<p>Hey everyone, I'm new to the forums. I recently took an SAT and got around a 1900. I'm currently a freshman in high school, although the school year is about to end. My goal is around a 2200 for when I actually take it in Junior year/send my SAT scores to college(s). I am going to try to improve my score as much as I can this summer since I am not doing much or traveling anywhere. Does anyone have any tips on how I can improve my score? I seem to do bad in Critical Reading; Math and Writing are around 700 At The Moment. Also, what book(s) do you recommend, and how do you suggest I improve my vocabulary, along with being able to answer reading passage questions more efficiently? Should I just keep taking tests repeatedly? Or.. :-/
Thanks.</p>
<p>I believe by the time you take the SAT as a junior, the format will be changing. I expect the tried and true best formula for a good CR score probably won’t change, though. Read. Read. Read. Read. Lifelong readers generally effortlessly score above 700 on the CR section in my experience. With some additional study specific to the SAT, that can be raised. so I would spend my summer reading, not taking tests.</p>
<p>@intparent - You are correct that it will change when the OP is a junior. However, it will not change until March (2016). Current freshman, will have a somewhat difficult choice. I agree that lifelong readers have an advantage. </p>
<p>@whosInsanity - First of all, congratulations on a great start. I’m impressed with your responsibility and foresight. I am normally a proponent of taking practice tests, but this should be done closer to the end of your prep. You should first focus on fundamentals and find some techniques that work for you. You are correct to have already taken a practice test. This allows you to assess your strengths and weaknesses. </p>
<p>With that in mind, your next step is to classify what types of questions you are missing and why. Are you missing questions because of your vocabulary? Are you missing questions because you are not understanding the core argument/main idea?</p>
<p>If vocabulary is why you are missing a significant number of questions, then I would hit that fairly hard.</p>
<p>Also, what did you get on the essay portion. I ask because you could develop your writing skills while preparing for that portion of the SAT.</p>
<p>Of course, all of this is if you are taking the SAT before they change the format in March 2016. It’s best to do most of your hard core studying before junior year anyway. Junior year is hell for those who are wanting to get into selective schools.</p>
<p>@intparent - You are correct that it will change when the OP is a junior. However, it will not change until March (2016). Current freshman, will have a somewhat difficult choice. I agree that lifelong readers have an advantage. </p>
<p>@whosInsanity - First of all, congratulations on a great start. I’m impressed with your responsibility and foresight. I am normally a proponent of taking practice tests, but this should be done closer to the end of your prep. You should first focus on fundamentals and find some techniques that work for you. You are correct to have already taken a practice test. This allows you to assess your strengths and weaknesses. </p>
<p>With that in mind, your next step is to classify what types of questions you are missing and why. Are you missing questions because of your vocabulary? Are you missing questions because you are not understanding the core argument/main idea?</p>
<p>If vocabulary is why you are missing a significant number of questions, then I would hit that fairly hard.</p>
<p>Also, what did you get on the essay portion. I ask because you could develop your writing skills while preparing for that portion of the SAT.</p>
<p>Of course, all of this is if you are taking the SAT before they change the format in March 2016. It’s best to do most of your hard core studying before junior year anyway. Junior year is hell for those who are wanting to get into selective schools.</p>
<p>Sorry for this extremely late response; I hadn’t gotten around to my thread or CC for the past month or two.</p>
<p>In Crit Reading, I mainly miss passage questions. The line directed questions are fairly simple, just a mess-up here and there, but the questions that aren’t line directed, especially for double passages, i almost always miss. What can I do to make sure I get those right?</p>
<p>Also, I don’t understand how I am supposed to grasp hold of the main idea of the passages without reading the entire thing. People tell me to only read the first and last sentences of each paragraph, but I still don’t get the main idea and end up doing worse than if I had read the whole passage first.
What can I do for this?</p>
<p>Also, I haven’t really done much for the essays, but I have recently started to now. I got around an 8 on it I believe. </p>