So, I have just taken a full-length SAT to serve as a diagnostic, finished scoring it and got a 1480 with no studying (I’m aiming for a 1600.) I got a 750 in English and a 730 in Math.
My parents want to hire an SAT tutor, but I don’t want them to spend their money (we’re struggling financially). I will be able to take the test 3 times before I apply to colleges and all of the schools that I will be applying to superscore the SAT.
How can I self-study for the SAT effectively?
We have an SAT subforum with many answers to just this question!
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/8682681/#Comment_8682681
My son raised his score a lot by taking many, many practice exams. He retook a lot of them, too. He found that more helpful than the SAT prep class he took.
Get the Black Book and an official SAT study guide by College Board.
A prep class isn’t going to help you. Prep classes are designed for those folks who want to get to 1450 to 1500. The rest is up to you.
As someone else mentioned, take a bunch of practice exams under the same test conditions - same time controls, same quiet place. Work on understanding what and why you got things wrong. Then repeat those same exams.
To me, getting to 800 is a bit easier in Math than in EBRW, so I would focus more of my efforts in getting those extra 60-70 points on the Math size of things first.