Improvement Thread

<p>I'm trying to improve my scores and here I will just post up score updates and future plans. Anybody else can write their progress here too and maybe we can share what books are helping us improve in certain areas, tips we find effective, etc.</p>

<p>August 10th, 2011</p>

<p>Current score: 1900~2000
-Improved from 1800 a month ago...but need to improve much more!
Goal: 2300~2400
By: October 2011
Critical Reading: 640
Math: 710
Writing: 660</p>

<p>Finding trouble with:
-Critical Reading: Long passages, especially under time pressure
-math: I can solve the problems well but I have trouble being accurate under time pressure.
-writing: need to write better essays, must study diction and usage errors</p>

<p>Plan: -Do at least 1 section of math every day in 18 minutes, trying to be as precise as possible
-at least 1 section of CR every day within 25 minutes (for now)
-find a list of diction errors
-find of list of more preposition/idioms with EXAMPLES :/
-research 2~3 good examples every day for the essay, keep getting familiar with them
-Barrons Math Workbook; complete a section every day (I find this book effective)
-Barrons 2400 (complete writing section by tomorrow)</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/309616-common-sat-idioms.html?highlight=idiom[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/309616-common-sat-idioms.html?highlight=idiom&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Found a list of idioms here on CC
:D</p>

<p>Good luck! I have a similar goal, only I am a junior and am taking the SAT in Nov and PSAT in October. I am currently scoring around 2100.</p>

<p>I’m at the 2000 ± 100 range atm. I’m shooting for a 2400. </p>

<p>I’ve finally memorized all of DH’s. I feel as if I need more, so I’m going to try to tackle the other top vocab lists.</p>

<p>^I’m almost done the DH but I’m also working on Wordsmart I and II which I find really helpful. It has idioms and prepositions too.</p>

<p>Thanks and good luck everybody :)</p>

<p>just did a practice test today. got 2120…
ahhhhhh this is discouraging.</p>

<p>my problem is definitely the critical reading section, long passages.
For math and writing, I made 1~2 mistakes but I took the lowest number in the range, which brutally dropped my score.</p>

<p>Try reading different articles from Economist/The week/Times. One thing that really helped me with my time for CR was underlining the line references before reading. Skim through the questions and just underline the lines xx-xx. (This should only take 20~30 sec max) Then, when you read the passage, stop before the line reference or one sentence after it and read the questions, and solve. It really helps.</p>

<p>After applying this tip, my avg CR time decreased from 25 min (pretty tight there) to 17 min. It worked for me, so why don’t you give it a try?</p>

<p>I took 2 practice tests (sigh I need to do more), and scored around a 2150 on both. I’m feeling some improvement :)</p>