I’m going to give you a few tips of advice that most people won’t give you but are actually crucial to you scoring well on you’re SAT. First I will explain my situation and how I achieved my score. Then I will summarize key points that will help you do better.
For me it all started in my sophomore year of high school when I was taking the PSATs for the first time. I had never looked at an PSAT or SAT question for that matter in my whole life. I was always an intelligent person, but I did not know anything about standardized tests. I took it and thought to myself, “Wow this is a test unlike anything I’ve experienced in the past.” The scores came out in December and I ended up getting a 146 or the equivalent to a 1460 on the SAT. This was an utter disappointment to me and I knew I had to get better at it. Unfortunately for me, I was a procrastinator and didn’t look much into the material again until after junior year when I scored a 164 on PSAT right before taking the real SAT. It was a modest improvement, but still not a great score.
The time had come and in the December of 2013, I had taken my SATs for the first time. I ended up getting a 1690, which again is pretty average. I was extremely disappointed in my score, but at the same time was extremely lazy so I held off on the SATs until June of my junior year. I studied a little bit more and learned a few vocabulary words and took the SAT again. This time I had received a 2050. This was a pretty good improvement, but at the time I was aiming for the Ivies and knew I needed a better score.
This time I went straight down to business and bought a whole bunch of SAT books and went through them all. I also studied 2000 words so that I knew I would get all the vocabulary questions right. I took the SAT again in the December of my senior year and got a 2210. My hard work had payed off. So here are the ultimate tips on how to do good on your SATs.
- Start early. The earlier you start, the more time you will have to improve. I cannot emphasize that enough. Idiot guidance counselors and teachers will tell you to start studying for your SATs in you junior year but that's the average joe's way of doing things and we all know that the average joe gets an average score. I'd recommend starting to study from freshman year.
- Start memorizing vocabulary. I'm talking about at least 1000 if you want to be a head of the game. For me, over the course of six months I memorized about 10 words a day and every day I'd look over the previous days words, every week look over the previous week's words, and every month look over the previous month's words. Also I'd always try to use the words in my writing to bolster them into my memory.
- READ READ READ!!! The best thing I can tell you to do is read a lot of books. Try reading a book a week and analyze them. If you want to get better at the SAT critical reading section you must learn to think abstractly so you can answer the SAT questions properly. When reading through books I'd recommend keeping a notebook next to you and every time a word you don't recognize comes up, write it down and memorize its meaning. Also write some general notes down to become more familiar with the book. Make sure to include notes about tone and mood because those are important in regards to questions that pop up on the SAT.
- Learn to read faster. I cannot emphasize how important this is in getting a good SAT score. Most people are slow readers and this in turn impacts how well they do on their SATs, not because they don't know the material, but rather because they don't have enough time to finish a section on the SAT. They say that the average reader reads somewhere between 250-300 words per minute. My reading speed is upwards of 450 words per minute. A good way to become a faster reader is to stop subvocalizing. This is the act of whispering the words to yourself as you read. The reason this slows you down is because you read words out loud slower than your brain can interpret them. That's why its important to stop doing that. Once you stop doing that, become better at focusing your eyes because our human eyes are known to make random jumps in progression while reading which can make you have to reread a section over again. If you do this you will waste valuable time. Reading faster can help you on all sections of the SAT since comprehending things at a faster rate will improve your timings on all sections.
- Learn all the grammar rules. This one is pretty self explanatory, but for me at least, I was always bad at the writing section. To improve, I learned all the grammar rules and then practiced a lot of identifying the error problems. After going through hundreds of writing problems I noticed a general trend of what kind of mistakes the test writers would put on the SAT. Take for instance this problem straight from college board. They consider this a hard question. A After hours of futile debate, the committee has decided B to postpone further discussion C of the resolution until D their next meeting. E no error. Can you find the mistake? The answer is D. The error occurs with the incorrect pronoun describing the committee. Committee is a singular entity, but when we think of committee we think of multiple people on the committee which is why "their" sounds like such an appealing answer and sounds correct to us. We should replace "their" with "its". These are some of the mistakes that I've learned to overcome just by practicing a lot and learning to adapt to the SAT writing section.
- Study general math concepts. I was always good at math so this wasn't really hard for me. I got a 760 on math without studying it. But in your case I'm not sure if math is you're strong point so like I've said with the writing section, learn all the concepts and just practice through all of them and eventually you will become better.
- Write down all the problems you keep getting wrong. The issue most students have with the SAT has more to do with changing their thought process than with the actual material on the test. Most students get the same types of problems wrong on the test over and over again. My solution to that was to write certain kinds of problems down that I'd keep getting wrong i.e. questions about tone and mood. Then I would look at the right answer and justify why that answer was right and memorize that way of thinking so that I could get all questions like it right.
- My final tip is to be confident!!! I cannot stress this enough. Most people do bad because they crack under the pressure of the actual test, even though during their practice exams they do extraordinarily well. Always stick with your first answer because chances our that it is correct. Usually when we overthink a problem it becomes confusing to us and in the mayhem we select the wrong answer. Confidence allows us to think clearly and lose any sense of anxiety which is crucial to doing well on the SAT. Just remember never doubt an answer you think is right and always stay calm and you'll do just fine.
Thanks for reading this post and I hope it helps you out on your SAT and eases the burden of the test a little bit.