<p>Hi, I’m a upcoming Senior in high school and it’s time for me to start applying to colleges. However, my scores from the SAT in May turned out to be extremely bad. I AM going to retake the SAT in October, just in time before I send my applications. I REALLY REALLY would like to attend either Rutgers: New Brunswick or SUNY Buffalo. I have had A’s and B’s (although 1 C my Junior year) through my time in high school so I’m not too worried about my GPA.</p>
<p>Here are the STATS:
CR: 460
Total Q’s: 67 / Correct: 31 / Incorrect: 21 / Omitted: 15</p>
<p>M: 490
Total Q’s: 54 / Correct: 27 / Incorrect: 9 / Omitted: 18</p>
<p>W: 500
Total Q’s: 49 / Correct: 24 / Incorrect: 17 / Omitted: 8</p>
<p>I have some questions regarding my poor performance:
- Was one of the main reasons why I did so poorly was because I omitted too many questions?
- I brought the “Blue Book” and I have no idea where to start. I went through some of it at the beginning but I was wondering if that was the proper way to approach it?
- Strategies for taking the SAT?
- Any other comments or suggestions?</p>
<p>Thank you in advance!</p>
<p>1) Yes, omitting a lot of questions can really hurt your score. By omitting 18 out of 54 math questions, your highest possible raw score is 36.</p>
<p>2) Might be best to go by section, start at the beginning of the reading chapter, or math chapter, etc. I never used the blue book, don’t know what else to say.</p>
<p>3) Know how to work quickly and accurately…the long passage reading sections have their own strategies for optimizing time. For the math section, skip all the reading about grid-in – you should already be familiar.</p>
<p>4) Practice makes perfect!</p>
<p>1) Generally, the rule is that if you can eliminate one or more answers (and you usually can), then guessing works to your advantage.
2) You don’t have to work through the parts you’re already good at. For instance, if you feel like you have writing down pretty well, you can skip that section and only work on what you need to. But I’m no expert on it since I didn’t use that book.
3) You need to be able to read fast for the CR section and know what they’re talking about. You also need to study the word lists found in some prep books (Princeton Review has the Hit Parade) since vocabulary as used in context is tested on the SAT.</p>
<p>Hey! I know how you feel. My score on the May SAT was a 1660 and I’m a rising senior, so even though my score was pretty low as well, I’ll give you the best advice I can. :)</p>
<p>1) Yes. I would really recommend not omitting much more than 10 questions on the entire test. Have faith in yourself, especially in Writing (it’s generally the easiest section if you know the rules)–if you can eliminate at least one answer, guess. The odds shift in your favor. </p>
<p>2) I bought that book over the summer. I didn’t even read the beginning and I just skipped right to the practice tests at the end. I’ve taken 3 tests so far (try at first with no time limit) and I managed to score around an 1800-2000 for all of them. Just take the practice tests because, ultimately, that’s what is going to end up raising your score. </p>
<p>3) Learn all the directions for each section ahead of time, actually READ the passages for CR–pretend that it’s the most interesting thing in the world. For the definitions, don’t bother memorizing lists… instead, take the practice tests and as you go, look up the words you don’t know. The SAT tends to reuse words, and I’ve noticed that from 3 practice tests. And for math… well, one tip that really helped me (if you don’t know it already) was instead of dealing with k, x, m, etc., in certain situations, substitute the letters for actual NUMBERS and then check to see if it works out, rather than using all those letters. It makes it tons easier. Sorry–I kind of suck at explaining things, lol :)</p>
<p>4) There’s two “short” guides (much shorter and better than the one in the Blue Book) floating around the internet–Sparknotes SAT Guide and also Silverturtle’s SAT guide (made by a user on here) and they both really helped me, so if you haven’t read them yet, you should. The Sparknotes one (just reading it) helped raise my Writing section score by like 70 points.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>