Score improvement

Test Preparation SAT Preparation
1

<p>First, I like to say "hi." This is my first time posting in here although I saw this site in past.</p>

<p>Now, I'll go straight to my point. I'm going-to-be junior student who is preparing for SAT by myself. I didn't take the real SAT yet (the one that you actually go to test centers) but I did four practices and here are my scores:</p>

<p>All of them are CB's blue book practice tests.</p>

<p>1st: Math-760, CR-450, Writing-560 --> T = 1770
2nd: Math-720, CR-460, Writing-610 --> T = 1790
3rd: Math-790, CR-540, Writing-630 --> T = 1960
4th: Math-790, CR-560, Writing-700 --> T = 2050</p>

<p>My first practice SAT was taken in 6/12. The last practice SAT was taken in 7/24. So, over a month and two weeks, I managed to increase my score by around 300 points.</p>

<p>I'm happy with my scores so far but since I have more time, I'd like to get higher score. Plus, 2050 is pretty dangerous score since with some mistakes, I can easily drop to 1990's which doesn't appear as good as 2000's. I have CB's blue book, Kaplan's Critical Reading book (which I finished to get 80pts increase in CR), Sparknote's 10 practice SAT, Essay Essentials, and several other books. However, to my score, I don't think immense practice will raise my score dramatically. I want to make sure that I can learn the materials thoroughly that even without much practices during school season, I can get a good score on the real one in January (which is when I'll plan to take). So, here's par that I need help on:</p>

<p>Can anyone tell me a good idea to increase CR to at least 600? I'm not going to be greedy and ask for 700 yet. Slowly, I'm going to attempt to get 600 then 650 then 700. This has worked great for me on Writing because my PSAT Writing score was 55 but my practice SAT score is 700. And another thing for Writing section: I keep getting 5/6 on essays. My SAT Essay isn't good enough to be 6 so I'm trying to figure out what is missing on my essay. If needed, I can post my essay here but what is the "common" characteristic (and I'm asking you to tell me other than posting the guiedlines from CB's blue book) of 6/6 essay.</p>

<p>Thank you very much for reading and replying to this thread. I don't mind if it will be "hard" way. I'm motivated student who will try best I can to achieve highest score as I can (and that does NOT necessarily mean 2400; personally, I think that if you tried your best, that's best score you can get).</p>

2

<p>instead of just looking at your numbers, here are some ways that helped me:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>look over the explanations to the questions you got wrong. they really do explain it thoroughly, in a mentality to which CB the actual test givers would think. try to see it in their light</p></li>
<li><p>don't time yourself at first. i would first learn to read the materials carefully, and the questions carefully. on the flip side, how are you doing with your time? are you too fast? too slow? i would say a nice time is when you've carefully marked your answers and have about a minute or 2 left to check over your answers, just to reassure yourself.</p></li>
<li><p>read books! even if you don't know what some of the words mean, this can improve your inference skills (i.e. knowing what words mean by looking at contest)</p></li>
</ol>

<p>:S i got 700 in CR, but i'm taking the test again in december, so i'll let you know what's really useful to me down the road of studying (which, btw, i SHOULD start studying...:S)</p>

<p>gud luck ;] and don't fret so much!</p>

3

<p>Thanks for the reply.</p>

<p>I read #1 in Xigg's SAT Prep advice as well. I have another question regarding this:</p>

<p>By practicing #1, can you get used to the answer choices of the questions as well? I mean, the questions on each SAT test are obviously different but they do have common characteristics such as what they're asking (inference, author's point, suggestion, etc..). But I'm having serious hard time with choices because that's where I can't get my points. Is there any common way that the choices are made? I know that there is correct answer, distortion, and three other wrong answers. But eh.. It's pretty hard for me to tell.</p>

4

<p>By the way, I think this issue was "shadowed" by CR. A good way to get 6/6 on essay? Thanks.</p>