wintergree88

Lifeofsolitude, I think proper concentration is a key factor in doing well on the SATs. Try playing Scrabble, Chess or Checkers with friends or family during your free time. These games will help you concentrate more effectively.

wintergree88

Missypie, you're right. Junior year is very busy school year for most high school students. The courses that the students are taking in their junior year are more advanced than in previous years. The junior year students that are applying to colleges are also preparing for their college admissions tests. I barely had time to study on my own for the college admissions tests during my junior year. I had a minimum number of activities during my junior year. Those students that have many activities during their junior year are even more busy than I was at that time.

wintergree88

Lifeofsolitude, I don't know if have already taken all of your college admissions tests but these are my tips for studying for the SATs.

I read the book "Bleak House" during the summer between junior & senior year in school. I was also studying vocabulary words in an SAT preparation book. Reading the book "Bleak House" & studying vocabulary at the same time helped me to improve my SAT score considerably. However, "Bleak House" is not an easy book to read especially due to the vocabulary in the book. Some people might feel that the book is enjoyable reading material.

Have a dictionary with you at all times to look up unfamiliar words. Also have a thesaurus with you at all times. If you are preparing on your own for the SATs, do some study for the test each day. If you prepare for the test in a consistent & systematic way, you will most likely see an improvement in your test score.

Use the vocabulary that you have learned during your test preparation. Try to write out sentences using the vocabulary words you've learned. Read the most difficult books & reading material that's available. Also, read a variety of reading material. Read about topics that don't interest you. If you can concentrate on and understand reading material that don't interest you, it will help prepare you for the SAT Verbal section since you might find the reading material on the SATs to be less interesting than the reading material that you would customarily read.

Focus on your weakness when you prepare for the SATs. Check your previous mistakes on practice tests from time to time & try to understand why you made certain mistakes on previous practice tests.

wintergree88

Missypie, taking SAT test prep courses in school as I did motivates students to try to do well on the SATs because students are in some ways competing against schoolmates to get into colleges. At school, students will often be compared by teachers & school administrators in regards to which colleges they are accepted to. Having schoolmates in the SAT test prep classes reminds students that they have to do well on the SATs in order to project the best image of themselves among their peers at school.

Both of my Math Review courses at school were very good & helped me do well on my SAT (I & II) tests. The Math Review course for the math portion of the SAT I test helped me the most. There may have been very competitive students taking the SAT II Math Level 1 test so I didn't score as well (according to my ranking among other test takers) as I did on the math portion of the SAT 1 test.

wintergree88

Lifeofsolitude,

This is an article about raising reading test scores:

"Raising High School Reading Test Scores"

Raising High School Reading Test Scores: Factors that Affect Reading Scores in Twelfth Grade Students | Suite101.com

sabres13

On the contrary, I had a tutor for my SAT preparation and my scores did nothing but improve on my first practice test I got a 490 in math and a 510 in critical reading, and after my last SAT I got my scores all the way up to 700 math and 630 critical reading. So a tutor vastly improved my scores.

wintergree88

I meant to write earlier: Some people might feel that the book ("Bleak House") is not enjoyable reading material.

The book has more than 800 pages. I read the book soon after reading "Great Expectations" which is also by Charles Dickens. As soon as I began reading "Bleak House", I noticed that the book contained many of the vocabulary words that were in my SAT Verbal test preparation book. It's a laborious book to read. It's very important to keep notes while reading "Bleak House" in order to keep track of what's happening in the book.

craiggonzales

Sat courses help some students. There could be a few reasons:

1. That course is lame. 60 hours? What do they spend their time doing?

2. Your son pays attention but doesn't do homework. Learning how to get a 6 pack and getting a 6 pack are different.

3. Your son started at the top. Sometimes students intuitively get the strategy and have knowledge issues they can't work through. If his cr is down it sounds like he is trying the sat techniques in an ineffective way. Tell him to stop trying to hack the cr and instead read like before, try to understand, and leave obvious extreme elimination for next year.

Craig

wintergree88

"SAT Coaching Found to Boost Scores -- Barely"
SAT Coaching Found to Boost Scores -- Barely - WSJ.com