<p>My son took 2 SAT tests at home and first time, he got a 1630 and second time he got a 1795.
Both tests were taken without any prior preparation. These tests were given by a college consultant. We see a pattern in his test results. That is, he gets most of the questions correct in the beginning of the test/sections and then starts making a lot of mistakes towards the end of sections/tests.
This made the Consultant recommend us to see an Educational Psychologist to see if timing is a problem with my son in completing the tests correctly.
But on talking to him, he says that more than the time, he gets bored taking the test and so in a hurry, just clicks the answers.
Now I am wondering what should be our strategy to help him prepare for the SAT. He cannot afford to be bored like this.
Have any of you dealt with an edu psych and did he/she help in any way? My son is doing pretty well at school. He is a Sophomore and so far has 5 As and 1 B with 3 APs and 2 Honors classes and plays for JV Basketball. And from my initial conversation with the Edu Psych, it appears that a Psychologist would be of help to kids who are not doing well at school in addition to not doing well on SAT. </p>
<p>it’s pretty normal since questions get harder with the progress of the section , I mean question 1 would be easy and questions 20 for instance would be hard , it goes like that. for the test it’s normal too because SAT is a a long , stressing test , normally most people would run out of mental stamina along the way , but it’s easy to fix , with lots of practice , he would do just fine! </p>
<p>1795? That’s an impossible score to attain.</p>
<p>I agree, it’s not unusual to make more mistakes near the end usually due to not enough time (or in the case of math section, harder questions). And I agree, the SAT is a long and somewhat boring test. However you should convince him that it’s only 4 or so hours, and the test itself is pretty important if applying for good colleges, so the best strategy is to tough it out. Doing more practice tests should get you used to it, but not too many.</p>
<p>You could also try the ACT, since the SAT just throws section after section, which gets monotonous after a while. I scored better on the ACT with no prep than on the SAT with a decent amount of prep. 1800 is by no means a bad score either, since that is in range with a lot of good state universities, and the “average” score is around 1500.</p>
<p>I’m not too familiar with what might be happening in the brain, but I do also get bored sometimes with practice tests. Unless there is something going on psychologically, he needs to just put his mind to it. He’s likely a smart kid, with those grades, so it’s mostly a matter of trying.</p>
<p>However, it is true that SAT purposefully starts with easier questions, so don’t discount that either. In fact, if the difficulty was the problem, this issue would be easier to solve, since he just needs to take a look at the material. </p>
<p>There’s nothing wrong with starting halfway down with the challenging ones, then circling back when time is running out to do the easier ones at the beginning of each section. The ACT is thought to be a time-sensitive test, so it may compel him to work more briskly throughout the test.</p>
<p>And, I agree with @MITer94 that SAT scores decrement in steps of 10, not 5. It must be a pretty funky home test!</p>