March SAT - Late Studying

problematical · 02-26-2011, 10:23 AM

So I am registered to take the SAT in 2 weeks. I have done no studying so far and wanted to see if there are some ideas for a 2 week study plan. I have taken the PSAT every year so to show where I'm coming from
Freshman year 74M 69CR 54W (197 total)
Sophomore year 71M 78CR 67W (216 total)
Junior year 70M 80CR 71W (221 total)

I've made large improvements every year in critical reading and writing but for some reason I have decreased every year in math( these tests were all without any studying and so reflect just a natural increase/decrease).

My major concern is with writing as I have very poor grammar and I am really afraid of what the essay will do to my score. I read a lot and have an okay vocabulary so I'm not worried about the critical reading. As for math, that is my favorite subject and I am really good at it in general so I don't know why I always make the stupidest arithmetic mistakes on the PSAT.

Any tips and advice on how to manage studying over the next 2 weeks would be appreciated. I have the blue book and I am willing to buy another study book or 2 if needed. Aiming for a 2400

or close.

Thanks for the help!!!

Metrical · 02-26-2011, 01:03 PM

I would suggest doing a few practice tests from the back of the Blue Book. If math is your concern, do the math section in the blue book for extra practice. Silverturtle's guide may be useful to you too, especially for grammar. Good luck!

problematical · 02-26-2011, 04:39 PM

Metrical, thanks for the suggestion to the grammar section of silverturtle's guide. I found it really helpful but condensed. I just took the first practice test in the blue book under test conditions and got a perfect on the math and critical reading sections. However, on the writing section I had a mc subscore of 70. The questions I got wrong were all identifying sentence errors. Are there any good books to improve my grammar?

Metrical · 02-26-2011, 06:13 PM

Good books? Perhaps, but I haven't used one that I would recommend so I'll leave that to someone who has. However, since you're doing so wonderfully on the SAT, you probably won't need the other 9 tests for math/CR, so I would suggest taking only the writing sections of those tests and then looking at the online explanations, or even posting ones you don't understand here. If that's not enough then you can look for a book, but I doubt you'll need it.

problematical · 02-27-2011, 02:15 PM

Thanks Metrical. I found a grammar reference book and so I'm using that to supplement the tests. Hopefully that will improve my score.