<p>I did several practice tests from the college board book and i often got in the low 1800s to high 1800s. On the last practice test i took , which was a few days before the MAY SAT, i got an 1840. Cr: 600, Math :620, and Writing:620. BUT on the MAY SAT i got a 1690, CR:540, WR:540, Math: 610. Why is there such a gap in scores ?? Arent SAT practice tests supposed to highy correlate to the real SAT. Why is there such a strange case? I wasnt nervous or distracted at all. I'm really confused and i seriously dont know what to do.</p>
<p>Because you know some things and don’t know others.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Sometimes the real tests can have exceptionally harsh curves, but even then this is usually only for certain sections.</p></li>
<li><p>To partially explain the writing scores: The essay is scored by hand. What you might think deserves a 10 may actually score an 8, which will bring a score down. (It’s what happened to me.)</p></li>
<li><p>Testing conditions. Practice tests do not start at 8am in a testing center with other people and involve bubbling in information beforehand, breaks, etc. Even if you were not nervous, anything from not getting enough sleep that week to the proctor may influence the score. When you take practice tests, emulate the actual situation as closely as possible: in the morning, only give yourself three 5-minute breaks, no music playing, no food except in between sections and even then, eat fast, and sit down and time yourself exactly, using spare time to double-check answers.</p></li>
<li><p>Define “several” when you said you took several practice tests…that can mean any number from 2 to 10. Also, when scoring practice tests, make sure you remembered to subtract the amount you missed in each section and divide by 4, then subtract that number from the amount correct.</p></li>
<li><p>As people from the other topics have said, review the material you’ve gotten right and wrong.
If you can and if you don’t mind spending the money, the Question-and-Answer service is useful for seeing whether the mistakes you made were careless ones or genuine ones.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>scores vary around your true score. they can vary by up to 30-40 points per section per test so:</p>
<p>CR: 600-540, sounds to me like your true score is around 570 or 580, and you just did well the first time, and not so great the second time.</p>
<p>M: 620-610- I think you know where you stand</p>
<p>W: 620-540, sounds to me like your true score is around 580-590.</p>
<p>The tests can only measure how you perform on a given day. In sports, thats why you play a whole season. With the test, it may provide some weird numbers.</p>
<p>IMHO- don’t put too much stock in practice tests, the lack of pressure totally skews your score (in your case up, in my case down)</p>