<p>Hello,
I took the SAT's recently, and I received a</p>
<p>600 in math
640 in reading
and
600 in writing...</p>
<p>I'm planning on taking the March SAT and my goal to have a combined Critical reading and math score of 1300. I do not care about the writing score!<br>
It seems like no matter what I do, I am not improving or even de-proving (is that even a word? xD)
My parents can't afford SAT classes, so does anyone have some tips for me? Would raising my score up to that point in one month be easy or obtainable?</p>
<p>I already took the SATs twice and it will be my third time taking it. I do not want to take it any more than that! </p>
<p>This is REALLY important to me and I would love it if someone could help me out. </p>
<p>Buy the blue book from college board (it’s like 20 bucks), and just do all of the practice tests. See what you did wrong, and study vocab. You’ll get better.</p>
<p>Thanks for answering!
I finished the blue book, and unfortunately I had a 40 point improvement only
I feel that I should review everything again…</p>
<p>Math-all I can say is to review basic concepts, be aware of common mistakes/SAT tricks, and practice…I got a 680 in 7th grade w/o studying, so you really just need to know your basics up to pre-algebra as well as the obvious advice like don’t spend too much time on one problem, if you can narrow it down to 2 answers take your best guess, etc. Oh, and look over your previous results to see if it’s a certain area that is tripping you up.
Critical reading-READ A LOT! Find reading material similar to that of the SAT passages and read it. Just getting used to the type of language used in the SAT articles helps a lot. Ignore the overly formal wording and focus on facts. Sort of keeping a running summary of the article in your head using everyday language rather than rereading the same sentence with weird wording helps too. (my score was 700, again from 7th grade)
These are quick fixes from a one-time taker, but I hope it helps!</p>
<p>READING
-Don’t completely bubble in your letters til the very end. Put just a little scratch mark on the correct answer so you can get back to reading without losing your train of thought.
-Read the questions before reading the passage. Determine what you should be thinking about as you read.
-Bracket all lines that are the focus of questions before you even read the passage.
-DO NOT GET CAUGHT UP IN THE STORY. Don’t like the passage. Don’t appreciate it. Think objectively, as if you were the author of the passage. Think about why you wrote what you wrote, and think about what you were trying to convey.</p>
<p>MATH
-Know how to use a calculator effectively.
-If the correct way to solve it doesn’t come to you within 3 seconds, skip it.
-I have created roughly scale drawings of geometry problems I didn’t immediately understand which helped me cut out nonsensical answers. Only do this if you have already answered every other problem.
-Once you have answered everything you can, test possible answers on the ones you don’t know. On problems where you can’t test values, leave them blank.</p>
<p>WRITING
-Use at least two quotes/specific historical references in your essay. Memorize quotes about Freedom, leadership, power, and other cliche topics. Odds are, the essay will be about something generic like that.
-In the essay, there is no wrong answer. Simply support your position.
-They aren’t looking for an award winning creative masterpiece. They are looking for focus, grammar, and an inkling of intelligence in your writing.
-For the sentence correction portions, don’t repeat the sentence in your head, It doesn’t work. The hard ones are designed so that they sound ok. Instead, identify subject nouns, verbs etc. and make sure they line up. Cut out the unimportant clauses in the sentence. The sentences are filled with unnecessary fluff meant to distract you. Don’t let them.</p>
<p>These are things you can do on test day. In addition, obviously try to get 8+ hrs rest beforehand and have a huge breakfast the day of.</p>
<p>I went from scoring a 181 PSAT to a 2260 SAT.</p>
<p>GENERAL ADVICE</p>
<p>CR:
I don’t know if I agree with immasenior to bubble in all answers at the end. What if you’re out of time and don’t have time to finish bubbling? You’re screwed. I think it’s much safer to first mark answers in the test booklet every 7-8 CR questions (basically every page) and then transfer these answers to your answer booklet. That way, you won’t lose your train of thought as easily as you will if you bubble in the answers after every question and you won’t run the risk of frantically filling in bubbles if your time runs out. It’s a happy medium.</p>
<p>ALSO, it’s really important that you don’t get bogged down in the minute details of each passage. You only need to know as much as the questions ask. What kept my CR reading score in the low 600s was that I would always reread stuff because I got lost in details-- DON’T DO THIS. Push yourself to keep reading, even if Collegeboard is cruel and gives you a boring passage. It’s much more important to grab an overall sense of the passage, because you’ll most definitely get a question asking for the “big picture” and a lot of questions that seem detailed-orientated can become quite simple after eliminating answers that wouldn’t make sense with the overall “feel” of a passage. </p>
<p>I recommend Direct Hits for vocab and The Critical Reader by Erica Meltzer for passage-based questions. They’re worth it. I went from a 630 CR to a 770 CR (and 36 ACT reading) in 3 months.</p>
<p>W:
For the essay, just write a lot and use idea-based topic sentences for each paragraph. If you can fill the two pages, then you can easily get a 9+ essay. Think of some examples beforehand-- as a rule of thumb, come up with one literary, historical and personal example-- ex: Lord of the Flies, the Civil Rights Movement, my passion for __________.</p>
<p>For the MC questions, I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend The Ultimate Guide to SAT Writing (again by Erica Meltzer lol… this was the first book I bought from her. I bought her CR book too because I was sooo happy with my writing score improvement). I went from a 58 PSAT writing score to a 760 SAT writing score just by using this book. It’s a godsend, and you should read every single page of this book and do all of the exercises it WILL help you… I guarantee you, writing is the easiest score to improve on.</p>
<p>Seems like you have hit a score plateau, sir. No matter, everyone hits one and in retrospect, I must say that, despite the fact that improvement seems impossible, there are actually very simple ways to cross the plateau. My answer will only be for CR.</p>
<p>i) Vocabulary - the most clear cut way to improve a CR score. Though about 100-200 words may not improve your score much, a 700-900 word increase in vocabulary can help boost the score by up to 180-200 points!
ii) Changing the way you attempt the sections - experiment with various new ways to attempt the section i.e. doing the passages before the sentence completions or doing the long passages before the short ones, etc. You might thus find a method of attempting the section that works better for you.
iii) Changing the way you attempt the passages - experiment with various new ways to attempt the passages i.e. instead of reading the whole passage, read it in bits while simultaneously answering the line reference question. This will improve time management and help you keep the material in mind when doing the questions.</p>
<p>All of the aforementioned points can help you improve your score and get past that pesky plateau. Try them out. Good luck! :)</p>
I see what you mean. Perhaps it would be more effective to use my method, but to darkly fill in your answers at the end of each passage. That way you won’t get stuck with 35 bubbles to fill in at the end. It would be something more managable, like 10.</p>
<p>You absolutely don’t have to buy an expensive class to do well, I personally think their only use is to motivate not-driven students and force them to study. </p>
<p>I agree with a lot of the above, practice smarter instead of repeating yourself! Figure out what concepts you’re not understanding and focus on taking the time to learn them. Are you truly reviewing your practice tests, or just grading them and moving on? Take the time to figure out why you got an answer wrong, truly understand the mistake and seek out questions like it to focus on. </p>
<p>As you work through practice tests (Blue Book, SAT Online Course tests, the free one hosted on the ETS website), circle any question you guess on, even if you just guess between two answer choices. After you grade your tests, record all your mistakes AND GUESSES in a journal. I actually tell my students to keep 3 journals, one for each subject.</p>
<p>After you’ve taken several practice tests, you start to detect patterns in the kind of errors you make. For instance, maybe you are shaky on math questions dealing with functions. Maybe you always miss writing questions dealing with how to join two independent clauses with a semi-colon, a semi-colon + transition word, or a comma + coordinating conjunction. Maybe you miss context-based questions on the CR but never the line-based questions. Heck, maybe you always miscalculate 7+5. Whatever it is you keep missing, you can address that pattern(s) of error, drilling those particular skills until they’re solid.</p>
<p>It’s great you’ve taken Blue Book tests. Doing so helps you understand the SAT and practice the critical skill of <em>timing.</em> But without a rigorous and targeted review of where you’re making mistakes AND WHERE YOU’RE GUESSING at questions, it will be hard to make big gains. Argh, I’ve been wanting to make a big huge post somewhere about the overall SAT prep strategy my company uses, but I’m not sure where it would be best to put that/whether people feel they need more advice on top of the other good advice piled up high on this forum :)</p>
<p>Let me know if you need more help–I can recommend a short book that condenses a lot of SAT advice for those working under a time crunch.</p>
<p>I went up over 100 in Math and Writing, my reading score was amazing not to brag, on my 2nd time after working hard everyday practicing with timing. Also, make sure to go over what you’re getting wrong and don’t be afraid to omit. I worked really hard to get these scores up and was so surprised when I received my scores and made huge improvements! Also, you only took it once and in January, I’m assuming, that’s generally a time where not a lot of students take it which also effects the scoring and grading of the SAT and what you get so, March you might do better just based on how many take it. If worse comes to worse and you don’t do well in March because of lack of time I suggest retaking it one more time in May or June or try the ACT. One of my peers wasn’t improving on the SAT and actually went down on the 2nd or 3rd time they took it, they tried the ACT and got a 32 so, it all depends. Best of luck!</p>
<p>I took the SAT last year and raised my SAT score 200 points by self-studying. There are a lot of great tips on CC on how to improve. Take a look at Xiggi and Silverturtle- their advice is invaluable. Also, do AS MANY practice tests as you can get your hands on. There are QAS tests out there on the internet, and also the online college board course. What’s important is that after each test, you go back and understand why not only your wrong answers were wrong, but also why your right answers were right. As for bubbling, find what works for you. Everyone says something different, but I found that bubbling in after each page was best for me. </p>
<p>I would suggest getting the two “Direct Hits” vocabulary books and learning all of the words in them (there’s about 500 total). The books are great, and I didn’t get a single word on the SAT wrong after using them. For CR, what I liked to do was not read the questions beforehand, but rather see what lines each question referred to and bracket those lines before reading the passage. As I reached each bracket, I quickly did the question then went back to reading. That way, my answer to the question would not be swayed by the rest of the passage (I’ve been ‘tricked’ so many times by answering a question with context outside of the referenced lines). At this point, I don’t think general reading is going to help you much since you only have a month, but definitely keep practicing!</p>
<p>As for math, practice, practice, and practice some more. The same types of questions always pop up, so make sure you know how to answer every type of Math question on the practice tests. Go back to your tests and understand why every single question was right or wrong. I ended up with an 800 in Math by doing this, even though I had a similar starting point as you!</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You need to improve your reading comprehension. Read a fun book like Star Wars, Vampires, Harry Potter, etc whatever you like. This will help a lot more than you think.</p></li>
<li><p>Take a small break from studying for the test. It may sound counter-productive, but really you will do better if the info/concepts take time to soak in, read your fun book in this time. Maybe a week or 2.</p></li>
<li><p>Math- What kind of calculator are you using? You should for sure be using one with CAS (Computer Algebra) installed. You can also download SAT programs and store notes in your calculator. Be sure to take full advantage of this. I would go with a TI-89, TI-Nspire or HP-Prime, depending on which you are most comfortable with. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>I also suggest that you buy a prep book and do the practice tests. After each one, go over your mistakes and learn from them. I found the SAT to be a pretty predictable test - there are certain question types that will always come up (especially on math!). Definitely don’t just keep taking the real SAT over and over again - it’s a waste of money when you could get the same experience by taking a practice test.</p>
<p>One specific thing, though - definitely use the ‘bracketing’ technique mentioned above. It’s a time saver, and actually will help you get more questions correct, as well. </p>
<p>First SAT i got 2200, second one 2310. They were December 2013 and January 2014, so about 1.5 months apart. The only way I did that was taking 2-3 sections a day. That is the only way to go. There is no shortcut here. </p>
