Hello,
I’m currently scoring around 1520-1550 on official SAT Practice Tests and unofficial SAT Practice Tests (Kaplan, Princeton Review, and Barron’s), with an 800 in Math every time and ~720-750 on the English section (38-40 on the grammar/writing, and 34-35 on the reading).
I’ve been practicing SAT problems on Khan Academy, however, I’ve finished all of the passages on there, and so I no longer need to reread the passages since I already know the jist of all of them (I don’t find it very useful anymore since I have a vague recollection of the answers for each question). This applies to all 8 of the released official SAT Practice Tests from CollegeBoard. Furthermore, I don’t find the unofficial tests very accurate, especially in the way they ask the questions. For example, I recently did a practice test where they had a picture along with an passage, and they asked us to examine the photo and choose what it implies. From my experience, the SAT NEVER has a picture, and always has either a graph or nothing to go along with the passage.
I’m aiming to take the SAT in August (first time as a Junior) and score at least a 1550. What are some recommended study tips?
It sounds like you are doing all the right things. But if you are looking for one thing more to give you a bump on the verbal side, I recommend Erica Meltzer’s books for the reading and the writing. They are thoughtful, thorough books that may raise your understanding to that next level. Certainly a better use of time than doing unofficial tests. And who knows, maybe we will see a test #9 before August.
But again, you do have this under control. Even if you just review tests 1 - 8, you should be in good shape for August.
@pckeller Thank you for the recommendation! I’ll check that out!
Where are you usually missing things? If it’s in the Victorian passages, read a bunch of Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle and mentally translate them into more modern terms. If you’re missing questions in the contrasting viewpoints passages, read the Lincoln-Douglas debates and the Federalist Papers and think about how they present their viewpoints.
If you have the time, collect all of your missed questions on the practice tests, write them in a notebook, and look for patterns. The first step in defeating your weakness it to identify it.
Thanks for the advice, I’ll try to find time to work that out!
Review the questions you got wrong and be sure you fully understand why. Especially on reading/writing there are usually answers with various degrees of ‘correct’ (which is why I prefer math) - you need to fully align your test-taking thought process with CB/test creator thinking.
(And just in case it ever appears on a test - it’s ‘gist’, not ‘jist’)