<p>i'm a junior and i will be taking my first SAT reasoning test this march..
i've been prepping for this test for awhile now but i dont seem to be improving much when i take the practice tests. my college choices are pretty high up but i dont seem to be getting the scores i need for my choices. any ideas or tips on how i can study to improve my scores? i would reallllly appreciate it!</p>
<ol>
<li>searching would be the best choice. so many people have asked this exact question and it is irritating answering it like 5 times a day :P</li>
<li>we cannot help you if we don’t know where you stand. do you have a 600 math? or a 650 math? or 700 math?</li>
</ol>
<p>well pretty close to 500~mid 500’s for all of them</p>
<p>^You have to review some concepts/vocab along the way. Just doing practice tests and then not reviewing your mistakes won’t raise your score very much.</p>
<p>After each practice tests, look over all the ones you missed and MAKE SURE you understand WHY you missed them. WR and M may be the sections that are easier to improve…just make sure you dont make careless mistakes for the math section and go over some basic grammar rules if necessary for WR. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>i do review the materials that came up and the ones i got wrong but seems like every practice test comes up with different things and i don’t get the “pattern” that’s supposed to be there.</p>
<p>I’m not much of a help when it comes to CR</p>
<p>But for W and M…all the practice tests cover just about the same concepts
Like for W…you’re always looking for the same mistakes (subject/verb agreement, pronoun agreement, parallelism…etc). It’s quite easy to figure out what things to look for. After awhile, I would basically have a checklist of things to look for on the sentence correction part or whatever.</p>
<p>And math…review your basic algebra/geometry stuff. That’s really all you need. Then after doing practice tests…make sure you know why you couldnt figure out the questions. Was it because you didnt understand the question? Or you havent learned the concept yet? Or you knew everything needed to solve the problem but just couldnt work it out because it was “tricky”? Or are you just making stupid mistakes? You’ll probably see a pattern soon!</p>
<p>If you’re not sure what to be looking for, especially in terms of math and writing, a prep course may be a good idea.</p>
<p>thanks smile614 :]</p>
<p>&& missasian;; i did take prep courses, but i dont know how much that helped me, not much i dont think…</p>
<p>I agree with the above posters. Keep looking at/reviewing the basics! </p>
<p>Also, make sure you really understand what you got wrong. Sometimes I think I understand things when I really don’t. :)</p>
<p>yea absolutely review your mistakes</p>
<p>What i think may help you is, before you jump right into practice tests the next time
try actually reading what the book has to say about the math and writing sections.
Like an above poster said, for writing, a lot of the mistakes are really the same. Find these in your book’s review section and memorize them. For math, a lot of the questions you get wrong might just be stupid mistakes (ie, circling the solution for x when they ask you for 2x). </p>
<p>I used the CR strategy from kaplan. They suggest that after you read each paragraph write a small phrase that summarizes the paragraph (ie, “scientists theory” in an introductory paragraph). This helps you focus better when you read a paragraph, and especially helps on some of the drier passages. This strategy boosted my score to a 770.</p>
<p>I had the same problem as you! I dont think there’s much you can do for the CR other than study your vocab and practice but for math try looking for problems that are similar to the ones you missed. I know at first all the math questions seem so different from all the others but question types do repeat, you may start seeing them as you take more practice tests. One way I found really helpful was doing the question again after a long period of time. I know that sounds a little stupid but you should make sure you know how to solve the problem. If you know the remember the answer but don’t know how to solve it then you should relearn that strategy.</p>
<p>im not sure if anyone else mentioned this but try spending triple the time you usually do on a section and make sure every answer is correct. Some other posters recommended this and I think Xiggi recommends this method also. It works like a charm :)</p>
<p>all of you are so helpful thank you :]
yeah i definitely tried looking over the things i didnt get, and well i did better on my second practice test in this new book, boosted to range of 640-660 :] im still going to have to try with the CR and W, but i hear CR takes awhile to get and i just have to be patient and do a lot of practices. i just feel rushed and i feel like SATs are just around the corner… kinda stressed out…</p>
<p>That 100 point boost is good, especially for CR. MY scores have been taking large jumps lately, going up and down from a 600 to a 700 and back down again. Remember not to get discouraged with slow gains, it will come over time, and it is not as if that will be your actual score come time for the real SATs.</p>
<p>ohh ooops i guess i wasnt specific when i wrote my last reply… lol i jumped 100 points for math… but thank you dareallycoolguy :]</p>
<p>Good job! Just keep trying…I’m sure your W score will go up soon enough! It’s just about finding the patterns.</p>
<p>For math, make sure you go back and DO the problems you missed again. sometimes i look at the right answer and the explanation and think “Ohh I get it now” and then next time a similar problem appears I’m completely stuck again. Going back and trying it again helped me understand why I got stuck.</p>
<p>Same for W…go back to the ones you missed and make a note to look out for that mistake next time. </p>
<p>I also tried the Kaplan advice for CR like Blackbelt22 (didnt know it was the kaplan advice…just saw it somewhere on CC haha)
Writing a small one-sentence summary also helped me when I was answering questions and had to find evidence in the passage that supported the answer. Also helped me concentrate more/be active when reading it.</p>
<p>smile614, yeah i’ve been going back to the problems and solving them again, and i’ll definitely try the “kaplan advice” from you and blackbelt22. ughh SATs, SAT II’s, midterms are also coming up, so stressful! i have until march to really raise up my score. actually im taking a diagnostic test this coming up monday for my SATs so we’ll see how that comes out. wish me luck! :]</p>
<p>Make sure to take at least an hour checking over your answers after you’re done. skimming past the answers won’t be too helpful if you still only vaguely know where you went wrong. Of course, don’t kill yourself by checking it over immediately after you are done, or by spending as much time on the answer key as on your test. 5 hours of SAT straight would drive anyone insane.</p>
<p>definitely dareallycoolguy haha i think the most ive done was four hours in a row. i couldnt take much after that lol</p>
<p>dontstopbelievin–I’m assuming you’re a junior then?</p>
<p>Don’t stress TOO much about it…good luck with your diagnostic test!
Definitely review your answers and check it very carefully. Make sure you understand it.
I usually took a practice test in the morning and then checked it in the afternoon after a very LONG break. It’s definitely tiring to sit there for like 4 hours taking a test! It’s easy to lose concentration…
So don’t wear yourself out!
It’s definitely possible to raise your score!</p>