<p>@musicislife, from a statistical standpoint, maybe your testing discrepancy was in fact an outlier (as in, rough testing day). Or maybe your “What I usually get” isn’t accurate (e.g. how spread are your practice test scores?). Or possibly, but unlikely, the scoring curve for that test was unusually harsh.</p>
<p>Also, you probably already know this but just in case you don’t, for any MC question you miss, you actually lose 1.25 points instead of 1 point (-1, then -0.25). Make sure you’re taking that into account if you aren’t already doing so.</p>
<p>@rspence - Thanks for contributing your expertise.
I realize that all of your responses are based on the assumption College Board does not make mistakes, beyond the occasional unfilled bubble. That is, of course, indisputable. I just don’t get how they could possibly give me a 7 score essay. I have never seen anyone do that poorly…</p>
<p>As for his curves, they are both accurate and precise (based on prior tests).</p>
<p>@music - It is deeply disturbing how similar our situations are.</p>
<p>Yep, I know about the MC question penalties. But what concerns me is that on every practice test I took leading up to the actual test, I never scored below 740 in any section. It could have just been a bad day, but I did feel confident in my answers. Also, I did a number of practice sections in the actual room I took my real test in, so the environment wasn’t different. I even sat in the same seat I sit in during that class. I don’t know. Maybe it was the curve, maybe it was me. I’d just like to know what to improve on for the December test since my actual score differed so much. I’m taking another practice test soon, so maybe I’ll compare those results too.</p>
<p>The strange thing, for both of us, is that we checked our answers against CC.
For example, in math, it is nearly impossible that I got 3 wrong since the answers were posted in their entirety on CC! Same for the challenging writing problems! And then you add in my score 7 essay on top of that, and it just doesn’t add up!</p>
<p>***BTW, musicislife73. Do you have a really common name? I do…</p>
<p>For me, I probably just made a stupid error in a simple math problem which brought me down to 770. I tend to accidentally do that on all my tests, even when I have nearly double the time needed to recheck my work. But then I still can’t figure out the other sections. My essay score is about right, but maybe a 10 would have been better (in my opinion). Also, my friends and I (who are all in AP English Lit, and many self-studied Lang with 4s and 5s) received 7-9s on the high-achievers essay, while a friend (a junior, who isn’t the best at writing) scored a 12 with the same prompt, though her examples were pretty good. I think on the 30th, I’ll type up my essay and post it on here for people to check the grading, just to see what happens.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m puzzled as to the 7 essay. I think they harshly penalize off-topic essays, but those get 0. Ones that are on topic, but tend to deviate away from the topic for a bit could receive low (non-zero) scores.</p>
<p>Rspence and Music, this happened to me too! I have taken the SAT for three times I got a 800 in writing last November and March, but in October I only got 66 on MC and 9 on Essay, so I got a 670 in writing. The rest of my test looks normal, with a 740 CR and 800 M, but why??? a drop from a solid 800 to 670? This has never happened to me before in practices or tests… Do you think there is a mistake of collegeboard or should I use the handscore thing?</p>
<p>Good point.
You know, my topic may have been a little off-topic.</p>
<p>They asked me if we should care for other nations. Both of my examples were monetary – I talked about providing financial support to other nations, and how that was an example of “care.” I then said that we should provide financial support, a means of caring, because it often rewards the investor. Does this really deviate so much from the topic? It’s a nuanced angle, yes, but I find it hard to believe that it’s completely irrelevant…</p>
<p>@RainbowRed202: I predicted my math score correctly by checking my answers on here, but my reading and writing scores were way off what I predicted. I’m not sure what happened, but I knew those answers. Maybe I made a mistake bubbling in my answers, I don’t know. I do remember at one point I had accidentally recorded my answers in the wrong section and had to move them. Maybe I made a mistake. Oh well, there’s always next time.</p>
<p>Also Rainbow, if you truly feel that there’s been a mistake, you can have them check to make sure it’s your answer booklet, or hand-score your exam. Keep in mind that both cost, but if they find a problem you get your money back. You have a deadline of about 5 months to do this.</p>
<p>Funny, got 550 from critical reading. Never (ever) got a score below 600 from practices. Even got higher than 600 from my first practice. My average from practices was around 700. Something like 680-720.</p>
<p>640 from Writing (9 essay). Average from practices was around 680. But well, i’ll call it believeable.</p>
<p>780 Maths.</p>
<p>So, yeah. CR drives me crazy. It’s pretty much impossible for me to go down to 550. I even checked with CC answers, I had most of them true. For a moment even thought that i’ll get over 700.</p>