Our S19 is taking the SAT in August for the first time. He’s been studying this summer and practice tests are going well. He’s jumped from a 680 EW 720 M to a 720 EW 780 M on full practice tests. He’s hit as high as 730 on some individual EW sections when taken separately and not part of taking an entire practice test. He’s improved much more on the writing section getting zero wrong on the last test.
Reading seems to be the outlier and difficult to predict how hard the passages will be from test to test. For that reason, he’s asking me to sign him up for the Oct test in case the Oct reading section ends up being easier than the August reading section. I’ve read a lot of discussion about certain test dates having easier or harder tests. I know there are curves but I don’t think they make a ton of difference to his score. He’s had some pretty bad reading sections over the summer during practice. Sometimes gets up to five wrong on one passage.
Has anyone signed up for a second test before seeing their score from the first test? I’m wondering if it’s a just a way of S19 saying that it would relieve some pressure if he knew he had a second test all set up to take. Thoughts?
I would sign up. If he gets his August scores before the October test and is happy with them, you can cancel the registration. You might not get your money back but in the grand scheme of college costs, it’s not a big deal, IMO.
I agree to sign up. Given he is junior, it is better to have another test early rather than in the middle of the school year when the kid may have other activities.
@Center He’s a junior. He’s had plenty of math. Finished pre-calc honors as a sophomore. He will have four APs and an SAT 2 to take in the spring along with his finals. His guidance counselor is cool with him trying to finish up his SAT testing by this winter if he can get scores close to his practice scores. Makes sense to me. The first day of school was today and he already has a lot of homework. I don’t know how kids study for the SAT during the school year!
@homerdog thats what I thought but just wanted to be sure. Mine is also starting junior year. We hadnt planned to to do any of this until next summer but about a month ago we started learning that everyone was doing the tests this summer. Things have changed since I went through this… We are hopeful the score is good enough that he wont need to take it again. That school suggested now and then next summer with another year under the belt. I was wondering if getting a high 1400 (fingers crossed) is good enough to not bother taking again.