<p>Hey guys! So last year I prepared heavily for the SATs and I felt ready for it. However when I got my results back they were way lower than expected. Math (my best subject) got me the lowest score at a 620 when I was expecting a 710, Reading (my second best subject) got me a 630 which I was also expecting higher and Writing (usually my worst subject) got me 680 which I was not expecting. After getting my results back however I noticed that I got a lot of the 4 and 5 questions right and got a lot of 2 or 3 questions wrong! Re Taking the test at my house I only got 2 or 3 problems wrong overall in math. I know there's a pretty big difference actually taking the test and practicing at my house but a lot of the mistakes I made on the SAts came from careless errors or me not paying attention well enough. I know the solution seems simple: just pay attention more but for some reason whatever I do I just can't. Is there anything I can do to help while I get ready for the october one? Thanks!</p>
<p>Practice taking an entire SAT practice test in the morning (just like you would the real test)</p>
<p>Well, I can’t speak for reading but i had the same problem as you with math. All I did was I took a few untimed practice sections and even spent an hour on one section. Overall, without time I’d score a 750. When I got confident, I started timing myself again and took things at a reasonable pace. I used to finish with about 9 minutes to spare because Dr. Chung’s boosted my speed, but then I started using all my allotted time, went slower, and double checked me answers. This strategy worked out well for me. I took one timed test and got a 770 on math and then on the next one I got an 800. </p>
<p>@kevyduan, @scholarme is on the right track. </p>
<p>There is something different between your practice exam and the real thing. There are plenty of ways it might be different, taking it in the morning, eating breakfast first, getting enough sleep, feeling nervous. You need to try and figure out what the difference is and deal with it. Do you have any ideas?</p>
<p>Once you have your list of things that are different, you need to actually deal with them. Somethings you can emulate in a practice exam, like the time of day you take it. Other things will be hard, like whether you feel nervous or not. Emulate the things you can. For the things you can’t there are two strategies. 1. Takes lots of real exams and let them serve as practice, 2. Learn how to cope with these things.</p>
<p>The most common thing students need help coping with is feeling nervous. If you do feel nervous, don’t worry, its totally normal, most people feel nervous before the ACT or any big event in their life. The big trick with nervousness is to not fight it. People sometimes think they should feel calm, they try to calm down, but they can’t, their mind won’t let them. When they can’t calm down, they start to panic and that panicked feeling is a huge distraction.</p>
<p>Instead of fighting nervous feelings, change the way you interpret them. Instead of calling it nervousness, call it excitement. They are actually the same feeling, just a different way to interpret it. You are excited because you have a big test coming up and all of that adrenaline is going to help your brain work its hardest. Being excited is a good thing, go with it.</p>
<p>I hope that helps, I can give some more particular advice if you post your list of things that are different between the real exam and this exam.</p>
<p>@banjoandstuff Thanks for the advice! I tried to keep the conditions when I took it the same as the condition when I retook it at my house. I timed myself, went to a quiet room, took the whole test along with the math section etc. I think the biggest difference was that I might have felt less rushed because my results while taking it at my house didn’t matter as much as my results when I actually took it. However I didn’t feel nervous as all while actually taking the test. I felt a little bit like I was rushing through things but I didn’t think it would lead to that many careless mistakes. Thanks!</p>
<p>@doc325 Thanks for the response! When I take practice tests as well as during the actual sat I usually also have around 10 mins to spare after each section. I try to use the time to go back to all my answers and checking them but I find myself rushing through my extra 10 minutes again which doesn’t really help!</p>
<p>Careless mistakes come from reading… you are just speed-reading the questions and grasping a little of what is needed to complete the answer.</p>
<p>conclusion: ALWAYS READ THE KEY WORDS IN PROBLEMS. </p>
<p>You might want to read my article titled “Stop Making Careless Errors In SAT Math.” It’s on this forum - just do a search.</p>
<p>Thanks! I’ll look into it! @DrSteve</p>
<p>Dr Steve - That article is not available in the search. Just a discussion thread comes up with your post about it in the thread. Could you pls give a link or connect me to it?
Thank you very much.</p>
<p>Looks like @DrSteve is talking about this post <a href=“How To Stop Making Careless Errors in SAT Math - SAT Preparation - College Confidential Forums”>1</a>, but the article seems to be truncated. Steve can you provide a link or repost?</p>
<p>CC sometimes gets upset about long quotes and/or direct links to blog posts. I found the original article by Googling some keywords. [Here</a> is that search.](<a href=“"Before we can put an end to careless errors""]Here - Google Search”>"Before we can put an end to careless errors" - Google Search) A link to the article comes right up.</p>
<p>Thanks @WasatchWriter. To be clear the article is not in college confidential. Its at <a href=“Stop Making Careless Errors in SAT Math - GET 800”>1</a>. It has some pretty good advice as far as I can tell. I wouldn’t follow all of it, but a lot of good inspiration for you to choose from.</p>
<p>Kevyduan: I’ve had a lot of students who underperformed the first time they took the exam. For whatever reason, they just had one bad test in them that had to be expunged before they could work to their potential. For these students, their second test score skyrocketed, and many of them didn’t prep much at all in the interim. That said, there are a couple things I’ve found that have really helped my students:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Circle or rewrite key words when you see them.
The SAT purposefully puts key words early in long word problems. They know that many students will forget them by the time they get to the end of the problem. Circling or rewriting helps. </p></li>
<li><p>If you’ve done work on a problem, before you circle your answer, take three seconds to go back and reread the last sentence to make sure you’re answering the right question.
Many SAT questions are set up to lead you to find x, but then at the end they ask for 2x, or for y. Taking just three seconds helps eliminate so many of these errors. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Lastly, and this could get a little woo-woo, but I believe in some woo-woo advice and I’ve seen it work for my students, so here goes. Get mad at the test makers. Get your pride involved. These test makers want to trick you. They want you to get easy questions wrong. Don’t let them! Say to yourself each time you do a problem, “I’m going to be so careful that there’s no way these jerks are going to trick me.” </p>
<p>If this doesn’t match your temperament, don’t worry about it. But if it does, give it a shot.</p>
<p>@elievenezky Thanks I’ll try to use this advice!</p>
<p>That’s pretty smart. I always dislike spending a minute solving x and needing to find x+y or something. Checking the last sentence would definitely be worth the time (especially since I usually have lots of time left over)</p>