<p>ugh I wish the SAT wasn't so biased toward math-oreinted people.</p>
<p>Well, I don't have sports/band, or a 4.5 GPA. I've sacrificed good grades to a lot of the stuff I've done, but in the better end, I feel that my accomplishments outweigh my GPA. I'm not a top-of-the-class kid, I'm in the top quintile, yes, but nowhere near #1 (I attend a high school with a 944 student graduating class).</p>
<p>I suck at Warcraft, though, but my friends and I have competed nationally in CounterStrike. That was like three years ago though, so I probably suck by now.</p>
<p>Don't blame it on people being "genius." That never works. In life, your willingness to do something will far, far, outweigh your natural talent in that area.</p>
<p>Girlfriend, you're kidding, right? 2/3 of the SAT is non-math. Frankly, I liked the old one better (I'm a math/science person, and my language skills are decent, but I'm not a very good writer).</p>
<p>I'm not a professional at this, but I do volunteer and tutor people for the SATs (for free, no less). The ones that do the best aren't the ones that excel in the math classes, they're the ones that know what to look for.</p>
<p>Hope this helps,
Timur</p>
<p>i mean biased against opps, Im starting to have one of those headaches concentrated in my eyebrows.</p>
<p>EDIT: Nevermind, I get it lol. :D Yeah, you're right, it's very biased against Math people, and that's a shame, considering the focus of the United States (and the world in general) is moving off the humanities.</p>
<p>oops, stupid gay test ruined my 4 day weekend.</p>
<p>this is gay, im applying to engineering college, not any gay liberal arts place.</p>
<p>It's okay. Are you applying early anywhere?</p>
<p>If you have another chance to take the SATs, I strongly suggest the weekend-full-of-tests method for studying. It's unpleasant, but it's only one weekend. If you (or anyone else) needs any advice, my PM box is open.</p>
<p>EDIT: Which college?</p>
<p>How would you (anybody that took the SATI today) say it compared to the practice tests in the Blue Book or PR's New SATI book?</p>
<p>im not applying early cept for Illinois so I can make sure I get the major i want before its filled up. If im mortified with myself in 3 weeks im taking it again in December for at least Carnegie Mellon and MIT</p>
<p>Hehe, I'm applying for MIT too. Where are you from?</p>
<p>Also, don't fret. Grades are far more important in the college admissions process than test scores could ever be.</p>
<p>the CR was much muich harder than the CB tests</p>
<p>My writing skill is not too bad. I'm in APUS history and few days ago I got my DBQ assignment back and got a 90/100. most people got 80/100, lower half of class got 70 below. But my english really suck. I'm a ESL, so if i don't have enough time to write or some help from a dictionary. I cannot writing a good essay. any Advise to improve?</p>
<p>Olo may I have your MSN or Email? you seem good at testing~~~~~~~</p>
<p>Read, read, read. As much as you can, whenever you can. Not just books, but newspaper articles, magazine articles, anything. It really helps your grammar and sentence structure. Write as much as you can too, in proper English, not just for school assignments. Then get people to proofread them. It takes a while, but it works.</p>
<p>Oh, definitely, some things about the writing ESSAY:</p>
<p>Have a bank of information to draw from. Include an event from history, a famous historical figure, a famous piece of literature, a philosophy, and a personal experience of your own. Make sure all of these are things that can be easily tied into a number of other things. </p>
<p>Step One: Make a list (or tentative list)
For instance, the list that I'm fond of using is:
* Historical event: World War II & Holocaust, Cuban Missile Crisis
* Historical figure: Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln
* Literature: Candide, Great Gatsby (try to stick to books you really know well, especially ones you've read for class, as you likely were required to know those well).
* Philosophy: Plato's "Philosopher Kings," Confucionism
* Personal event: Near death experience</p>
<p>Step Two: Learn EVERYTHING you can about the things on that list.</p>
<p>Step Three: APPLY IT TO THE TOPIC
So let's say the topic is courage. You can relate that to any number of people who stood up against the Holocaust (like the recently departed Simon Weisenthal), or even courage in a different way like Einstein's courage in pursuing his theories when he was mocked by half of the world's physicists. You can talk about what happens to people who lack courage, like Gatsby, or the courage involved in giving power over to people you trust to rule you.</p>
<p>Let's say it's a different topic, like does lying make you a bad person. There are some things on the list that don't apply. I can't think of a single way in which Isaac Newton comes to play with morals, and the Philosopher Kings is more an issue of power than morality. But you still have things on your list (which you've mastered, keep in mind), that you can refer to. You can talk about Hitler, and how his lies led to genocide. Conversely, you could talk about the Jews that lied to escape the Holocaust. You can talk about Gatsby lying to himself, or Lincoln's policy on truth.</p>
<p>I suggest making a list full of things you already know a lot about. Mine are a bit geared toward science, but that's because I'm a science person.</p>
<p>Step Four: Learn how to use a semicolon (;), it really lets you add some complexity to your syntax, which the college board people love.</p>
<p>Step Five: Content, not length. Don't worry about writing a lot. I wrote literally one page and three lines and got a 10 on my essay. If you can squeeze out a page and a half, full of information that RELATES TO THE TOPIC, you have a 12 guarenteed.</p>
<p>========</p>
<p>As for the actual grammar part, some really important advise.</p>
<p>The number one thing they try to trick you with is subject-verb agreement. In every statement, find WHO/WHAT is doing the verb, and make sure it matches with the VERB. They'll throw in apposotives (usually statements set off by commas) to trick you.</p>
<p>Example: The workers, upset by the lack of effort in their manager, tries to get him fired.</p>
<p>If you read it out loud in your head, you'll instantly spot the mistake. Workers try, not tries.</p>
<p>Another common mistake is pronoun-antecedant agreement.
"Anyone who wants to go to the zoo should bring their money."
This is a bit harder. "their" is PLURAL ONLY. Anyone is literally any one, which means it should be "his" or "his or her."</p>
<p>Nouns that take "his" instead of "their:"
Everyone
Anyone
Noone
Whoever</p>
<p>That's all I can think of off the top of my head. If you guys want, I can start making SAT tutorial posts regularly.</p>
<p>I lack of vocab and I found it hard to remeber by flash cards. I can only remeber the example sentence attached to the word but cannot remeber the word alone. I tried read and found if I really wanna remeber the vocab during I read, I just can no longer keep reading anymore because I need to check the unfamiliar words over 10 or 20 times every single page and the entire plot of the book will be cut off by checking the dictionary. my grammar is kinda of "format". And sometime when I saw the strange sentence with un"format" grammar, Im just stucked and have no choice but move on to the next paragraph.</p>
<p>but thanks anyway dude. your advise is good for me</p>
<p>i thought that the proctor is supposed to read the instructions of each section before one starts, but it was all very fast, once the section was over u had to turn the page and begin right away. is it supposed to be like this?</p>
<p>Do we really need that many examples, Olo? Considering it's a 25-min essay and I average about 5 min/paragraph and use 1 example/paragraph so I can develop it fully, would 3 examples (out of the 5 types you listed) suffice?</p>
<p>Honestly? You don't need five. Three of the "categories" should get you through any test. But like any arsenal, the bigger it is, the more you have to choose from, and the greater likelihood of finding the right ammunition for the job.</p>
<p>If you have the time before applying, I'd get three things, and then see how I do. If I don't do so well, study another three and the next time around you'll have six. If you have just three things, make sure they're very versatile and easily related to many categories.</p>