<p>Something that has been really been urking me is that I can never exceed teh 1900's. My math hovers at 800 my reading in 600's and writing in the upper 500's/lower 600's. I really feel like I've done practice tests but I just can't seem to get it up. By convention, I"m a pretty smart guy, 4.0 Unweighted, skipped in to AP Bio (got a 99) and yet I just can't crack this. I really REALLY want to score 2250+ but can't figure it out.</p>
<p>Anyone care for any advice? I won't be able to go to college unless I get a scholarship, and I'd like it from a decent school</p>
<p>No you just have to keep practicing. You’re a smart guy but SAT I test is a reasoning test, a test in which a dumb person, if studies hard, can get a high score… but then that also applies to every other type of class/subject that is involved. </p>
<p>For CR: read lots of difficult books and annotate for vocab and summary. This will condition your mind to process difficult passages to answer those passage-based questions. Memorize like the top 500 vocab words used in SAT. You don’t need to memorize 3000 + but if you want to, you can. The important thing is to know the context of the given sentence.</p>
<p>For writing: There are 35 common errors used in the SAT. If you know those 35 common errors, then you can easily get a 760+ on the writing section (having a 9+ essay of course). These errors include Pronoun ambiguity, dangling modifiers, subject verb agreement, verb tense agreement, the easiest mistake: the no error error and so on. I suggest you either PM or study for it yourself :)</p>
<p>Don’t worry. I’m in the same boat as you. I’m a pretty smart kid myself but for four entire months, no matter how much I studied, I could never get past the 2000 mark except for twice, but those were special occasions. </p>
<p>But when I finally processed the information and studied some more and took more practice tests a few months later (I had a few months of non-studying because of school), I am now consistently getting 2160+ score… All i need is another 150 points and then I’d be satisfied for the May SAT test Wish me luck! XD</p>
<p>Erica Meltzer’s has written Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar. She tells you which grammar topics are covered more often than others and provides clear explanations and tons of exercises for practice.</p>
<p>Writing is the easiest section to improve imo… Just read Sparknotes Seven Deadly Screw-ups and Silverturtle’s guide here on CC.com. You just need to learn the basic rules and practice many writing sections out of the blue book.</p>
<p>Fat_Nerd, come on bruh! You keep bashing people lately. I know OP might be coming off as a little arrogant to you but you should have atleast provided some advice.</p>
<p>Anyways Yester, the Sat tests the same concepts over and over again. For the writing do all the BB writing sections and review the ones you missed. For the reading use DH for vocab and keep practicing the reading passages. It takes sometime to adjust to the thinking required but once you get it the light bulb will flick on.</p>
<p>Just a quick update, all the tests I were taking were kaplan ones at my school. I took a blue book under testing conditions and got a 2180 without any studying. GO FIGURE! KAPLAN SUCKS!</p>
<p>Are the writing tests in her book or on her blog? </p>
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<p>Bravo :)! What were your section scores?</p>
<p>I think that your 800 in M shows that you have the analytic and critical thinking skills to do well on all the other sections, especially writing, which is nothing more than identifying a small subset of all the grammar mistakes one could possibly make in the English language. Plus, an 800 in M makes superscoring a lot easier: just take the SAT, secure that 800 in M, and then work on CR and especially W.</p>
<p>I bought the grammar book from post #6, however after reviewing that book, D2 kept missing 9-5 on some writing tests. It’s good to review grammar, but practice the BB tests is what helped her.</p>
<p>IceQube -
Erica Meltzer’s Book: The Ultimate SAT Grammar has explanations and exercises for all the grammar on the SAT test. She also lists all the writing questions in the Blue Book by test number and also by type.</p>
<p>I had the same problem with you. I’m pretty decent in schoolwork and get near 800s in math but couldn’t crack 2000. After many practices, I’ve been cracking 2100 and am practicing more to crack 2200 (I’m a junior btw).</p>
<p>As what other people have said before, writing is the easiest section to improve. Memorize diction and prepositions. For example, it’s “preoccupation with” not “preoccupation in.” Memorize basic grammar. Buy a practice book and learn the skills. If you go to the collegeboard website, there are sets of free writing practice questions. Try those too. That’s the only way you can boost up your high 500s to maybe even 700s. Don’t worry about the essay writing until you get 700+ for writing multiple choice. </p>
<p>For reading, I’m afraid it’ll be hard to raise it up more. Where do you lose points more? Vocab or the passages? If you get 3+ vocab questions wrong, start memorizing them right now. You’re losing like 30 points if you’re getting 3 wrong. For the passages, I really don’t know because I’m still struggling at it. Find a strategy for tackling the passages, I guess? And stick to that strategy so that you’ll be comfortable using that when you take the real SATs.</p>
<p>If you’re good academically, why don’t you consider taking ACTs instead?</p>
<p>Thanks for the information. Nevertheless, I suggest that people shy away from Meltzer’s materials: from what I gleaned on her website, she doesn’t really know what she’s talking about when it comes to SAT grammar.</p>
<p>I started out with a 1740 during my freshman year. After devoting a major portion of a summer to improving my SAT score, I increased my score by 600+ points. Anything is possible.</p>
Wish me luck! XD</p>