<p>Ironically, this is one of my favourite subjects, and I'm doing not too well on practice tests. I can't seem to better my score, in part because the curve on the practice tests is remarkably hard - get three questions wrong and you're out of the 700s. One thing I've noticed is that on every practice test I've taken, the maximum raw score is 52, but to get an 800 requires 54. Why is that?</p>
<p>Also, what books should I get to improve my math scores? I've tried Kaplan and the Princeton Review already. TPR's 11 SATs are quite hard, by the way; I mean, one of the tests, even features matrices! And their prep book teaches you, among other things, trigonometry and standard deviation!</p>
<p>Johnleemk, what book are you using? On the real test, and in the CB's book, there are 54 math question... a 20 Q multiple choice section, an 18 point MC and Fill-In section and a 16 question MC section. Missing three questions, according to the CB book, puts you in the range of 700-780.</p>
<p>Thanks, Pete.</p>
<p>Turns out I've been misscoring my math tests all the while. I don't know how it took so long for me to figure out my mistake, but thanks!</p>
<p>At this point now I feel pretty comfortable with all this. I just scored 790 on a Princeton Review practice test for math. Unfortunately, I did poorly in the critical reading; the vocabulary bar the Princeton Review uses in its tests is much much higher than that of the College Board's.</p>
<p>I hope this isn't bad, since I'm planning to take SAT II Literature. My writing's doing quite okay, though; I think I can score about 750 there.</p>