<p>Hey guys. I am pretty desperate for help! xD
I am a rising junior, and my family is relatively not that wealthy, so I couldn't take any SAT classes, and I wish to save the money to buy any learning utensils that I may need later. So any tips/suggestions of how I can self-study the contents of SAT? I have already started doing practice tests, so I just need help self-studying the standards and ways of successfully navigate the questions of SAT.
I need the most help on the Critical Reading, Math, and Essay sections. Please please please post anything useful here, and I will be extremely grateful! Thanks a bunch!</p>
<p>Look, just follow this advice and I bet you will reach your goal… 1 group a day. . which means taking all 3 math sections for example (the one with 25 and 2 others…) the other day do writting + essay etc… Also study 20 words a day which you can find on majortests. com because they are very easy to learn there… You will find also a full 8 week guide there… the best thing is to take a full test a week, but I haven’t done it and I don’t think I will lol… still im getting some good results.</p>
<p>Best advice I can give is to just get the official prep books. They’re very cheap for what they offer.</p>
<p>I really think prep books are the best - you can usually find them cheaper on ebay, Amazon, or hpb.com (or if there’s a Half Price Books near you, that’s my favorite bookstore and they always have a bunch of cheap prep books!)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>If you will only buy one book buy the Blue Book (The Official SAT Study Guide). Its made by the College Board, and is truly the best. </p></li>
<li><p>The SAT Up app for Iphone and Ipad is really good. </p></li>
<li><p>Also Pwnthesat is a good website. </p></li>
<li><p>Do the Question of the Day on the College Board website. I would recommend subscribing to it so you remember every day.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Go sit at the Barnes and Noble and take practice tests from the books without buying them. I know a lot of people who do that.</p>
<p>Collegeboard offers a few free practice tests along with some exercises. Use the internet to your advantage.</p>
<p>For the official College Board SAT book, can I use one that’s written for 2010?</p>
<p>Yeah no problem.</p>
<p>I sympathize, only well-off families can afford individual SAT tutoring and not all schools offer prep, and if they do, it is probably expensive as well. Our kids also self-study.</p>
<p>It hurts to shell out the money, but this is one area where preparation is really important. Your highest possible SAT score will help position you for grant money. For example, if you are low income, getting a high score might get you need-based financial aid at a great school, or a significant merit award at another great school, or into an honors program at a state school…it would be worth the investment. Spending a little now can save you tens of thousands of dollars later. Can you get a book, maybe a used one, online? The blue book.</p>
<p>Look in your local library, they will have SAT Prep books you can check out. You may also be able to request books for them to purchase, I did this with PWN the SAT for my son.</p>
<p>There are lots of PDF preps available, freeexampapers and xtremepapers are good sites.</p>
<p>It pays to to invest in at least the CB SAT book.</p>
<p>The best free online prep site is sparknotes.com, but you can find various pdf material around the web.</p>
<p>Okay, so get an official College Board prep book.
Is there any good suggestions to actually prepare for the contents? What books I should read, what things I should regard, how should I improve my math skills?</p>
<p>Bump…?</p>
<p>Math - (might not have all that much useful advice since math is almost always my best section and I really didn’t study much for it, but here goes)
- If you need help because you’re unfamiliar with the subject matter, I would read the section in the blue book on that topic (or if you don’t know what to study, take at least one math section and read up on the topics you were unfamiliar with).
- Apart from knowing the concepts, your goal is to maximize the number of correct answers and minimize the number of wrong answers, seems pretty obvious. This leads to your usual advice - don’t guess on the multiple choice if you can’t eliminate any answers because you get penalized 1/4 point for incorrect answers (definitely guess on the grid in problems though because there’s no penalty and a slim chance of a correct answer is better than no chance by leaving it blank), do the easy questions first (the SAT arranges questions from easy–>hard), don’t spend too long on any one problem, etc.
- If you’re having trouble with time, try and figure out what kinds of problems take you the longest (probability, geometry, etc.) and spend time practicing just those. Really the best advice for the SAT, especially the math section, is practice. Like, there are tips and tricks you can learn, but the main way to improve is to just do lots of problems because the more familiar you are with the way the problems are structured (which really, the SAT recycles problems - you probably won’t come across the <em>exact</em> same question twice, but you’ll get problems really similar to one’s you’ve done in the past).
- Take advantage of the fact that it’s a multiple choice test - you could always try plugging in the answer choices (when applicable). I wouldn’t do this too often though, because it is usually more time consuming than working out the answer, but if you have the time then go for it.
- If there’s no figure drawn, draw it; if there are measurements given that aren’t labeled in the figure, label them; if the figure says ‘not drawn to scale,’ I’d consider redrawing the picture because they’re probably trying to mislead you.
- Some general things to remember - make sure your answer makes sense. This isn’t just examining your answer in the context of the problem, though that is also very important. The test is designed to be able to be done without a calculator, so if you ever find yourself needing to use the trig buttons, or doing long laborious calculations, you’re probably making the problem too hard. </p>
<p>Essay - again, practice. Google past SAT essay topics and practice writing the essays (time yourself!)
- Spend a bit of time planning your essay before you start. The essay topics ask you to agree or disagree with a topic, so when you first read it, decide relatively quickly whether you want to agree or disagree. They don’t favor either agreeing or disagreeing, so pick whichever one is easier for you to write, depending on the topic. In general I’d discourage writing one of those essays where you switch between agreeing and disagreeing, mostly because of time. It’s better to have a well developed essay analyzing one side than run out of time to fully develop an essay where you weigh the pros and cons of both sides. MAKE SURE YOUR FIRST PARAGRAPH ESTABLISHES WHETHER YOU AGREE OR DISAGREE. This should be your thesis and it is very important that it’s easy for the reader to find and understand. You will also need to be able to come up with examples backing up your point (more on this later), so after reading your first paragraph, your reader should know your stance on the topic (agree/disagree), why you agree or disagree, and have an idea of what examples you’re going to use.
- The bulk of your SAT essay should be examples backing up your point. I think from practicing writing the essay, the thing that helped me the most was that I got really fast at coming up with examples. Aim for three examples and try to make them diverse - maybe one literary example, one from history, and one from current events/your personal life? For example, on the last SAT that I took, the topic was “Are people likely to be dissatisfied rather than content once they have achieved their goals?” and I agreed, using The Great Gatsby, the South after the Revolutionary War, and a personal example about my grandfather being successful in his job but ultimately unhappy. After you write a few, you’ll get into a rhythm and find that there are books/events that you can use for many topics.
- You should also try to anticipate counter-arguements and respond to them. This is a useful essay writing tool and it shows the reader you know how to analyze a topic complexly. Don’t spend too much time doing this though, or else it could detract from the focus if your essay - most of your essay should still be on your examples.
- A conclusion paragraph is also a good thing to have, as it wraps up your essay and basically ties everything together. I find though, that a lot of the time my conclusion is mostly reiteration, so I’d say that if you’re running out of time and you have the choice of finishing an example and writing a conclusion, I’d finish the example and throw on a conclusion sentence or two.
- Some general things to remember - if you have time at the end, read over your essay and do a bit of proofreading (try to make time at the end. I almost always find some errors that I need to correct). While one or two grammar errors won’t hurt your score too much, if there are multiple egregious errors in your writing, it distracts the reader and takes away from the points your making. Also, remember that the SAT readers know that you don’t have much time to write this essay - this means, they won’t be looking for the most polished essay ever. Thus, prioritize getting solid examples over beautiful prose. (Of course, if you have the time, you can impress your reader and increase your score by varying your sentence structure, throwing in an SAT vocab word or two, etc.)
- The main takeaway - your SAT essay should establish a stance and give good examples backing up your stance. </p>
<p>Hope this helps and good luck with your SAT studying!</p>
<p>Make flash cards or download a flash card app. You can study vocab words, but don’t go overboard. Instead, study more root words/word origins than anything else. It’ll really help you start to decipher the meanings of tough words and see trends in language.</p>
<p>Check out i need a pencil and pwnthesat too!</p>
<p>Thanks for all the help!
I am currently Googling past SAT essay topics and math problems. However, I think I need THE most help on the CR section. I just want to ask what books I should read to improve my reading speed, how to deal with long passages in such a limited time.
Thank you very much!</p>