<p>I'm a sophomore right now and will become a junior next month.
I took two AP's this year with honors classes and got straight a's.
So it was really surprising when I took the SAT for the first time and got a 1500.
It was a 'harder version', but still....!
I'm not worried much about critical reading and writing because I improved over the past two weeks. But math! i dont know... I'm asian but i dont feel asian. I'm not a math brain at all, and i go to this SAT PREP class but its not really helping me on math.
I'm wondering what i should do...
my sat scores are around 500....yes...its really low..
and i make lots of stupid mistakes, but most of the problems, i just look at it and blank out.
can you guys recommend something? i dont know, maybe like a SAT MATH prep book? anything that will help.
THANKS SO MUCH</p>
<p>hmmmm… usually the people with 800’s in math i hear either go very slowly so they don’t make any mistakes, or go very fast and double check every question. the questions usually start out easy to solve but tricky, and progressively reverse to not tricky but difficult to solve. usually the last 2 of each section and the last one before the student produce answer are hard to solve, but if you go with what makes sense it clicks to together and works out nicely, definitely practice to improve.</p>
<p>Know and be able to use the Pythagorean theorem and the quadratic formula. Be sure you memorize the formulas for the areas and volumes of all common geometric figures such common geometric figures such as circles, triangles, spheres, pyramids and rectangles. Be sure you understand how logarithms work and know the law of exponents. Know the difference between a mean, a median and a mode. Be able to solve to algebraic equations in two unknowns.</p>
<p>Remember, that just because you get an answer to a problem that matches one of the options given do not assume it is correct. The test writers know what types of errors students are likely to make on a certain problem and the wrong answer the error results in and will offer it as one of the choices. Therefore take all the time that is allowed to do the math sections so you can check your work for any common errors you might have made.</p>
<p>Most of all, practice, practice, practice. Get and take as many practice tests as you can and when you make a mistake, make sure you understand why you got a question wrong. Try to devote a couple of hours each day to doing practice problems.</p>
<p>You may not get an 800 or even a 700 no matter how hard you work but you should be able to get that 500 up into the 600s and that will make your application considerably stronger.</p>
<p>SAT math tests the persons ability to solve trivial math problems that are intentionally designed to trick the test taker. Therefore the SAT math doesn’t actually test one’s math ability just, their attention to detail and ability to translate questions. You may be in college level math, studying differential equations or fourier analysis, yet score around a 600 in the SAT math. </p>
<p>Therefore your 500 doesn’t mean you ‘suck’ at math it just means your unfamiliar with the SAT math language. The only way to get that up to an 800 is to practice, practice, practice (p.s. top colleges realize the hilarity of the Math SAT and basically consider any score over 700 equivalent… that is if you’ve taken hard math during HS).</p>
<p>Hey aspired. I was sort of in your shoes about a year ago during my junior year when I started to take the SATs and wasn’t so pleased with my Math scores. For me, what helped was - </p>
<p>1) I reviewed and went over all the formulas and concepts taught in the math sections of my Princeton Review Cracking the SAT book, or another such book by Princeton Review, I can’t exactly remember. Princeton Review is great to go over basic concepts and </p>
<p>2) MOST IMPORTANTLY - doing problems! I think it’s so helpful to just do a section or two a day of math problems. There are only so many topics the SAT can test on, and by doing problems, you not only practice test-taking skills, but you also go over key topics that are sure to appear on test day. And after you check your answers, don’t just forget about the ones you get wrong, figure out the right answer and learn from the mistake. Maybe even make a list of your mistakes on a sheet of paper and study that sheet before the test so you don’t make the same mistake twice. I would highly recommend the Official SAT Study Guide published by the College Board. It’s got a ton of practice tests. And then you can go to other books like Princeton Review and Kaplan (although I think these tend to make the test harder than the real thing, but it’s still good practice).</p>
<p>Good luck and don’t give up! It’s totally possible to improve your score. You were just a sophomore when you took the SAT for the first time, you have over a year to improve. I took the SAT for the last time in my senior year, and I truly believe people get smarter through the years, so you’ll probably improve naturally with time.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone! I purchased a SAT math workbook and i’m going to try and work on it every night.</p>