<p>I don't understand what's wrong with me when it comes to SAT math! In school I'm great at math, always been in honors and gotten As, won awards, blah blah et cetera. I'm easily #1 or #2 in my grade at math, and I'm planning on applying to some very competitive technical schools. I've taken a few practice tests for the SAT math section, and only gotten 600-700s. It's not that I'm bad at standardized tests, I've been getting 740ish on the CR section. It might be my geometry(slept through that class two years ago), I might not be reading the questions well enough, but when I go back through the tests there's no trend in my wrong answers. I'm not getting any particular type of question wrong. </p>
<p>How do I combat this? I know all the concepts, I just don't do well at the math SAT! Should I get a coach for a few sessions? I've been studying the blue book, but it's not really helping. I'm taking the SAT for the first time November 3, but I'm definitely going to take it again 2 or 3 times. I'm in AP Physics and AP Calc but I can't do simple exponent/parabola problems!</p>
<p>… People tend to scores higher on a SAT test than a pratice test. If you’re in the 700s range you really got nothing to worry about… Considering you haven’t even took the test.</p>
<p>if you’re in the 700s in practice, you’ll do good during the real thing, because while taking the real test, the conditions are differents and the pressure is higher and you focus better etc etc or something like that.
for me, the problem was that the problems during the sat were too easy so i let my guard down. but the thing about the sat is that it twists everything and makes you have to think about it, even if it’s as simple as quad. equations.
it also might help to restudy some of that geometry, but all you really need to know are the rules of parallel lines and perpendicular lines and the angle sums of a shape.
triangles have 180 degrees, you got this covered man dont worry too much.</p>
<p>@DrSteve I looked at it, what “strategies” am I supposed to learn? @chihalim I’m hovering just under 700s lot of stupid mistakes mixed with missing some of the 4s and 5s. I just took a practice test and got a 680, missed 6 (including 2 missed grid-ins)/54. I’m just going to grill myself all week.</p>
<p>I’ve posted some sample strategies on this forum. If you go through some of my older posts you can find them. I’ll give one sample strategy here. Here’s a pretty advanced one:</p>
<p>I call this one “Try a Simple Operation.” </p>
<p>Problems that ask for an expression involving more than one variable often look much harder than they are. By performing a single operation, the problem is usually reduced to one that is very easy to solve. The most common operations to try are addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.</p>
<p>Here’s a simple example where this strategy would be useful.</p>
<p>If x+y=5 and z+w=7, then xz+xw+yz+yw=</p>
<p>The simple operation to use here is multiplication, and the answer is simply (5)(7)=35.</p>
<p>I actually just watched through a bunch of this guy’s youtube videos on SAT math. They’re about 10 minutes long, I probably spent an hour and a half. Just took another practice test after I finished, only got 1 wrong for a range of 750-800! That strategy was definitely in the videos, I ran into it on the practice test and had to stop myself from doing a whole complex system of equations haha.</p>
lot of stupid mistakes mixed with missing some of the 4s and 5s. I just took a practice test and got a 680, missed 6 (including 2 missed grid-ins)/54. I’m just going to grill myself all week.</p>