<p>Hey all, this is something peculiar, and extremely frustrating, that I have come by within a few practice tests of SAT Blue Book (this is the second edition by the way, the one with 10 tests, 3 of which are previous ones.)</p>
<p>I began with the 1st test a few weeks back and scored a 740 on the Crit reading just in my practice.
A little bit afterward, I took the FOURTH test (mainly because I wanted to save the first 3 for a date closer to the test because I heard they mirror the test better) and scored 700 on Crit reading.
Then things starting getting terrible, on the 5th practice test I scored 650 on Crit reading, and the 6th I scored 630ish on Crit Reading.</p>
<p>I find it odd how as I continue in my practice my Crit reading score has gone DOWN. And this last test has given me a score that I find to be absolutely terrible, especially seeing as the fact that I had scored in the 700s on the first two. In those two tests the sentence completions seemed harder (mainly in the 6th) and the reading was tougher, I found myself running out of time and the questions simply just seemed more difficult.</p>
<p>So what I am asking is, are the actual SAT exams closer to the first three practice tests and are slightly different (more difficult) than the other seven practice tests? Also, is it just me, or were those two tests (5th and 6th) significantly more difficult?</p>
<p>I am taking the January 2010 SAT exam.
Thanks a lot.</p>
<p>hmmm… its hard to say. remember, with scaling, no matter how hard the tests are, the scores should be similar (but it won’t work with the book b/c there is only one scale).</p>
<p>i was averaging abt 1800/1900 in all my cb tests, and i got a 21XX on my actual test. my point is that cb does not necessarily reflect the actual test.</p>
<p>honestly I think it might not be the tests themselves. I had the same problem: the more I practiced the worse I got. I went from scores of 2290-2000 I don’t understand this Reasoning test at all =S</p>
<p>Me neither. I’ve basically reviewed most of the math concepts that are expected on the SAT, but I’m still getting questions. ****, I’m stuck in the 590 ■■■. :(</p>
<p>I can review the ones that I’m omitting, but they’re putting different questions that you haven’t been familiar with, each month.</p>
<p>If I knew that the ACT was a better test for a higher score, I would’ve just prepped for that instead. =/</p>
<p>^^ perhaps u r missing the materials. Try get ur hands on mysterytutor stuff. he has a list of all the possible concepts on the SAT maths and its tru. everything I’ve ever gotten wrong can be solved with the concepts on those sheets. They aren’t new. They jst test the same thing but trickily disguised. </p>
<p>Yeah this does seem to be kind of on the oddside. I get how you feel HopefulEagle, cept I’m having that kind of problems in the CR section. I typicaly score around 780-800 on the Math, unless something goes very wrong and I mess it up. I think the best way to prepare for that is a great deal of mathematical stimulation as you grow up, meaning taking advanced and honors classes in math in school. If you haven’t done that, you can still do well just need to get a lot of practice in with those types of problems and get in the problem solving mentality and the ability to think “outside the box” as they call it; it is much easier than it sounds though, just need to get the hang of it. </p>
<p>The CR I felt I had a good grip on but these decreasing scores have led me to think otherwise. Any other feedback would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>I just looked at 10th question(p398), However I do not want to solve it, b/c I didn’t reach this test myself - lol.Hint: you have 360 degrees in a full circle and one right angle. It is very easy question.</p>
<p>Scores do tend to fluctuate a lot in the blue book. I was scoring anywhere between 650-760 on CR, and by the time I was nearing the end of the book, my scores were at a downward trend. But on the actual test, I got an 800, so you never know what you’ll get. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I was scoring 780-800 on the math sections in the blue book; scored a 710 on the actual SAT…</p>
<p>according to the table Olzhas gave the link to, my cr is in the 720 or so. but the bb table gives a significantly lower score. I don’t understand this.</p>
<p>IAmCool that encourages me a fair bit. Like I said my critical reading has a seen a downward trend as I progressed in the book.
The FIRST test I took was the 1st one in the book, the previously administered one, and I did well on that. Then I did the 4th 5th and 6th like I mentioned above and my CR declined as I progressed.
I would extremely like it if the actual test was similar to the first three tests rather than to the last seven.</p>
<p>KyaSenStar, I did tests 1-3, then 8-10. in the last three tests, they gave a range instead of a score. I don’t really know where I am then. if i trust the lower end, i’m like 50 points than my avarage in tests 1-3, which made me very angry! then there was this post by olyhas (post 10 in this thread). there was another place someone answered my question by the same table Olyhas attached. it is a little more optimistic.</p>