<p>After months of SAT preparation, and taking the SAT, what “wisdom” do you have about the test in general, and in sections like reading, math, writing.</p>
<p>practice is the only wisdom there is.</p>
<p>endurance also plays a part</p>
<p>read the questions really carefully, so you don’t make stupid mistakes.</p>
<p>Don’t take the Critical Reading Test as you would take the SAT Literature Subject test. I’m saying this because on the Lit Subject Test, you have to analyze and “read between the lines” but on the reasoning test, you have to pick your answers by what is evident in the passages or what is inferred. If an answer choice from all the options does not correlate with the passage you just read, DON’T PICK IT!! I used to make this mistake. My best advice is to just skip the question.</p>
<p>pratice, endurance, and luck</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.sparknotes.com/writing/style/toc_AB.html[/url]”>http://www.sparknotes.com/writing/style/toc_AB.html</a></p>
<p>and </p>
<p>you only need to review the top 250 vocab list (from sparks) once. well, that depends on how good a memorizer you are, but usually you just need to take a single pass over the top 250 list, and combine that with the context in each SAT question, and you should be good to go.</p>
<p>also, use a watch. practice timed, always.</p>
<p>force yourself to not be apathetic in the critical reading sections. there is ALWAYS a reason that one answer is better than the other, and i used to (and still do, kind of) find myself thinking, both would pass in english class, and going meh - next question, but seriously. once you’ve narrowed down the choices to two, figure out what is wrong with one of them, specifically.</p>
<p>write write write write for your essay. a mit professor did a study on the new sat, and he found he could accurately predict the score of an essay simply by looking at the shape and length of it, with the paper just far enough from his eyes so that he couldn’t read any words. his score exactly matched CB’s 90% of the time. length is effin’ important.</p>
<p>and practice your math speed. get acquainted with your calculator. most of the time you should NOT even touch it. then again, if you get stuck on any questions, you could always try to graph and find the roots for the correct answer. this should be a last resort though, as graphing takes time, especially when you don’t have a ti-89 titanium (and even then, titaniums have clumisier interfaces, so human bungling more than makes up for the speed gain of the faster processor). this technique is probably much more useful on the sat ii math l2 though.</p>
<p>you know you’re ready when you have at least 5 minutes to spare per section, and especially in the writing multiple choice. when correcting sentences, it should be easy to skip the awkward english (passive voice always loses to short, active sentences), instantly cross them out, and locate the right answer. 3/4 of the time, the right answer is the shortest in sentence corrections. seriously.</p>
<p>don’t waste too much time on vocab, but do go over the 250 word list. and definitely go over the first link in this post, as many things that pass in spoken english are huge no-nos in SAT-land (i.e., “Every parent loves their children” is incorrect; it should be “Every parent loves his/her children”, and so on).</p>
<p>GL</p>