Any SAT studying tips?

F

FunkSoulBrother

CAGiversary!
I'm taking the new SAT in March with the added writing section. I bought the official book with 10 new SAT's and I usually practice for an hour and a half everyday (I usually just do a few sections, but I never actually sit down and finish a whole test). Right now, my scores are around 1350 (without including the new writing section in the score), which is a big improvement from the 1150 I got on the PSAT. Any other tips on studying for the SAT?

Thanks in advance! :D
 
A 1350 is a pretty damn solid score. Looks to me like you should just keep doing what you're doing and you'll do well. Good luck, hope you break 1400, i only got a 1380 :( on the old SAT that is.
 
I'm not eligible to give any SAT advice since I only got 1040 on it :) But get lots of sleep the week prior to the test and good luck.
 
My advice is... don't, you'll just stress yourself out. These tests are designed to see how much information you've gathered over your lifetime, not how much useless bullshit you can cram into your head over a short period of time. Although my only advice is not to move the night before, did that with my ACT. That was a very bad morning and this horse got a 23... fortunately I decided to take it again and got a 28.
 
I'm having mixed feelings about this new test. On one hand, math is more important, and I'm a junior in calculus (YESSSSS). On the other hand, we have to write instead of analogies, and I was good at them. I fucking hate writing.
 
1350 on the old SAT is pretty damn good, just 10 points lower than my score (I'm a senior in HS). I think you're all set unless you wanna go to some Ivy League. If not here are some tips:

Don't stress out, and if you have NO CLUE about a question, skip it. You lose points if you get a question wrong. My boyfriend is very slow at standardized tests, but very accurate, and he didn't finish most of the sections on time. He got a 1400. This is because he took his time and didn't miss TOO many of the questions; basically, all the ones he DID do he got correct. So don't rush through questions either.

The writing section and other added verbal shit is gonna be much like the Writing SAT II. Which is easy. So don't worry too much about it. Make sure you know how to do Alg II problems for the math part, as those were added. That's about all I have to say, besides you got served for being the first year to have this retarded new test.

PS one more thing:
Your PSAT score will be a lot lower than your actual SAT score. In fact, the PSAT is completely useless,
 
I did quite well, and here's some stuff I did that helped me and you probably won't see in books:

- Convince yourself that whatever reading passage you are reading is very interesting to you and you really want to learn about it. This will help you concentrate on it so you can answer the questions much more easily. Otherwise your (my) mind wanders since the passages are usually pretty boring.

- don't listen to any music on your way to the test! The first time I took it I got an Ice Cube song stuck in my head and the lyrics just kept repeating in my mind as I tried to think. So set your alarm to beep and keep your car stereo off.
 
I took them early (im a jeenass!) I took the last old SAT (like 3 saturdays ago) i dont think i did good but what ever, it doesn't count.
 
yea i only got an 1080 first time i took it and did nothing. Second time i got an 1120 and took like 1 practice test the night before. You should be fine doing what u already do
 
People actually study for this thing? Back in my day you just got a good night's sleep and hoped for the best...
 
Thanks for the advice my fellow CAGs, I appreciate it. I guess I'll just continue doing practice tests until March, and I'll try to read some books to increase my vocabulary, but other than that, I think I'm fine for now.
 
I have to go take a practice test every sunday from now until may... A full 3 and half hour test every sunday till may... That's not including the hour and 20 minute session and all the homework I get in the prvate tutoring for it. I'm doing really well with all of it too. I dunno why I have to waste the time.

God I friggen hate the SATs.
 
pay an asian or indian girl to do em for you
in the long run they don't matter
you prob aren't going ivy
$$$ dicates good college
iv'e been to 3 colleges
 
[quote name='Zenithian Legend']My advice is... don't, you'll just stress yourself out. These tests are designed to see how much information you've gathered over your lifetime, not how much useless bullshit you can cram into your head over a short period of time. Although my only advice is not to move the night before, did that with my ACT. That was a very bad morning and this horse got a 23... fortunately I decided to take it again and got a 28.[/quote]

These tests are NOT designed to see how well you know anything or what you have learned in your lifetime. They are only designed to see how good you are at taking the test. Complete and total morons could ace the thing if they knew the tricks to it, what to prepare for and what to memorize. There are lots of books out there on taking these tests and the "official" ones are not always the best ones, so look around before you buy.
 
Good luck

You should have no trouble with the test. Though the last time I had taken it was 12 years ago. Damn I feel old now. :p
 
[quote name='Zenithian Legend']My advice is... don't, you'll just stress yourself out. These tests are designed to see how much information you've gathered over your lifetime, not how much useless bullshit you can cram into your head over a short period of time. Although my only advice is not to move the night before, did that with my ACT. That was a very bad morning and this horse got a 23... fortunately I decided to take it again and got a 28.[/quote]

IBTN. I never studied for any of those shitty tests and got a 1450 on the SAT and 31 on the ACT.
Oh yeah. Answer every question. Don't be like the pussies that leave questions blank--if you guess 1 out of every 4 right, it's evens out to 0. If you guess 2 out of every 4 right, you've just got yourself an exta 1.5 points.
 
Don't spend money on any classes or books or anything. Look online, maybe take a practice test or two (free ones are available online) and see where you got questions wrong. Work on that. I got a 1390 and really didn't "study" or anything... that was up from a 1270.
 
I'd just take practice tests. If you really want to improve then courses could help (though I had a friend get an 800 on the first sat, and 820 on the second after courses, so it's not guaranteed). Though I didn't study or practice for mine. I jumped from 1100 to 1330. Didn't take math for a year and my math score jumped from 470 to 600. I'm horrible with formulas, but I'm excellent with mental math which helps when I haven't seen something before, and also why I got A's in math until the 8th, after that I failed as often as I passed, since I could no longer do the formulas in my head, or make up my own formulas. I can't figure that one out at all, especially since my two psats were 400 (9th grade) and 500 (early 11th) and one practice one I did in my math class in 11th grade was a 460 (I was also in the lowest math phase). I was pretty consistent up until the last one, and I hadn't done any math in about a year. All I did for math was the day before the SAT's I went on collegeboard.com and started to do a few sample questions, I think I did 4 before I got too bored. My verbal also jumped from 630 to 730.

Just don't get too worked up about the SAT's, they are becoming less and less important unless you are going to the elite schools. They are huge when applying to harvard, brown, MIT, yale etc., but not so much for lower universities. Basically, unless your borderline on getting accepted, they won't really be the deciding factor in most universities.
 
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