<p>Here is my june 1st sat (international) breakdown
750m
740cr
690w
9 essay
2180
Pretty glad with this score! But because it was my first sat and I'm only a sophomore, I'm planning on retaking it. What do you guys reccomend to improve besides practice, practice and practice? Thanks</p>
<p>Apparently, one needs at least fifteen posts before one receives private messaging privileges, so I’ll reply here.</p>
<p>Writing first. Now, for the record, I got 600 (61 MC, 8 essay) on my first SAT, and 790 (80 MC, 9 essay) on my second. The first result was because of my never learning grammar in school to the level that the SAT writing section requires (note the possession of ‘learning’ by ‘my’). As an avid reader, I tried to rely on my ear, which failed because some of the grammar rules tested are not really followed anymore even in novels, newspapers, and other formal writings. To this end, I found SparkNotes really helpful:</p>
<p>[SAT:</a> Improve SAT Score with SparkNotes: The Seven Deadly Screw-Ups](<a href=“SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides”>SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides)</p>
<p>Here are some specific tips that worked for me:
- For Improving Sentences, answers in the passive voice, or answers that are overly wordy are usually wrong, even if they are grammatically correct.
- Words that end with -ing can be possessed. eg. ‘I was shocked at his being punished.’ instead of ‘I was shocked at him being punished.’
- Pronouns like I, we, they, he, she etc. go with ‘than’. eg. ‘I am stronger than she.’ instead of ‘I am stronger than her.’
- Phrases that describe a word need to be right next to it. eg. ‘Hating art, I was disgusted by the painting.’ instead of ‘Hating art, the painting disgusted me.’ Hating art describes ‘I’, not ‘the painting’.
- Only things that are alike should be compared. eg. ‘Mozart’s music is better than Bach’s.’ instead of ‘Mozart’s music is better than Bach.’
- Watch out for ambiguous pronouns.</p>
<p>I guess I’m not really qualified to talk about the essay section, so I’ll leave it at that. </p>
<p>For critical reading, and in particular, the passage-based reading, I found that skimming the questions first to find what specific lines they refer to, and circling or bracketing those lines on the passage to be very helpful. When I read the passage, I stopped at relevant lines and answered those questions then and there. For me, this saved time, since I didn’t have to reorient myself into the context of the line in question. </p>
<p>For math, I’ve always found those sections to be easy, though not so easy to get 800 on. Personally, my biggest problem was my carelessness; I would misread questions, or interpret questions incorrectly under stress. If you’re the same, I suggest underlining, re-reading, and re-doing questions if you have time. Sometimes it comes down to luck. </p>
<p>Hope this helped. In terms of ‘what I did’ to improve my scores—well. Um. I took two full practice tests, and I did the writing sections of about six past tests released in the Question-and-Answer Service (QAS). I was busy with the SAT subject tests. If you’re going to take those, be aware that they test very specific knowledge that you might not have if you do a foreign curriculum.</p>
<p>(Also, you’ve visited over thirty countries? Wow. I’ve been to fifteen. And we’re about the same age, too. Huh.)</p>
<p>@BairnOwl Wow thank you so much for your post! It’s very helpful. I’m probably going to retake in December and hopefully I’ll receive good enough scores. I’m experiencing similar problems to you in Math. I keep making stupid mistakes. Ill definitely try your underlining tip. And yes around 30 haha I am so grateful! Again thanks for post!</p>
<p>wow. pretty amazing! people going out of their way to help people. somehow brings to the fore what this site is all about.</p>
<p>I just joined today. And I am impressed.</p>
<p>You’re welcome! I’m glad you found it helpful; I was afraid of sounding generic. </p>
<p>Qcleopatra, I can only speak for myself, but I remember feeling so nervous about doing well on the SAT about a month ago. Looking through threads here helped me so much and I just want to do what I can to help now, too. People are very nice here.</p>