SATs

[ThaiGreenTea]

How did you guys prepare for them? How much studying (daily/weekly/monthly)?

If you were one of those people who aced them without even opening up a study book, that's great, but the best teachers are failures and not successes. Sorry!

[INTJoe]

Nothing for the Math...a little for Verbal.

Our English teacher that year would give the class analogy exercises so I would consider that my portion of "studying".

I did poor on the verbal portion of the test, and consider my self a "verbal late-bloomer". If there were an equivalent test for adults, I would do much better compared to them than I did back then.

My score was decent, but sub-par for this forum. I scored 1160 divided thusly: 660 math, 500 verbal. I took the exam once at the end of Junior year.

[Double Victory]

I never took the SAT, because the school I was going to didn't require it. I took the ACT instead. I despise studying and will only do it when I absolutely have to, so for tests that are simply designed to measure my current level of intelligence, I don't study at all. I took it once and got a 28, which was mainly due to me bombing the math section.... I hate math....

[ssrprotege]

OK, I took the SAT. I did indeed have many failures, because I was not necessarily a big fan of reading.

I never studied for math because I ace in math. I can't tell you about math because I didn't really have failures. I had most failures in critical reading.

I first started by reading lots of books. I occasionally did SAT questions. It wasn't even studying, actually. It was just to increase my vocabulary and to understand underlying meanings.

I crammed for the SAT without knowing what's going on, and got 620 in reading. Then I really studied, almost every day, a practice test per week. At first, the score stayed in the 610-650 range, but at one point, I somehow do well and get 750. Then I get around 750-800. This is always what happens to me. Someone teaches me, and I never get it no matter how many I hear it; suddenly I get it in a flash and do well. It's hard to explain.

In October, I ended up getting 760 critical reading, 700 writing and 800 math. 700 in writing because I was not quite good at picking out grammatical mistakes. By the way, don't get frustrated because you did badly in the first sitting. Just you didn't feel what's like to be in the real test room.

I don't think you need to study for SAT long. But don't *cram*. Maybe intensive studying for one or two months, every day, a practise test per week. Going over the wrong questions is mandatory. Essay is just practise. Make sure you have a lot of examples which you know well. You can somehow 'bend' them to fit into the question given in the essay section.

[Mogura]

The SAT and the GRE are lame. They test only your mathematical and English vocabulary.

If you excel in some other field (for example, I kick ass and take names in foreign languages--my vocabulary base was at least 3 times larger than your average SAT taker), it doesn't matter. It sucks that colleges place so much emphasis on these narrow-focused exams for admissions purposes.

*Gets down off of soapbox*

You might want to take a review course on these exams so you will at least be familiar with the kinds of questions they will throw at you as well as strategies for dealing with them. Get one of those phonebook-thickness prep guides (e.g., Barron's) as well...

[Tenacious B]

The Kaplan study materials are pretty good, especially the online material. I used that for the GRE and my score went up exactly 200 as they promise.



I still think both tests are total BS, but what can you do...

[PillowSoup]

I tried to study for my last SAT but every time I sat down to read the book I couldn't get farther than 10 or so pages so I ended up just doing the first practice test without grading it.
My score was mediocre at 1800 but by far enough to get into the school I'm aiming for.

[Erika Redmark]

I barely studied for the SAT at all…what I did do was get a review book that had a bunch of real tests in the back, and I did some of them. I didn't do much, really–I think I only ended up completing about two tests, and it wasn't under test conditions (I did most of it on long car trips. XD). I definitely should have reviewed more–I'm pretty sure one or two questions about circle geometry that I hadn't studied since ninth grade were all that separated me from a 2400. ;_; Moral of the story: Make sure you know what the different categories of stuff they ask about are… ><

[jadefalcon]

I took the pretest and scored a 1540/2400. I studied a bit from the official guide. I thought I did good on the SAT, but got a lower than a 1000. I hate the test and the system- and I believe it does not measure potential but rather what you know at the time of the test. Case and point- I saw a lot of stuff I did not get to go over. Here are some posts I made regarding the SAT: I was pretty P'd off about it.

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[Erika Redmark]

I believe it does not measure potential but rather what you know at the time of the test.

It's not supposed to measure "potential", although that was what it was first designed to do. SAT doesn't stand for "Scholastic Aptitude Test" anymore–they changed the acronym to "Scholastic Assessment Test" to reflect what it had become, then changed it again so that it wouldn't stand for anything (now it's just College Board's trademark and "name" of the test). That's why Mensa doesn't accept modern SAT scores (after some time in the 80's or 90's, I think), since they don't correlate with IQ scores anymore. It purports to gauge one's college readiness by how well one has learned high-school material.

[Antares]

I can't bring myself to study for it. Just the thought of sitting down for 4 hours taking the test turns me off. So I go to a course as an alternative so I'd have it all covered in class. Little did I know I'd be listening to music and reading Parallel Worlds when the teacher drones on. It's just too boring, and it's 5 hours. EVERYDAY. For 20 days. Starting 8 30 AM, waking up 6 45 AM. It's worse than school, not to mention I don't get to see my friends and the course is completely useless. You don't ace your French exam when you guessed more than half of it and not know how to take a test. My teachers made sure to teach me those skills (which I excel at), and now I'm just sitting through this thing all over again.

OK, I took the SAT. I did indeed have many failures, because I was not necessarily a big fan of reading.

I never studied for math because I ace in math. I can't tell you about math because I didn't really have failures. I had most failures in critical reading.

I first started by reading lots of books. I occasionally did SAT questions. It wasn't even studying, actually. It was just to increase my vocabulary and to understand underlying meanings.

I crammed for the SAT without knowing what's going on, and got 620 in reading. Then I really studied, almost every day, a practice test per week. At first, the score stayed in the 610-650 range, but at one point, I somehow do well and get 750. Then I get around 750-800. This is always what happens to me. Someone teaches me, and I never get it no matter how many I hear it; suddenly I get it in a flash and do well. It's hard to explain.

In October, I ended up getting 760 critical reading, 700 writing and 800 math. 700 in writing because I was not quite good at picking out grammatical mistakes. By the way, don't get frustrated because you did badly in the first sitting. Just you didn't feel what's like to be in the real test room.

I don't think you need to study for SAT long. But don't *cram*. Maybe intensive studying for one or two months, every day, a practise test per week. Going over the wrong questions is mandatory. Essay is just practise. Make sure you have a lot of examples which you know well. You can somehow 'bend' them to fit into the question given in the essay section.

Whoa- that's more than enough to get you into Harvard (Score wise). Good job!

[rokxal]

I took the SATs right before they added the writing section. Basically did some practice problems for Math (from Big Book) but didn't spend the time to rote enough words for the verbal. Ended up with a 800/680 math/verbal.

Now, I'm making up for my losses while studying for the GREs (GRE has a lot more obscure verbiage). And yes, both exams are BS and crackable with enough preparation.

[ElstonGunn]

I just missed the writing part by a couple of years. Haha, take that, you young 'uns! :p

If I remember correctly, I got a 680 verbal and a 620 math by doing jack squat to prepare for it. I think studying is another form of cheating. (Not really, but I like to say that to people who tell me that I should study.)

[integratedvelocity]

I actually enjoy standardized tests. I didn't study for verbal, but after getting a lower-than-expected math score (I thought I knew all of it), I decided to retake it and put in several hours of work on practice problems. It worked: my math score increased from 690 to 800.