I got a 1750 on my first SAT test I took with only a little bit of preperation but over a two-three month period. If I only have about 2.5 months before my next exam, and if I really buckle down, can I achieve a 2200 score?
What are your CR, M, and W scores?
There can definitely be a lot of improvement with your Math and Writing scores. Personally, I find math very easy, and the only way you can improve on that is by practicing and reviewing your mistakes. For writing, its all about remembering grammar and punctuation rules; if you practice and review your mistakes, you’ll get better. What I would do is going over some important grammar rules on an SAT prep book or online program and get some practice with it. As for the essay, if you want to score a 10 or above, I would just practice some essay questions without knowing about it. And to top it, the strongest essay should have enough evidence to prove an argument (roughly 2 paragraphs), a paragraph counterattacking your argument, and a conclusion paragraph. In essence, 1 intro paragraph, 3 body paragraphs, and conclusion. It takes time, but you’ll get the hang of it. The more you practice, the better. And yes, it is possible to reach a 2200.
Oh, and for CR, make flashcards…A LOT OF THEM. Not just flashcards with the word on the front, and written definition on the back, but makes visual images. Write a mnemonic on the back and draw a cartoon or picture (it doesn’t have to be perfect, but make sure you can understand it). As for the passages, just read articles and practice. That’ll get you into the score you want.
Ok thanks for the advice. The breakdown was:
Reading: 500
Math: 580
Writing: 640
Essay: 10/12
So, I don’t see any issues with my essay, but the other sections definitely need improvement. But is making such a huge jump in my score a feasible thing to do in two and a half months? Again, thanks for the comment.
Oh, my mistake. I got a 1720 rather than a 1750
How did u do on the PSAT?
For me personally, I found reading quite hard to improve on due to vocab and the really awful “what is the author most likely suggesting…” type questions. Writing (grammar) was easy to improve on by just reviewing grammatical rules that I already knew. But given your current scores, a 2200 seems very difficult to pull off unless you work at it (I didn’t even break 2100).
I think its possible to reach a 2200. It just requires a lot of self motivation. If I were you, I would schedule my days. I too have two and a half months to study for the SAT, and I have a lot of struggle with reading as well. So what I’m currently doing the rule called the 10% rule. Start off with a diagnostic test TIMED from the CollegeBoard SAT prep book and take it like its the actual SAT (practice test #1); aka, the blue book. Btw, always use the blue book. They are actual SAT questions that the CollegeBoard used from past exams; do not use any other books like Princeton Review, Barrons, etc. Once you get your first score, it should look pretty similar to what you got which is a 1720. Every week, you should do a practice test (the blue book has 11 practice tests) and review your mistakes. What you do with the 10% rule is that you should increase your goal by 10%. So for the diagnostic test, lets say you got a 1740. For my next test, I want to get a 1900. I know it seems a lot, but the higher your goal is, the better chance you’ll increase your score. Before the test, review all your mistakes from test #1 (diagnostic test) and just practice of your weaknesses, such as reading. But do not just focus on your weakest section, keep your studying diverse. After you took your first practice test, make flashcards for math and writing with a question on the front and the answers/explanation on the back the day after it. It takes a lot of time, but like it said, you need self motivation. For reading, just make vocabulary flashcards from the words you didn’t know on your first test (visual and mnemonics on the back). And for passages, just get SAT prep books like Princeton or Barrons. Work on the critical reading sections from the practice test untimed (not the SAT blue book, that’s only for your practice tests every week). If you break a 700 or above, try it timed and see if you get a 700. The key is to not lose focus and not to get discouraged. Keep repeating this process and I’m sure you’ll do well!
One other thing, just because I’m curious, but what colleges are you applying to? I’m guessing you have one or two Ivy League schools that you want to apply to since you want to get a 2200 for the SAT.
Also, print out an ACT practice test and take it like its the actual one. Some people do better than the other.
Ok thanks for the info. So, when I take practice tests at home and timed, I usually score between an 1800-2000. It’s just when I take the actual exam at school, my score drops one or two hundred points. A quick question that might sound stupid. I was curious about gpa and if colleges average your gpa for freshman up until junior years. I’m sure they do, but I’m not sure how they look at that. My gpa was a 3.8 freshman year, but because we moved to Massachusetts after Freshman year and because it caused personal problems in the process, my gpa dropped to a 3.0 sophomore year and a 3.2 junior year. As a result, I don’t plan on applying to many iv schools due to my gpa. While I will apply to one or two iv schools, I will not be discouraged if I don’t get in. The schools I plan to apply to are UMass Amherst, UConn, Penn State, Brandeis U, Bryant U, Northeastern U (reach school), BU (reach), UMass Lowell (safety), UPenn (high reach), Cornell U (high reach).
Throughout high school I have taken two AP classes junior year and I am going to take two AP classes senior year. I also took only honors classes along with the AP’s. I have also done a lot of extracurricular activities and played volleyball for six years starting from middle school (I played jv freshman year and varsity sophomore, junior and hopefully senior year as well). Along with that, I also play club volleyball during the school’s off seasons. I’m hoping that the colleges I am planning to apply to look at students holistically and I’m hoping that my gpa won’t damage me too much.
Also, I plan to study either business or communications in college if that helps at all. I’ll probably go in undecided though. If you have any advice to add other than about SAT, I would appreciate that as well.
Yea you can improve its easier to go from 1700 to 2000 than it is from 2000 to 2300. You probably just need to polish your skills and stop making careless mistakes.
It seems like the current SAT will be administered for the last time in January of 2016. So my advice is really going to be based on the “old SAT”.
In 2.5 months, I think you can improve to your goal but as others said it is gonna take some work.
For math…PWN the SAT was my game changer. Went from 580-600 to a 750-800 (BB ranges) just because it made logical sense of how to approach the math problems. One of the big things emphasized in the book is that the SAT is not a math test like at school…
For critical reading, Direct Hits are an excellent resource for quick score improvements. Almost all of the vocabulary is relevant to the exam. I was familiar with a lot of the vocab due to spell team and just reading as a hobby, but the book summed up a “core vocabulary”.
But Critical Reading is not just vocabulary…a lot of the “battle” is passage analysis. A technique my English teacher recommended for AP English passages was to
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Read the questions and underline/bracket all the line numbers in passage…45 second job
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Answer questions based on markings. So if lines 1-6 are bracketed, answer the corresponding question, even if it’s #2 or 3. Don’t feel compelled to answer in order. Save the overall questions for last because the line by line question guides you to the interpretation of the passage.
When you are answering the passages, the answers at first seem ambiguous. They are like that on purpose. Don’t pick answers that sound plausible; pick answers that have direct evidence. If you don’t find evidence for a description, no matter how good it sounds, just don’t pick it. I really recommend you taking on one AP lit passage and it’s questions each day and going through the process.
For the English part of it, I didn’t really learn any special grammar. The more tests you take, you realize that there is a pattern.
My general strategy was dedicating a “Notebook of SAT mistakes”. Every question I missed, I would write the question, an explanation of the right answer, and why my answer was wrong. Then, I would pick one day of the week and for two to three hours would try to re answer some questions from three or four weeks ago. Believe it or not, there were some questions I still didn’t get the answer to…but repeated practice helped me recognize over time how to solve various types of problems. By the end, a few days before the test, I opened the notebook, did all of the problems, and was able to improve my scores from practice up to the real thing.
Sorry for such a long post…I just wanted to share my journey and method with you.
Good luck!
Thanks for your input. The resources you mentioned seem like very helpful ones indeed.
I do something similar to what you did to study. That is, I would mark all the questions that I got wrong and figure out why one answer is correct as opposed to another. I don’t really write the questions in a notebook however. And I should probably take some time to review my incorrect answers as well. I will definitely take your advice and see how much I improve by.