<p>This year as a sophomore I took the PSAT with absolutely no preparation and got a 202. Would I be able to bump that up to a 230+ by next year with preparation? (I'm hoping for that elusive 2400 on the SAT, but anything 2300 plus is pretty good, right?)</p>
<p>I was wondering if you have any suggestions for modes of preparing- clss, self, tutor, online, etc. . .</p>
<p>thanks!
Katia</p>
<p>Don't be so hard on yourself. A 202 is a good sophomore PSAT score with no preparation. In terms of goals, I am pretty good comparison, so here's my story.</p>
<p>Sophomore Year PSAT: 204
-No preparation at all. In fact I didn't even know the layout of the test and had to read the instructions during test time. Pretty sad. Ha, but I was happy with my score at the time because I knew that I didn't prepare or anything.</p>
<p>Junior Year PSAT: 228
-The big improvement did not surprise me. This time I went through two books and did about 5 or 6 practice tests. It was at this point that I realized that a tutor or course would be a waste of money for the SATs. Clearly, just practicing in books raised my score a lot.</p>
<p>Junior Year SAT: 2360
-So this time it actually counted, and I continued my upward trend. I could not be happier with my score. I'd been getting around 2300 flat on my practice tests so I was aiming for 2300s. So, without tutors and courses, just by doing the practice tests in the blue book, going through PR's Word Smart book, and having a pretty relaxed attitude on test day, I improved a lot.</p>
<p>So my basic point is, your score is right on track to be where you want in a year or two. The fact that you got a 202 with no prep just means that a doing practice tests will bring you to a very high score. You do not need to start preparing now, that's excessive. You have plenty of time to do well.</p>
<p>don't let RCMan fool you</p>
<p>The danger on CC is that those kinds of kids say its EXTREMELY easy to raise your score, which may be exaggerated. Better to stay safe and possibly try to start preparing now, so then if you do find it a little difficult to raise your score you won't be screwed.</p>
<p>On another note, you should realize that SAT scores rarely matter above a 2250 (assuming relatively even distribution of scores, or at least as high as the mid-50% section scores). If you can barely study at all and easily raise that 202 to a 2400, then that's great for you; but if you can't, you should probably find something that would make you stand out more from other people. Anyone can study hard and get 2300+ on the SAT, but there are certain things that only a few can do...</p>
<p>I am absolutely not trying to fool anybody.</p>
<p>On the contrary, I think I am being more honest than most people. Many people have gotten so caught up in the SAT hype that they spend as much money on tutors and courses as they would on a year of college tuition. It's absolutely absurd. Katia, if you are good enough to get a 202 without any preparation, then you can certainly get a 2250+ with some old-fashioned book preparation. To start studying in your sophomore year is silly for several reasons. 1) How much preparing can you possibly do without memorizing the dictionary? 2) There are more important things to do. 3) Why create unnecessary stress so early? 4) You don't need it.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that preparation only goes so far. I would not say, aznoverachiever, that "anyone could study hard an get a 2300+. There are kids I know who hired several tutors and missed that mark by quite a bit. Everyone starts out with a base score and adequate preparation can only raise that so much. Clearly, a sophomore 202 PSAT is a very good way to start out.</p>
<p>So my suggestion is, study a little bit this summer for the new PSAT. Don't take a course, because then there would be no way to tell if it was necessary. Get some books and see how you do in junior year.</p>
<p>seriously RCA is right. i went from 208 sophomore to 220 junior to 2330 SAT. </p>
<p>and i took a PR course and found it worthless . . . it works in getting u from a 1800 to a 2100 but nothing beyond, which i'm guessing ur aiming for.</p>
<p>Yeah, exactly.</p>
<p>Strategies are okay to a certain point. But realize most of the courses are geared for people trying to go from like 1800 to 2100. And what will a tutor do with you that you couldn't learn yourself if you're scoring so highly to begin with.</p>
<p>Katia,
My D progressed from soph PSAT, junior PSAT to SAT very much like RCMan. Except for reading about the format of the test, she took her first PSAT cold and got slightly less than you did. She studied in September for the junior year PSAT and raised her score 30 points. She studied some more in Dec (higher math and essay) for the January SAT and raised her score even more. It was all self-study with Xiggi's method. She used the College Board blue book of practice tests, Testmaster's solutions and Maximum SAT. Check out the sticky thread for Xiggi's method, it works!</p>
<p>I went from a 170 sophomore year with no prep to a 212 junior year by just reading PR. Improvement is definately possible, granted you definately can't improve 40 points since you already have 202.</p>
<p>I didn't even really realize the importance of the PSAT during my sophomore year so I just kinda winged it. No preparation whatsoever. I got a 192 on it. And then my junior year, we had to take it again. And again, I didn't think much of it. No preparations again but my scores did go up. I got a 207 and in my school, that was a pretty high one (no one got more than a 200). </p>
<p>I've found though that plain old book review works. The review books they sell out there actually get you ready for what's ahead. You just need to practice, practice, practice.</p>
<p>RCMan,
I apologize if you were offended. That was not my intention. Anyways, you seemed to convey the message that it is really easy to raise your PSAT score, which is a very biased view.</p>
<p>Katia,
All I'm saying is be cautious about all these stories. There are two sides to every coin, so although one kid may improve even without studying, another may not. The best thing is just to do some practice now to see how easily you can raise your scores. If you find it easy, then you can probably just wait until later this year to prepare. If you find it difficult, at least you will have plenty of time for studying.</p>
<p>No offense taken. I was not implying that one should not prepare for the SAT. I am simply saying that for somebody with a 200+ sophomore PSAT score with no preparation, spending money on tutors and courses or beginning to study during sophomore year is unnecessary.</p>
<p>thank you for all the advice- I'm feeling confident about next year!</p>
<p>I can do things to prepare now- read more books for fun (and actually look up words I don't know) and pay attention in math class(luckily, I'm in junior year math now)!
Over the summer I can start studying, since our school takes it only October. (Not sure if you can take it at any other time).</p>
<p>But your advice sounds great- a little "old-fashioned" book studying should work. Should I just buy the two books you mentioned?</p>
<p>What is this Xiggi's method?</p>
<p>I really recommend the book Word Smart by Princeton Review. They also now have a Word Smart II but I didn't have this. Anyway, it is a very good, non-SAT-specific, vocabulary book that has words that are a good level. Not too easy, but words that are useful. I found it helped a lot.</p>
<p>I don't know anything about Xiggi's method.</p>
<p>Katia,
Xiggi is the SAT self-prep guru here on cc, do a search or check the sticky thread under the SAT prep forum. Here is a link to his method:
<a href="http://admissionsadvice.mywowbb.com/forum5/78.html%5B/url%5D">http://admissionsadvice.mywowbb.com/forum5/78.html</a></p>
<p>I got a 204 with no preparation (junior year, so I feel like an idiot compared to these folks) and raised it to the high 2200s on practice tests with about 3 weeks of prep. I'd say that someone with 200+ on the PSAT could do that, but of course find your flow. (I scored comparably on the actual SAT, 2200+, so I think it's very doable)</p>