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Old 11-13-2012, 05:57 PM   #1
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SAT Math help needed ASAP!

At the moment I am suffering from a problem where my math score is 440. I want to achieve around a 600+. Does anyone want to provide me with some advice on how to tackle this? I am taking the SAT in late January.


http://gyazo.com/97178f3cdf25d1f8067...png?1352847296
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Old 11-13-2012, 05:59 PM   #2
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You should figure out what your problems are and address them.

You are leaving a lot of questions blank, which leads me to believe that either you are taking a long time to answer questions, or you don't remember/haven't learned how to answer them.
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Old 11-13-2012, 08:19 PM   #3
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Out of the questions you answered, you only got 22/39 (56%) correct. You're probably not proficient enough at those areas in math, so you should take some practice tests and make sure you understand the solutions/methods behind them.

Over time, your speed should improve and you will be answering more and more questions (thereby omitting fewer).
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Old 11-13-2012, 10:54 PM   #4
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Plan of Attack

After looking at your score report, I would make the following recommendations;
1. Work on your Numbers and Operations. You earned only 2.5 out of a possible 12 points, or approximately 21%. If you were to raise this to 50%, that would add 3.5 points to your raw score. Review PEMDAS, Place Values, Exponents

2. Your Algebra score, while not quite as low as the above percentage, is still a potential source of easy gains. You earned 6.5 out of a possible 20, for a 32.5% total. Again, simply improving to 50% increases your raw score by 3.5 points. Review FOILing and factoring.

3. The case of your Geometry score is very similar. 5 out of 15 possible points for a 33.33% rate, 50% brings you an extra 2.5 points. Know your Triangle rules inside out. Many Quadrilateral problems are really triangle problems in disguise.

4. Just getting 50% of those questions brings you to the 530-540 range

5. To get to the 600+ range you will need additional 8-9 points. You should pick either Algebra or Geometry and concentrate more of your time on those questions. Remember you left 10 Geometry points and 13.5 Algebra points on the table.

6. Finally, remember that as much as the math section is a math test, it is also a reading test. Make sure that you know EXACTLY what the question is asking you to solve for. If it is asking for x squared, do not give x.
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Old 11-14-2012, 03:50 PM   #5
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You can't tell from just looking at your report. It's not always bad that you leave out so many questions. It depends on how you are going about spending your time:

If you are jumping around from problem to problem, spending time on almost everything but eventually leaving out the questions that you just can' t do...well, that's a bad use of time.

If you are going slow, working hard and then taking your best shot at the easy and medium questions, INTENTIONALLY omitting all the hard ones...that's the way to go.

At the risk of sounding like an old record ["record"...an old guy thing for playing music], here is a link to the charts I give my students...you may want to try following the 550 plan.

Keller's Math SAT Game Plan
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Old 11-14-2012, 03:57 PM   #6
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At 440 you definitely don't have a good "base" of math. Get some review books, and do a question, check the answer; if you get it wrong, figure out exactly how to do it before you move on. If you ever see it again, you should be able to do it. If you can't do it the next time you see it, then you didn't review it carefully enough. PWN the SAT is really good for basic concepts and it's funny/interesting which makes it easy to get through.
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Old 11-14-2012, 07:01 PM   #7
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Buy PWN the SAT. It took me from a 630 to a 740 on the October SAT (2 careless errors) and I'm now consistently scoring 750 to 800 on practice tests. Since you got a 440 you need to learn (or re-learn) some of the basics and that book will explain the concepts as well as offer practice tests that are very similar to the real SAT
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Old 11-15-2012, 12:40 PM   #8
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You are probably answering too many questions for your current score. You should roughly be attempting the following number of questions:

14/20, 11/16, and on the split section 5/8 multiple choice, and 6/10 grid-ins.

If you are answering more than this, then you may be rushing through easier questions to get to hard ones that you are ultimately getting wrong.

As your score improves you can adjust the number of questions you are attempting accordingly.

As for how to prepare, you may want to check out my article "The correct way to prepare for SAT math." It's posted on this forum - just do a search.
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