<p>I am testing out if cramming works :S.</p>
<p>Last practice test : CR/M/W/Essay = 600/750/660 = 2010
January 12th, 2012</p>
<p>Memorized every Rocket Review words and Direct Hits words ~ 700 words/ about half a foot of note cards @_@</p>
<p>We are on the same boat, I am cramming for Jan 28th test too =)
Keep it up man!!</p>
<p>Dude, almost same score! </p>
<p>p.s. memorize the sparknotes 1000 words if you can, but I think you are good for the test</p>
<p>This overt vocab cramming is completely unnecessary. Although it may be beneficial to have a wide range of vocabulary, it is not crucial to good performance on Sentence-Completions. All you need, is a basic foundation of English vocabulary, which almost every average high-school student has, and on the other hand if you don’t, then memorize one basic vocab list such as Direct Hits, or any other list of your choice. The true key to getting all the S/Cs right is being able to follow the logic of the sentence appropriately, consciously substituting words in the blanks when you have a good grasp of the sentence’s meaning, and finally reviewing the answer choices for synonyms or near-synonyms to your own answers (those that you conjured without looking at the answer choices.) This can be perfected through hard-work and practice, and this is what counts when you’re looking for a high S/C score. Vocab lists may help, but their help is very limited if you are already experienced in English, and have a solid foundation of vocabulary gained gradually through years and years of school education and/or reading.</p>
<p>I completely agree. 400 words of direct hits is more than enough. It is impractical to learn thousands of words when there are 6-8 vocab questions per critical reading section. In order to score well on the CR section you have to practice reading the passages as the majority of the marks are going to be scored there not on the vocab section. Im not saying dont memorise SAT words, you do, but dont go over the top. 500 max</p>
<p>UPDATE: </p>
<h1>January 15th, 2012</h1>
<p>I have finals so I may not be able to study much, but here is what has happened so far:</p>
<p>I almost never miss words anymore! I get 1-2 maximum words wrong. My advice so far is that if you can, memorize the RR and direct hits words. They pay off in my opinion because of this flawless sentence completion. I also looked up all the words on the paper for the questions I got wrong. </p>
<p>Before I studied the words, I was amazed at how the SAT makers could just make an insanely hard word the answer, but now I realize that sometimes the SAT makers will make it an insanely hard answer and make all the other choices easy to be eliminated(but sometimes it is hard to eliminate if you do not know the word). Other times you can guess what the word means using prefixes, etc. </p>
<p>Now onto Reading Comprehension and finals, with 13 more days to go.</p>