<p>Hey!
So I'm an international student and I'm going to take my SAT after the summer but I'm going to do it by myself and I don't know anyone who's actually done it before.
I'm hoping to study for it during the summer but where do I start? Are there textbooks or something? Do I even NEED to study for it? etc.
Any tips would be much appreciated!
Oh and is the essay section really hard? What sort of things do you have to write about? (I hate writing essays!)
Thanks!</p>
<p>The classic advice is to get the Blue Book, the official SAT study guide, do a diagnostic test to gauge where you’re at, then take the rest of the tests and work on the areas where you need to improve.</p>
<p>The College Board website has some past essay prompts. The essay isn’t hard, you just need solid examples and need to be able to finish within the 25 minutes they give you.</p>
<p>Okay thanks!</p>
<p>Hi! I’m an international student too and I had to decide my own course of action.
I ended up taking a kaplan course but that wasn’t hugely helpful. However, it did have some very good advice for writing non-essay questions, and critical reading (but it was really expensive so don’t worry if that’s not an option). More than anything it forced me to get used to taking practice SAT tests a few times.
So- I agree that you ought to get the official SAT Study guide and do as many practice tests as possible with timed conditions over a course of about one or two or three months- that’s probably the most reliable way. I hate essays too (it’s usually hard for me to write one even if I a have whole weekend) so I ended up buying an online guide by Rodney Daut. It isn’t a foolproof guide but the section on prompt dissection, writing intros and conclusions and keeping an info bank were reasonably helpful. More than anything, just try doing lots of essays.
Btw, don’t get discouraged if your scores are unexpectedly low on the first few practice tests (I know I did!). I ended up with like 500’s for each section the first time but my scores went up to 700’s by my last test. I took the May SAT so haven’t yet seen how well I’ve done on the real thing.
Hope that helps 
PM me if you’d like more detailed tips.</p>
<p>I agree with Toasti; the first thing to do is purchase the Blue Book. Collegeboard.com is also a good source. </p>
<p>I went through a princeton review class; I thought it helped but honestly, I think I got more practice just from reviewing questions. I don’t think the prep class is that important.</p>
<p>Well, I’m going to get the Official Guide thing, which I presume is the blue book.
What is a review class?</p>