In need of advise ASAP!

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>I'm currently a Junior in high school. I had been prepping for the ACT's since September and took them in December. I screwed up the Scantron answers in the Reading section (put the answers for questions 20-40 in the 1-20 area) and ended up doing poorly on that portion which ultimately pulled my composite down (E 32, M 29, R 24, S 31, Essay 12, Comp 29). I had plans to take the February ACT but because of the snow storm, it got postponed and now I can't take it until April.</p>

<p>I had always assumed I was stronger in the ACT's versus the SAT's based off practice tests, but I still had plans to give the SATs a try in May. I just found out that I'm busy the day of the May test and cannot wait until June to take them for a first time. So in my utter confusion and chaos, I decided I need to take the March test. Registration deadline is next week, so that's not an issue. The only thing I need advise on is: </p>

<p>is it worth it? Will I be able to get a decent enough score as a starting point with barely 3 weeks of cramming and studying? Will studying for the SAT's (which is a completely different test than ACTs) ruin my mindset/thinking processes for the ACT? For the colleges I'm looking at, I ultimately need to break 2,000 at the least. Will it be worth the time, stress, effort, and all around craziness? Thank you so much for anyone who can help me out!</p>

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<p>For the reading section, the most important thing to do is simply read. Just read a lot of newspapers and do practice tests leading up to it and you’ll do fine! I got a 36 on reading, and beleive me, its the easiest section. Good luck!</p>

<p>Sent from my ADR6300 using CC</p>

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<p>Yes, I think it’s worth it- I think you should just go for it and take the March test. (No, I don’t think it’ll ruin your ACT mindset.) </p>

<p>Here is some general SAT advice: </p>

<p>Definitely buy Collegeboard’s “Blue Book” which is their official SAT guide. It really is just a giant, blue book that you can find at most libraries or bookstores.
For math, I’ve heard that you can practice with Gruber’s. I did, but only after I had tons of experience taking practice tests. Some of the math problems in Gruber’s are really hard and would never actually be found on the SAT. After taking a ton of practice tests, I kind of had a feel for which questions in Gruber’s were that level of difficulty and I usually just skipped those. But in short, Gruber’s is pretty good for math. I used Barron’s math workbook for math- there were some mistakes and I’m not sure how much it actually helped. But then again, I’m naturally pretty good at math, so Barron’s was good for practice.
Get the Barron’s writing workbook- to excel in the writing section, you really just have to memorize a bunch of writing rules and those are all featured in the Barron’s writing workbook. And since it’s a workbook, it gives you practice.</p>

<p>Some people might recommend Direct Hits for vocabulary. That’s cool and all; you can also buy flashcards and most SAT critical reading books have lists of vocab. You can find lists of vocab pretty much everywhere. I believe Sparknotes has one?</p>

<p>I recommend that you stay far, far away from any Kaplan books. </p>

<p>The best way to study for the SAT is to take lots of practice tests. There are ten- I think- in the Blue Book. Once you finish that, you can go online to Collegeboard’s SAT course. The lessons themselves aren’t particularly helpful, but it features ten additional practice tests.</p>

<p>I think if you look around on college confidential, you should be able to find plenty of free tests. And you can always use PSATs to study for the SAT, as well. </p>

<p>Use this for essay advice: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/645763-how-write-12-essay-just-10-days.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/645763-how-write-12-essay-just-10-days.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Finally, cut out all the questions you get wrong on the practice tests and tape/glue them into a notebook or composition book. Review those questions and make sure you really understand how to do them and why you got them wrong.</p>

<p>Good luck and feel free to PM me if you need anything else! (I’m better at replying to PMs than messages in threads.)</p>