Hi there,
I’m really frustrated about the lack of progress I have with my scores. I’ve been practicing ACT for almost the entire summer (I also worked on few other things but I did spend quite a lot of time on it) and my scores on all practice tests were annoyingly 31 the entire time. Ideally I need 33+, and didn’t see myself getting anywhere close to that with a consistent 31. When I superscored it I had a 34, but I don’t have that much time to take it multiple times and superscore.
So I decided to switch to SAT. Last year I took a practice test and got a 1400. I stopped doing SAT because I didn’t like the essay style. When I picked it up 2 days ago, I got a 1410 on the practice test. I took another PT today and still got a 1410. If I do better on one section I do bad on the other. I really need to get higher scores, ideally around 1500, or even 1450+.
How can I prep for this? I feel like doing PTs over and over won’t do much on score increase, because it didn’t for my ACT. I don’t have much time, I’m applying this fall and never took the SAT before. Any recommendation on prep resources on getting higher scores? I’m currently using the official prep book from the College board.
Thanks!
For math my D used PWN SAT Test prep book. It’s designed apparently for higher scorers who need to improve. She also used Kham Academy and practice tests. She had a very good result!
Khan Academy is incredibly helpful in helping you pinpoint what you need to work on. It tracks the questions you miss through your account and you can practice those skills with different passages. They also have the 8 College Board practice tests integrated into their system so you can take those through Khan too.
1410 is not bad. It’s actually similar to a 31. So, that’s probably the score that reflects what you can do, especially since you’ve taken several practice tests.
You can keep your fingers crossed on superscoring and of course retake once more, just in case.
Perhaps you’re not able to score higher than 99% students in this country. That’s okay.
For now, consider colleges where average scores are higher than 1400 reaches, 1300-1390 matches, and in the 1200’s likelies, as long as your GPA is in (near for reaches) the top 25%.
It’s frustrating to be at a plateau. Before you give up on either test, I have two questions for you:
- What do you do AFTER you take a practice test? How thoroughly are you digesting what went wrong and how you can fix it next time?
- Have you learned the various alternative strategies for dealing with the classic question types? You have seen that doing things only the way you currently do them is not bringing you a change in score. So maybe it's time to mix in some other strategies as well.
It’s true that you do already have an excellent score. These are just suggestions to make sure that you hit your peak.
@pckeller Answering your questions:
- For Math, usually I make random mistakes (like substituting a random value or messing up with +/- signs, etc.) and I briefly go over them to make sure I can reduce them for the next time. For Reading/Writing, I go over the answer explanation for every question I did wrong and write down what specifically I can do next time to avoid what I did this time. I did the same for both ACT and SAT practice tests. I think doing that increased my accuracy on both test’s Writing/English section.
- I don’t think I’m taking any advantage of test taking strategies. I was never used to the standardized test-taking style of studying, so even after 2 months I still feel like a rookie. I think it’s true that I am doing the same thing for the most of the time. I did learn some test content through studying, but I don’t think I learned much strategy, if any.
Are there good resources for improving test-taking strategies? Can Khan academy help with that too?
I don’t feel that Khan academy presents alternate methods. That’s why there is still a need for books such as PWN sht SAT, the books that @DrSteve has written, and my personal favorite that I won’t mention by name ('cause it’s mine). But also, these alternate methods are available on line in many places. For example, google: “Alternate solutions to SAT problems” and see what comes up. Or just try posting questions here.
One other thing: don’t be so quick to dismiss your mistakes as “random”. Look at what’s really going on. Are you rushing? Assuming things that are not actually in the problem? That will cost you points every time, math and reading.
@pkeller “PWN the SAT” is this what you’re talking about? https://www.amazon.ca/PWN-SAT-Guide-Mike-McClenathan/dp/1523963573
I used to assume many things in reading section, and that has been decreased significantly since I started studying. For math, it’s really unpredictable when I end up making those mistakes. I usually have time left at the end so I look over the answers, but for some questions I still fail to see my mistakes. For the ACT Reading I had to rush most of the time, but on SAT reading it was generally okay. Funny thing is, on the ACT I usually do alright on Prose passage and mess up in social science or humanities, and on the SAT it’s completely other way around.
I would stop doing all this. You are putting a lot of time and energy into increasing your scores for no good reason, and this time and energy could be better spent.
Why do you “need” a 33+ or a 1500+? Scores get you in the ballpark for schools but rarely decide admission. Find schools that you would be happy at where your scores are in the middle of the range, if you want to research in that kind of detail.
If you have some sort of extracurricular activity or talent that could boost admission chances, your scores can be lower in the range.
Finally and most importantly, there are tons of schools on the test-optional list, including some of the most selective in the country. These schools either don’t require scores or de-emphasize them. If you need merit aid, they may want scores for that, or they may not.
http://fairtest.org/university/optional
Really, these efforts are misguided. Just stop. Go volunteer or dance or do something useful with this time.
What I did for my practice tests was categorize the questions based on their style. For example, “Contextual vocab” was a category, and “Evidence-based question/find evidence in passage” was another. This helped in that I could see what types of questions I was missing as well as identifying a pattern that the SAT questions followed. You may find that you do well on vocab questions but struggle with evidence-based questions, and you’d know what to focus on. I personally found Khan Academy helpful due to its plethora of passages that I could experiment on, but if you can find a good review book, that’s swell too. I used to use Barron’s but stopped after finding so many inconsistencies and errors in their answer key (e.g. answer key said a certain letter but then solutions explained that a different answer was right) and their problems (e.g. math question was missing absolute value sign and thus no answers were correct, but in the solutions the problem had an absolute value sign). But if you don’t want to pay anything and still practice multitudes of problems, give Khan Academy a shot.
@pckeller, D used your “Advanced Math for Young Students” in 7th grade. I can’t thank you enough. It was wonderful at helping really understanding the concepts.
My son used PWN the SAT for math and Erica Meltzer’s books for reading / writing to break through a plateau around where the OP is. I highly recommend them.
What’s especially valuable about these books is that they all have an index in the back listing every single question on every official practice test cross referenced with what skills / concepts that question is testing and what page and chapter to go to for review.
So you take your practice test, then consult the index for each question you missed and you may find that you missed three in Heart of Algebra and one in Data Analysis I, or maybe the one’s you’re missing on the reading section are all Tone and Attitude questions.
You can then target your review much more effectively.
Thank you kindly, @BingeWatcher – glad it was helpful.