Hi im a international student,i will take june 6 sat ,i’ve been practicing and last year i took the full test in CollegeBoard website and got math:680,cr:550,writing:330 and essay 6/12 ,yeah that bad…math i wasn’t in the mood… it was my first experience with sat questions,it wasn’t my full power…but thats not the point i know that essay is like 1/3 of writing score,my plans to this sat is try to ace math section,or at least near it,and get 600’s in both others and double digit grade on essay .
First question:Whats the best plan?I’m not that worried with math ,i got chung’s i think thats enough right?
Second: For cr its the subject I’m studying the most but it seems i cant improve,almost always with or without time controlling i get 12/20 and at most 2 wrongs.What can i do?
Third :Writing i will be studying it soon,grammar and stuff but for the essay could make this much easier right?so my problem is i cant get it done in such time 25 min.Last try i got 2 good paragraphs (intro and ex 1) and one shitty,time was being controlled…my main problem is the examples ,i do not read much american famous books,i read news in english and so,and my life isn’t full of that awesome examples…What to do?im planning to read the great Gatsby…
And most polemical one:To guess or not to guess !!! in sat it seems i tend to miss my guesses .
Books i will soon own Blue Book,chung’s,direct hits2 and if you guys think is important i will get direct hits 1.
@TryingHarder There are several strategies for CR to save time, including going through the problems first on long passages. You should easily be able to find info online.
For writing, if English isn’t your first language, then the writing section might be tough. There are a lot of rules in English grammar. First, you should start by practicing your English grammar, and familiarizing yourself with the commonly-tested rules. For the essay, you don’t necessarily need to use examples from fictional works; you can also use non-fictional books, academic papers, news events, personal experience, etc.
Is Erica Meltzer’s website reliable for grammar consulting and sat tips?ps:i will be using a textbook also the site would be for the tricks…
@TryingHarder can you post the URL? I see a bunch of related sites, but I’m not too sure which one you’re referring to (also, I’m not familiar with Erica Meltzer’s resources).
Just curious, is English your first language, or a different language (since you’re international)? I feel that English grammar is very difficult to learn from certain backgrounds, particularly if their grammars are significantly different.
@TryingHarder, let me just address a couple of your questions…
Erica Meltzer’s website does have a lot of information, but its not necessarily for the tricks. She discusses strategy, but its also a lot of grammar stuff. Her books are really helpful if you are looking for something more complete, though they are expensive. Also, depending on what country you are in they may be difficult to get…I work with students internationally and some have been able to order her books and others have not for some reason. So I would probably start with the website (she knows her stuff so that can only help) and then order the books if you want something more structured and in depth.
On the essay timing, I would suggest 2 things. First, to echo MITer94’s suggestion, don’t feel constrained by works of fiction, events from history, etc., when you are brainstorming examples. I personally feel like the works of fiction theory is a little silly because how much does a work of fiction really support a point about the real world anyway? I mean, its fiction! I would open things up and draw on anything you are knowledgable about, including current events since you said you read the news. It also may help to read about a few people who you could use as examples. It could be anyone who has had an interesting life - Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, anyone.
The other thing that you may want to do (once you have gotten better at brainstorming examples) is play with different timeframes. So in the beginning you may want to give yourself 30 or 35 minutes in order to get practice at actually putting the whole thing together. Once you start to get better you may want to then shift to doing the essay in less than 25 minutes - say maybe 20 minutes. Because in my opinion the timing is all relative. On the GMAT and the GRE you have 30 minutes to write an essay and that feels very tight for the people taking that test. Guess what, if they made it 35 minutes, it would probably feel tight too. And if the SAT essay gave you 20 minutes, people would get it done, but it would feel tight. So its all relative. Once you get better at writing the essay, try doing it a few times in 20 minutes and then all of a sudden 25 minutes will feel like a lot more time.
My first language is portugues,but since 4 i listen/watch tc in english so at least my listening is good,but i admit it that my grammar is not even reasonable,i generally write with what i learned from readindg and listening.
And thanks for your advices!!!