<p>I’m in 10th grade and I just took the SAT for the first time. I didn’t study at all prior to it (most of you probably consider that really stupid, but I just wanted to see where I was starting from, since I was definitely taking it again my junior year anyway). So I just wanted to ask some of you if this is a good starting point:
CR- 680
Math- 670
Writing- 590 (I’m thinking this is pretty bad, any advice on how to improve? I think it’s the 20 minute time limit that killed me.)</p>
<p>I’d like to get into Brown, Yale, or Duke. So what should I do to get it up to their standards?</p>
<p>that’s a pretty good starting point with 0 studying/preparation. before you take it in a year, make sure you get a prep book and take lots of practice tests. if you study well and take it in a year, i wouldn’t be surprised if your total score goes up 200+ points (which is adequate for some of the schools you’re looking at).</p>
Take a sample practice test from the official guide.
Look at what questions you got wrong, and seriously ask yourself why you got them wrong. Was it because you didn’t know the material, wasn’t reading carefully, made a dumb mistake on the calculator, what?
Then ask yourself what you can do to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again.</p>
<p>That’s the idea behind improving: getting a bunch of prep books won’t help as much as not making the same mistakes over and over again. Prep books might help with this, but they might not.</p>
<p>It’s a great starting point. Pay attention in class, read a couple prep books, and figure out your weakness, and you should be set. Also, I love your username. :)</p>
<p>Thanks everyone (and Butternut- I got it from the Emily Dickinson poem ^_^). It’s good to know writing is the easiest to improve… what a god-awful score.</p>