). Also, the mistake I made was memorizing vocab at the end right before the test because vocab also improves your overall performance on the passages by more than you would think. I basically memorized vocab reluctantly as a last attempt thinking that it wasn’t going to help out that much and also because I hate rote memorization. I was pleasantly surprised at the results though.</p></li>
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<p>Hi - You mentioned a book called Bellbright for writing Practice - where can I get it? Googled it but could not find it! Thanks!</p>