<p>I can't seem to breach 700 on either M or RC, and Grammar is horrible which I cant breach a 600. I feel as if the SAT is simple enough, but somehow I don't get as high as I want.</p>
<p>The material isn't challenging, but it seems odd to attribute all those deductions from simple mistakes and failing on my part to read thoroughly.</p>
<p>So for those out there who hit the magical numbers, WHAT IS YOUR SECRET?</p>
<p>I'm taking my Sat prep class, and 3 weeks in with our 3nd diagnostic, I only went up 20 points OVERALL.</p>
<p>When you say you feel the SAT is simple enough, do you mean you understand the questions but just can’t score high for some reason? Meaning after you see the answer key, you feel stupid for getting questions wrong?</p>
<p>If that is the case, there is no point in taking a prep course. There’s nothing for you to learn, so why waste your own time? You just need to train your own critical thinking skills.</p>
<p>Take a practice test from the blue book with no time limit. Try to get each question correct. Use the dictionary for the vocabulary section. If you get none of them wrong, then your reasoning is on point and you may only need to work on the more objective things like timing, strategies, vocabulary, etc.–things that cannot be deduced by reasoning alone. If you get a fair amount of them wrong, you need to go over them and try to change your way of approaching those types of problems.</p>
<p>This is important because you want to work on your reasoning and your problem solving before everything else, because even with perfect timing, effective strategies, and a ton of practice, you will not get some questions right as it will come down to your reasoning. To do this, you would have to isolate time limits, things you need to memorize like vocabulary, etc.</p>
<p>I don’t believe in prep courses… especially if you feel you understand the material, but just don’t seem to be doing well on the tests. I’m a firm believer in self-studying. Read through the collegeboard’s book, and then do the practice tests in it as crazybandit explained. Do all the collegeboard’s tests before you use ones from other books… these are not made by the actually testmakers and will not be as similar to the actual SAT. All I did was read the collegeboard book and do practice tests (and make sure to study why you got problems wrong!).</p>
<p>But I suppose a more helpful suggestion would be to apply reasoning skills to everyday life. I destroy the reading section since I was a quite a reader in school, and math is just a part of my thought process.</p>
<p>There’s no real secret to it. Just know the stuff and you’ll do well. This applies to both sections. Careless mistakes are a joke, because if you actually know the content and the correct way of solving it, there’s only going to be one correct/best answer.</p>
<p>Seems a waste to me though, besides the practice SAT’s that are timed and essay grading, I’m pretty much bored out of my mind. They did however give us a nice lengthy SAT book (their version of the collegeboard blue sat book) and I’ll take your advice and try self-practice.</p>
<p>Focus on what Quomodo wrote. Take a practice test untimed. Make a not of each question you got wrong. Go to the answer section and learn why you got it wrong and how to get it right. After a couple of days take the same practice test, this time only do the questions you got wrong last time. Keep doing this until you get them all correct. If there are some types of questions that you always get wrong and each takes up a lot of time, jst learn to recognize that typem of question and then skip it. You will save a lot of time that you can invest in questions you know you can get correct.</p>