Below I will detail my goals, about me, current scores, and plan for prep. Please let me know if this is a good plan and if applicable tell me how you prepared for SAT.
I really want to score a 1550+ SAT score, which would put me in the 75 percentile of my dream schools.
I’m currently a sophomore, rising junior and scored a 1300 on the PSAT. In february, I took collegeboard official test 5, and got a 1380. In March, I took official test 1, and scored a 1400. I then took tests 2 and 3, but both were not higher than the 1400.
Currently, I try to do 10 or more SAT problems on Khan Academy everyday. This however has been inconsistent due to me forgetting or busy with other work, even though I somehow find time for video games or browsing YouTube every day.
In addition to Khan Academy, I plan to purchase the black book, the barron SAT book, and princeton review premium SAT book. I plan to focus on black book for strategies and the barron and princeton review book for problems. Also is Barron SAT vocab worth studying?
I’m also considering an online prep program like Prepscholar or Princeton Review which offer score guarantees. Particularly I’m interested in PrepScholar because of the 160 point guarantee. Is it worth doing those online prep program(s) in addition to what I already have?
I plan to take the SAT fall of this year. In the month of July I have a summer program and will be extremely limited on time to study for SAT. I already signed up for math 2 in august, so I probably will take SAT in October or November.
Another year of education will benefit you. If your goal is too get the highest score possible, having more math and English under your belt is going to help. Consider doing a lot of difficult reading over the next 8 months and consider taking the test in March.
To add a few points to the above, if you are scoring around a 1400 there are still skills and content you need to learn. You cannot just do practice tests and practice questions. Those are fine for refining technique and picking up some skills, but you won’t become a much better reader simply from doing SAT reading and you won’t magically learn how to solve, for instance, absolute-value problems from doing SAT math practice. You need to roll your sleeves up and learn the math through and through, and read a lot (focusing on comprehension not on just moving your eyes across the words).
-Studying vocab is useful. It can help with understanding the passages you read, and with answering vocab-in-context questions on the reading section and vocab questions on the writing section.
-I would recommend getting a good precalc textbook and reading it thoroughly and doing the problems,
-I don’t know much in particular about the Prep Scholar program–it might very well help as they do have some quality materials–but I wouldn’t take the 160 point guarantee to mean too much (this is not to say they won’t refund you). I assume their 160 point guarantee is on an online program where they don’t lose too much money on resources by offering refunds. They also don’t refund if students don’t finish all the materials. I assume most students (or at least a very significant percentage of students) don’t complete 100% of the materials and thus aren’t eligible for the refund. I also assume that not too many people will ask for a refund if they improve significantly. Also FWIW, their guarantee is phrased in terms of the old SAT. They say they don’t guarantee anything past a 2300, so I doubt their 160 point guarantee would apply to you getting a 1550. Generally these prep programs are targeted to students with lower scores than you, who are less familiar with the test than you. A lot of the score improvement is simply the result of familiarization with the test.