<p>Hi, I'm a rising junior and planning on taking the SAT in October. </p>
<p>However, on the PSAT I got a 172 and on my last practice test I got an 1850. I am aiming for at least 2200 on the SAT. </p>
<p>I have the Blue Book, the SAT Word Power for vocab, and am planning on taking one practice test every week. My strongest section is writing and weakest is CR. </p>
<p>Do you have any tips on really helping me increase my score, especially for learning vocab?</p>
<p>Thanks! </p>
<p>CR: learn to speed-read. Also, don’t let your personal opinions and biases influence your decision. It doesn’t matter what you think, what matters is what the author says, and the answer is almost always in writing (even if it the question asks you to infer). Instead of convincing yourself why you chose the right answer, ask yourself why your choice could be wrong. </p>
<p>Math: Don’t miss the minute details. Sometimes the math questions are made to trick you. They get you going so much in one direction that you miss a crucial detail which blows the whole answer. For example, they might tell you to fond ONE HALF the area of the shaded region.</p>
<p>Writing: This section is just a pattern. It is the same thing every time: subject-verb agreement, plural vs singular, past vs present tense, misplaced modifiers, etc. Once you learn to recognize the patterns, it’s a breeze.</p>
<p>Also, take a week of from practice tests occasionally. If you go too hard for too long, your progress may start to diminish.</p>
<p>For Vocabulary, get DIrect Hits Volumes One and Two. Look through it a little everyday.</p>
<p>For math, after you work the problem, re-read the question before picking the answer. Make sure you are answering what the are asking for. For example most of the info given is about dogs, then they’ll ask how many cats.</p>
<p>Don’t forget to sign up for the PSAT. </p>
<p>For CR in particular, use plenty of of practice tests. I went from a PSAT CR score of 700 to an SAT score of 800 in two months using the College Board Blue Book. I didn’t focus as much on vocab as I did on passage-based reading. One piece of advice I received that definitely helped me nail CR was to read the questions before hand, markup lines relating to the question, and write a brief one-to-three word description of what the question was asking.</p>
<p>For instance, if the question wanted me to identify the implication of a quote in the text, I’d underline the quote and I’d write “implies.” next to it. It doesn’t take too long, but it really helped me identify what I needed to focus on while reading. My SAT score ended up being 370 points higher than my PSAT score, and all I did was use the BB practice tests without any outside material. Good luck!</p>
<p>If @frozens method works for you it would be an ideal plan. If you don’t see improvement in CR though, you might want to try Erica Meltzer’s The Critical Reader.</p>
<p>A more detailed (and very helpful) description of this method: <a href=“How to Attack the SAT Critical Reading Section Effectively - SAT Preparation - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/sat-preparation/750399-how-to-attack-the-sat-critical-reading-section-effectively.html</a>
I’d highly recommend reading this.</p>
<p>Definitely read back on previous threads. I know that’s probably not the advice you want to hear, but I learned so much simply by lurking on many of these SAT threads. Advice is abundant. </p>
<p>As for the vocab, you have two options: either learn the tactics and leave it at that, or learn the tactics and commit to studying word lists. Personally, I found a couple word lists and words from the blue book I believe and studied them hardcore for a couple weeks. It was basically my life (not fun). However, I ended up scoring about the same on the vocab portion than the time before when I didn’t study word lists.</p>
<p>So is it worth it? I guess that depends on how much room for improvement you have, how much time you have to commit to studying words, and how your memory works. Best of luck with whatever you choose.</p>
<p>Practice. A lot. You can absolutely improve your math and reading score. Math - cover the concepts and get used to drilling math sections. For CR, practice reading the passages and logically answering the questions. Vocab doesn’t play that big of a part for the “fill the sentence” questions - you should practice using context clues though.</p>