<p>How much does luck play on SAT scores?</p>
<p>I think it plays a certain amount. I'm not sure "luck" is quite the right term, though.
That's why you get a range of scores. Generally you stay in that range if you take it several times unless something out of the ordinary went wrong or you've studied a lot in between your last one.</p>
<p>But a certain amount of it is luck. I mean, look at vocab. Maybe on one SAT you know almost all the words, but on another you get 3 questions wrong because you aren't sure about the words.</p>
<p>Same with the writing prompt. Maybe it's a hard one and you just can't think of anything. Or, maybe it's really easy and you had a similar essay already planned out in your head.</p>
<p>I think math is a little more you know what you know, but still, maybe there's one concept you haven't learned or don't understand and on one test they don't test it and on another there's 2 or 3 questions on it.</p>
<p>There's also the guessing part. If you are picking out of 2 or 3 answers and you have no idea, maybe on one test you get really lucky and choose the right ones and on another you don't.</p>
<p>So, yes, scores can vary and luck does play a role (more so if you're guessing). Generally, it should even out. If you took three SAT tests all in a row (with no prep/studying in between), you'd probably end up with different scores, but they'd all be in that general range.
Not always, but mostly.</p>
<p>I dunno how much, but the January SAT had a ridiculously easy reading section compared to December and I somehow got all my answers correct on the only section that was ridiculously hard (double long passages on english poetry or something really esoteric).</p>
<p>On math, I had a few closecalls where I spent several heartpounding minutes fruitlessly trying to get an answer, followed by an epiphany which allowed me to barely fill in that last bubble before time was called.</p>
<p>So for me, luck played a huge role. (Went from 2070 to 2230 in 1 month with no study)</p>