<p>@portalicious, I would love to see your CR tips.</p>
<p>Portalicious: Thanks a lot! I would love to hear your tips on CR, I’m sure they would be very helpful!</p>
<p>Oh and Portalicious I am taking pre-calc as well and from what I’ve heard it’s a lot of Algebra. If you have a strong base in that, I think you’ll do just fine.</p>
<p>Precal has algebra, but not a lot of geo. the Geo is precal is more of a Trig, and no much, if any, of the concepts that are tested on the SAT besides the basic Pythagorean theorem. Precal has a lot of trig identities/functions, and utilizes a lot of the unit circle. I just wasted like two hours doing nothing, but surfing the web and watching videos on YouTube. I watched the Ivy Dreams videos, (consisted of 10 parts) and this basically makes me worry more about the admissions process. It would definitely be amazing to go to a school like Yale, or any of the ivies for that fact. I’m just afraid of rejection. All the hard work and persistence of recovery after a disastrous 9th and 10th grade wouldn’t suffice for acceptance to an “all right” school.</p>
<p>Math: missed 7 questions. I read 3 pages worth of DH (lackluster, I know), and I finished all my homework! So I have Sat, Sunday, and Monday to work on SAT and college apps!</p>
<p>Hmmmm for some reason my sent messages aren’t saving? Does that happen to everyone or just me? (still new to the site)</p>
<p>I’ll just rewrite it:
When it comes to CR my strength is definitely the passage based questions. The only time I miss them is when they are completely dependent on knowing vocab and I make the wrong guess. With that being said, here’s what I do on most medium-hard passage based Qs.
- First off, I am a pretty fast reader so if you aren’t you may not find this useful. For one of my recent CR sections I had 7 minutes left over (after doing the stuff I mention below). For the SAT (I think) it’s important that you know how face you read so you can properly pace yourself and use strategies that are tailored to that pace. With that being said, if you read quickly enough:
- Read the question (and the line(s) it refers to) MANY times. I’m starting to notice that doing that (even when I think I know the answer) helps separate the GOOD from the CORRECT answer. Sometimes an answer that’s presented will seem to fit until you realize there is a detail in the passage (or question) that makes another option the better (and therefore correct) answer. This might mean I have to read the question ten times, but I make sure to keep reading it until I know exactly what I should be looking for in the passage…
- …Which I have read with “hungry” concentration. This means I’m paying close attention, especially to certain aspects. When I read I pay attention to a) the tone, b) the overall message and c) key points. I personally like to pay attention to the focus and tone of the piece as I go because I know (especially after long passages) there will probably be both a question directly asking what the tone was and multiple questions where if you know the tone you will at least be able to eliminate multiple answers (ex.- what would author Madeup say in response to the comment/position “blah blah blah”?). The overall message (related but different from the tone) or ‘moral,’ for lack of a better word, is also going to come into play on a question or two. And those parts of the passage that seemed important so you read extra carefully? Hey, look there, a question that you can answer almost immediately (after rereading it and the line, of course). ALL of these aspects can help me answer EVERY question, and if you watch out for them and keep them in mind as you read and answer Qs it will be a lot easier (IMO. This works for me every time and I use it for school reading I really need to ‘get.’)
- For sentence completion Qs, I use process of elimination. This is my CR weakness, but considering how many I usually have to guess on I don’t fair too poorly. When some words are familiar (heard it before, not sure what it is) I use a combination of educated guessing and context. If you read the sentence, you could probably guess the sorts of words you would write in if you could. I compare those words with the answers and cross out any that I think have the opposite connotation as those words. This really narrows down the answers and from there I guess. There are usually two or three where I honestly don’t recognize a single answer. In those cases I guess (but I’m thinking I might want to skip in the future). </p>
<p>I know that was long and probably really unhelpful…</p>
<p>Thanks for the CR help.</p>
<p>^ lol haphazard, i have watched all those ivy dreams videos as well and they worry me. I especially like watching the reactions when they find out about college decisions, and it makes me feel bad for them. Im sure I will get rejected from many, if not most/all the ivy leagues i apply to, but im hoping to get into one.</p>
<p>Hahaha. The one girl, I forgot her name, was pretty rude to her interviewer. She offered the interviewer work that she has done, and then asked if the interviewer could fax it back to her. She got rejected from all ivies, which is pretty sad. Mike, on the other hand, thought he could get into Columbia with a 1400 SAT score. He was ambitious, but I’m not sure how he forgot to take SAT 2 subject tests.</p>
<p>Port, nice guide. I’ll try following your advice.
Today:
- Finish Kaplan Geo primer.
- Read through the CR/Writing/Math section of blue book(I’m nearly finished)
- lots of Math! (Chung’s, Gruber’s)
- lots of CR (Barron’s and Directs Hits)
- Reviewing/learning various wiring topics and strengthening my essay
- College Apps f’(x) = (lol.)^4(probably won’t happen)^7</p>
<p>This is my first time viewing this thread and I just wanted to throw my story out there and give you all some hope. In Spring 2010 I scored a 1710 on my SAT and was devastated. I went to a competitive private high school so all my friends were scoring mostly 2200-2400. However, because of illness I was unable to study at all for most of the summer. I took the SATs in October 2010 (my second time) and my score had actually jumped 300 points. You all have been studying so much more than I ever did, so I know your scores will be even better.</p>
<p>Haphazard, what kind of colleges are you looking at? Any specific major?</p>
<p>Thanks mtgirl517! Medical boy, I want to be a pre-med major(I understand there’s no such thing, but I guess you could say Bio major that will complete med school pre reqs). Schools I’m looking at: GATech, Brown, Emory, JHU, Cornell, and a few schools with 7 yr DO/MD programs.</p>
<p>Thanks for the tips Portalicious. I definitely have to speed up my reading, I think that’s what is holding me back on CR.
Anyways, I’m going to do about 20 more words today, bringing me to around 190. Also going to do 2 math sections and 1 writing section.</p>
<p>My goal is 700+ in CR. My main weakness is my lack of strong vocabulary. Haphazard, may I know what vocabulary books you use? Just Direct Hits?</p>
<p>Just finished Section 7 of Test #1.
Got 6 out of 35 wrong, not a bad start for me! Going through the wrong answers now, trying to understand exactly where I made a mistake. There are 49 questions in the writing section so if I go at this rate, I would get about 2-3 more wrong. That’s far too many! Hoping get around 3-4 wrong, at the max, by October.</p>
<p>Wow I just spent my Saturday evening watching youtube videos of student’s college acceptance reaction. It really pumps me up lol. . .</p>
<p>LOL. Jaefosho, me too! I really need to put my laptop aside. I reviewed all the mistakes from the practice test, and finished the Kaplan geo primer, but I haven’t done anything else. I’m getting back to work!</p>
<p>Scary, I watched the “intro” video and decided I had to x out before I became consumed and watched them all. Don’t want to psych myself out…</p>
<p>Do you guys get the daily SAT Q emails from the CB? I think they’re really helpful, if only to boost confidence and drill in the way Qs are set up (and I like seeing how I stack up on the pie chart thing after getting it wrong/right). Maybe we could compare who’s struggling with what and offer help based on those Qs? Just a thought.</p>
<p>Yup I always do the Question of the Day, very helpful imo. I struggled with the August 28 question. I realize that triangle BOC is an isosceles triangle with 2 sides that are 6, but I don’t know how to get the side BC</p>
<p>I answer the questions everyday. I rarely have a problem when answering. I trip up on math once in a while. I’m nearly finished with direct hits 1. I’m like 30 pages away. I think I’m going to finish it, and do another walkthrough for Gruber’s. I’m hearing math is the easiest to improve upon, but there seems to be no improvement. I’ve lately been feeling confident approaching CR, but haven’t tested that yet. Tomorrow will be the day I see whether my confidence yields positive results.</p>