Need emergency insight. Please help

Hello, I am applying for a scholarship, and they want me to submit my SAT scores by May 20 which would require me taking the May 4th SAT- not the June 1st. This literally means I have around two weeks to cram and take it with a scholarship on the line. The score required to enter the scholarship pool as a contender is only 1200. I would love some insight on how hard would a 1200 be as I have gotten conflicting reports. The average is 1080 I think nationally, but a lot of those people I assume just try without studying too on their first shot?
I pushed extremely hard for an extension and taking the June 1st SAT, but it is impossible.

Also, Can you guys link me some review and studying sites? There’s so many review sites that I feel overwhelmed. I need a plan of action with all the practice and study materials as soon as possible, but I want to just focus on a few quality ones rather than being all over the place and not learning at the end. A lot of them seem like gimmicks too lol to get you to subscribe.

Here is on some further insight on me.

  1. I am a senior
  2. The scholarship is offered directly by the university.
  3. I am extremely determined and persistent. I have a good GPA, but it has been raised by my excellence in every class apart from math lol. If it were for math alone, it would be a regular GPA. I excel in science; and I am amazing in writing, reading, and grammar. My weakness would be math.

What is your ACT score?

A really really good review website is Khan Academy. It’s partnered with The College Board for an SAT prep program so the questions are very similar to what you would see on test day. Another website is the PrepScholar Blog. They have all kinds of articles written by SAT perfect-scorers that will help you improve test-taking strategies (trust me, these really work). One more thing I definitely recommend doing is taking an official practice SAT (College Board has 8 available for students) to determine where your weak points are and studying those. If your weak point is in EBRW, then I recommend getting Erica L. Meltzer’s Critical Reader books for SAT Reading and/or SAT Writing (it is a very dense book and is suited for motivated students, so consider carefully if this book is for you) and reading through that (you do say this is your strong point though, so this shouldn’t concern you). If your weak point is in Math (as you say it is), I recommend doing a lot of math practice on Khan Academy and learning unfamiliar concepts through the lessons it offers on almost every kind of math. This is very helpful and it will almost surely raise your score. As to your question on how difficult getting a 1200 is, most people should be able to score that with a well-used two weeks of preparation (and you seem to be a good student, so this seems likely). It really depends on the range you’re scoring right now. Looking at a past test score or a practice SAT from College Board will help you determine if earning a 1200 is feasible. Good luck!

I have not taken the ACT

Have you previously taken the SAT? the PSAT?

OK, for math:

  • first and foremost, know the directions. There are 3 different types of questions on the Math SAT: regular mult choice with calculator, regular mult choice without calculator, and fill in the blank. The non-calculator questions tend to be fairly straightforward. But in the middle of the other section is a full page of directions for the fill ins. If you’re not already familiar with the directions, you’ll have to stop answering questions to read it, and the word “truncate” has been known to confuse a student or two. So go over those directions several times in the next two weeks.
  • Know which formulas are given. Basically, it's area, volume, the special triangles and Pythagorean Theorem. But know what's there and what's not.
  • Know the Pythagorean triples and how to use them. It will save you time.
  • Don't get bogged down on any one question. Since all questions carry the same weight, do the ones you know and come back to those that are either too time consuming or confusing.
  • Each section has the questions in order from "easy" to "difficult"-- though those terms can vary from one person to the next. So expect #1 to be pretty easy; trust your instincts. But expect #25 to be more difficult-- if your gut is giving you an answer without any work, the odds are that you're falling for a trap.
  • Answer each question. There is no benefit to leaving a question blank.
  • The diagrams are drawn to scale unless it specifically states otherwise. So if it looks Isosceles, it is. If it looks like a square, it is one.

You are a senior with no test scores? How?

Would you even have the results by May 20 if you took it May 4?

I second the rec for Kahn Academy, it will be perfect for improving your math.

After you create your account and go to the SAT practice area, you’ll want to take the diagnostic quizzes to create your baseline skill level for each of the math areas, since you don’t have any tests. Don’t guess on the diagnostics, so it can actually target your weak areas. And don’t spend too much time on the diagnostics, if the problem looks unfamiliar, just select the “I’d just be guessing” option and move on.

Now you can start studying. The site will provide 5 practice questions for each area like ‘Solving quadratic equations’. If you are not sure how to solve the practice questions, click on the video link and an instructor will walk you through how to solve the problem.

@Cpoa24 I’m with @Sybylla on this one. It’s quite odd that you’re a senior without any standardized tests. But then more and more colleges are accepting kids with optional score reporting, so is this what’s happened to you?

@Sybylla I’ve taken the PERT on which I got a 116 109 106.

I just took a practice test and got 610 in EBRW and 290 in math which it’s basically due to being foreign to a lot of the formulas and problems asked

Ouch. Khan Academy will help you bring up the math; I’d focus primarily on that.

Also, bear in mind that if the score needed for scholarship consideration is a 1200, a 1200 may not be sufficient to be granted any scholarships. It may not be worth the week of prep, depending on what you need to do to keep up in school for that week.

@allyphoe I don’t have much this week if anything at all thankfully. Is Khanacademy the best out there for math? I feel as if it only covers superficially as if I had already been introduced to the type of problem before.

Personally I’m not a big fan of Khan Academy for math. I don’t like his explanations. While Sol Khan is a brilliant man, he’s not a math teacher.

That said, if your starting place is a 290 in math, use whatever website you can. Quibbling over which site to use is simply wasting time that would be better spent studying, whether from Khan Academy or any other source.

Can I just ask: Why are you foreign to so many of the material being asked? What math courses have you had this far? The SAT and ACT typically presume that you’ve had Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II and Trig,.

Also, are you good with the graphing calculator? Have you used it in your math classes? If not, then this may not be the time to learn; too much time on the calculator means too little time doing practice problems.

My kid really liked the Khan Academy SAT prep, which is the only reason I favor it. She said she recognized several questions on the actual SAT as ones that KA identified as “this question is always asked, and the right answer always looks like this,” so she didn’t need to think about them at all. Going through the “learn math with KA” sections would be a waste of time.