<p>I’m just wondering. A lot of people are talking about studying for the SAT, but haven’t done any prep. What would studying entail? It seems to me like there isn’t anything you can actually LEARN for it.</p>
<p>It would certainly help. </p>
<p>Though, for me, I didn’t study. I’m horrible at standardized tests, but somehow I managed to pull off a decent score. I’m not proud of it, but it was certainly better than I expected. </p>
<p>But to ensure a good score, I would encourage some practice tests (as you are right, no way to really “study” for it, except review vocabulary and grammar concepts).</p>
<p>It’s not studying in the traditional sense, except grammar for the writing. You essentially take practice tests to get used to the format and how the questions are asked. </p>
<p>The only books you really need are the Blue Book (official sat practice tests) and Up Your Score (Up Your Score has very good tips for Critical Reading, not so much for math), and if you have trouble with math, Perfect800 (or something like that) has math practice questions.</p>
<p>Yea, my PSAT was M77, CR66, W66. I’m hoping for an 800 in math, mistakes will most likely be do to a careless mistake, and then I really don’t see what I can do for the other sections except try harder.</p>
<p>Take a practice SAT and see what score you get. If you want a higher score then study. You will certainly make vast improvements regardless of how you study; if it were not possible to make improvements, the courses that guarantee you at least a 100 point improvement would not exist. I excel in math and I am a high school senior taking abstract algebra yet I still missed a rudimentary problem on the math portion of the SAT. The SAT’s only partially test you on your knowledge and test-taking ability. The other part is testing your studiousness.</p>
<p>There are things to learn. The vocabulary for Critical Reading comes from a rather small pool of words. You want to be familiar with answering CR questions based only on direct evidence directly from the passages. There are specific grammar rules to know. Knowing how to quickly write an SAT-style essay (fill up all the space, use big words, good thesis and examples) can guarantee you at least a 10. And specific topics in math are covered.</p>
<p>Beyond that, you take as many practice tests under test conditions as possible.</p>
<p>Yeah, math is very fickle, I went from 710 to 800 with not much studying between tests just because I was more careful and lucky the second time. You definitely can get an 800 in math. </p>
<p>For critical reading, Up Your Score has some good tips and a vocab list (I just skimmed through/read the vocab list, they have funny sentences which makes going through it bearable) as mentioned earlier. For some reason though critical reading comes more naturally to me (except when I took the SAT in 7th grade), but I never really used flashcards.</p>