Hi guys, I’m now 11th grade,and I just took a sample SAT tests. My score was R+W 500 and math 800. I know it is hard to raise the reading score, but please tell your tips to raise the score.
Hey, you can try Khan academy, college board blue book, and other books! Anyways, do you have any tips to score very high in the math section?
You probably need a few thousand vocab words to be able to understand the harder passages. I know everyone’s saying the new test dispenses with vocab (no more sentence completions!) but that’s nonsense–the exam is still full of good old-fashioned “SAT words,” and not knowing them can easily account for 150-200 points, especially in the 500~ range.
@marvin100, is there particular vocabulary text or program you prefer?
There are great lists on Quizlet.
@VANURSEPRAC Marvin100’s quizlet class is awesome, however I weren’t able to study much of it but I learned many common words in SAT in his deck
Get Erica Meltzer’s SAT books – thecriticalreader.com
I really like how she balances teaching foundational skills in reading, grammar and analysis while also teaching test-taking skills.
There’s lots of good advice here as to how to improve your SAT scores. If you have time, I recommend studying iwth Erica Meltzer’s Critical Reader (for the reading section) and/or her grammar book (for the writing section).
For someone scoring at the 500 level who has limited time and hopes to get a quick score pick-up on the reading section, my personal advice is:
(a) Read the passages very quickly / just skim them, really. Use your pencil as you read and underline or asterisk important points or supporting arguments or contradicting arguments, etc. VERY QUICKLY.
(b) Then, as you answer each question, spend as much time as necessary to find explicit support for the answer in the text. Do not answer the question from memory; find support in the text for each of your answers. Pay attention to details / nuances.
(c ) Practice. Do as many of the 6 available practice tests as possible. With practice, you’ll figure out what reading pace works best for you.
(d) At the 500 level, you’ll see the best improvement if you focus on getting more answers correct than focusing on answering all the questions. In other words, take the time necessary to find the support for each answer and feel confident in each answer, even if it means you run out of time and can’t answer all the questions.
(e) To that end, if you find a passage that just baffles you, just skip the entire passage and come back to it later if you have time.
(f) If you’re close to running out of time, use the last minute to fill in the bubbles with a guess or random choice.
Again, this is only if you’re looking to try to grab a quick bump in a short amount of time. If you have time for in-depth study (which you do, if you’re just a junior), study Meltzer’s books and do all of the official College Board practice SAT tests.
For math, I recommend doing the official practice tests and reviewing your errors in depth. If you find a topic that you’re not completely solid on, Khan Academy gives great on-line tutorials (they’re excellent but time-intensive) and Barron’s SAT prep book gives an excellent written explanation of SAT math and practice questions (by topic).
Good luck!
the critical reader is magic, read the economist, read topics in the order of your interest. I was at around a 480 and now i am almost at a 700, do as many practice tests as possible, make sure to review and ask yourself why you missed that question. Good luck
I like freerice.com for practicing vocabulary. It’s free. It’s my impression that the College Board is hitting 19th century and even 18th century passages pretty hard - either for the literature passage, for the history passage, or both. To prepare, one could read some Jane Austin, or Bronte sisters, and find a US history textbook that has plenty of original source documents and read some of them. Just getting used to archaic language is helpful. Reviewing difficult passages more than once makes sense to me.
Is the new edition of Melzer’s book significantly different from the older edition?
thanks.
How did you get 800? What material did you study with?