I don't seem to be improving...

<p>Hello everybody,</p>

<p>In June I took an SAT course and on the first day we took a diagnostic exam. I got a 1700 on it. By the end of the course in July, I had gotten upto a 2100. I have taken over 10 real past College board SATs since the end of my course. I've been consistently getting scores between 2050 and 2150. My question is, how can I raise this score. I seem to have hit a roadblock.</p>

<p>Math: always greater than 740 ( I always seem to miss one or two random problems that aren't even hard)</p>

<p>Critical Reading: low 600s (I'm working on vocab, the passage based questions are killing me)</p>

<p>Writing: mid-low 700s (I'm doing pretty well on the essay, my errors seem to be spread out amongst the rest of the problems.)</p>

<p>I am signed up for the October SAT. I am practicing by doing real SAT's and going over my mistakes. I don't seem to be getting anywhere. Any advice that will help me improve is greatly appreciated.</p>

<p>Thanks in advance,
vinvam</p>

<p>wow dude, did you finish all the QAS already?</p>

<p>Wow! It's always very good to note how hard people are working for the desired outcome... Firstly, good going, so far! I had a similar problem not too long ago. Here's something o help improve your passage based questions.
After having read the passage, read the question and try formulating a quick answer without looking at the options.</p>

<p>Then, decide between answers that are most similar to your formulation. The key here is obviously the comprehension skill, but you just need to look at passage from an open ended angle. Ask yourself rhetorical questions concerning the options given. This helps illuminate the wrong answers.</p>

<p>I’m not too sure how much that helps, but I promise it works perfectly for me</p>

<p>First off, your math needs to improve to an 800. If you can understand all the problems, then slow down a bit and make sure you don't make stupid mistakes. That is 60 points right there. That should take very minimal effort.</p>

<p>The CR is going to be what kills your score. I don't know how to help you on the passage based questions. Most of them are fairly simple. Do you know why you are missing those questions?</p>

<p>I took another exam today. I got a 1940.
:/</p>

<p>Math: 780
CR: 620
Writing: 540</p>

<p>I don't know what happened on writing today...</p>

<p>Thanks bandile, I'll try that out.</p>

<p>khoitrinh:
I have gotten an 800 before. I know I can and that I should be able to get 800s more often. I will try to slow down and work more carefully.
In CR, I have noticed that I tend to miss the questions that ask about general themes and ideas. I'm okay with the specific questions.</p>

<p>Thanks for all the help everybody. I think I'm going to take a test untimed and try to practice the tricks bandile and khoitrinh suggsted.</p>

<p>Keep the suggestions coming!</p>

<p>I took another exam today. I got a 1940.
:/</p>

<p>Math: 780
CR: 620
Writing: 540</p>

<p>I don't know what happened on writing today...</p>

<p>Thanks bandile, I'll try that out.</p>

<p>khoitrinh:
I have gotten an 800 before. I know I can and that I should be able to get 800s more often. I will try to slow down and work more carefully.
In CR, I have noticed that I tend to miss the questions that ask about general themes and ideas. I'm okay with the specific questions.</p>

<p>Thanks for all the help everybody. I think I'm going to take a test untimed and try to practice the tricks bandile and khoitrinh suggsted.</p>

<p>Keep the suggestions coming!</p>

<p>^Dude...how did your writing drop from mid 700 to mid 500??...
Was that with a QAS????</p>

<p>Perhaps he wrote a bad essay. you can get a 700 with 12 essay with most of the writing questions right, but around 500s if you get a essay score of below 7. **** happens.</p>

<p>My advice for scoring your writing is this : Keep doing whatever the hell you do, but when you score your writing score, give your essay a 1. This way if your essay score fluctuates(which tends to happen most of the time, you never know what topic those maniacs might come up with) , you won't freak out. Perfect the MC, the essay is easy to improve.</p>

<p>No, it wasn't the essay. I got an 11 on that essay. I always get 10s, 11s, and 12s on the essay. I just screwed up really badly on the multiple choice. I had a really hard time focusing that day.</p>

<p>All of my test scores are from these exams that my exam club has. We have 24 past SATs from the College Board. All of them are the "new" 2400 format. 8 of these tests are the same as the ones in the Blue Book.</p>

<p>you said you taken over 10 real past SAT's.. where did u get the real SAT's? i need more practice too.. thanks a lot!</p>

<p>Amazon.com:</a> 10 Real SATs, Third Edition: The College Board: Books</p>

<p>^That's the for the old SAT, but still pretty decent practice.</p>

<p>Hi vinvam,</p>

<p>I suggest you try to concentrate on getting Math and Writing up first because a few questions on those will bring your score up greatly. For math, try practicing number tricks so that you can just use logical reasoning (with numbers) to solve any problem you come across (works for me). For writing, know the 14 tested grammar types by heart and just practice -- do 5 Sentence Error sections one day, and then 5 Improving Sentences the next day, so that you can build a rhythm for finding the errors.</p>

<p>Tell me how it turns out!</p>

<p>-Loaded ;-)</p>

<p>Quick Update:</p>

<p>I have taken more practice tests and I'm back in the 2150 range. I have just over a week left and I would like to get over the 2200 barrier at the least. Again, math is not a problem: high 700s to 800s. I have been getting low 700s in Writing, 10s -12s on the essay. Critical Reading is the problem. I usually get CR scores in the low 600s. I seem to be missing some Sentence Completion questions, but most mistakes are from the passages. I did try Bandile's "trick," but it did not seem to make a difference.</p>

<p>I am going to study hard these next few weeks by doing untimed CR and Writing sections. My main focus is Critical Reading now. Any help is greatly appreciated.</p>

<p>Thanks everybody,
vinvam</p>

<p>Godspeed.
10c</p>

<p>I'm having the same problem with CR. I usually miss only a couple sentence completitions, which I could care less about. But I always screw up on the passages and get in the low 600s.</p>

<p>Thanks Quix?</p>

<p>i have the same problem with the CR too. but i guess its just takes alot of practice to score 700+</p>

<p>OMG! im so with you with the whole writting score drop drasticaly thing! i started of getting 660 --> 720 > ( i was so proud of my self improving ) then out of the blue i got a 550. I was deppresed ! i had no idea what happend</p>