𝐓𝐢𝐩𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝟏𝟓𝟎𝟎+𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬.
Helloo, In these past few months, I've been gathering MANY tips from different posts and persons in Reddit about how I should prepare for the SAT. And since a lot of people DMed me about the reading tips, and that I'll soon take my real SAT, I decided to make a post where I put the 4 tips that REALLY helped me make a difference, and get my dream score.
(𝟭) 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝘆 𝘂/𝗗𝗿𝗥𝗼𝗴𝗲𝗿𝟭𝟵𝟲𝟬
My suggested schedule - start now, work at a steady pace, and use good resources.
Textbook companies with a large number of prep products (such as Princeton Review and Kaplan) are not highly recommended
My personal biases include taking one practice test every week or two (full test, timed, at a desk, no cell phone, no music, no pet at your feet, no snacks or even drinks except during the breaks, bubbling in your answers - as realistic as possible). After the test, study your errors and redo those questions later that day and each of the next three days, plus a week later and two weeks later. In between tests, study and prepare using the other resources listed above. I like using either Khan or UWorld for practice, and many people should consider Panda or Erica's books for more organized study. If you have trouble figuring out the practice test questions, look at 1600.io for English and for math, or look at Dr. Roger's Math Neighborhood (my videos) for math.
In terms of a schedule, one or more hours a day alternating between English and math, with the English alternating between reading and writing is a good basic plan. If you want to put more hours into it, do two or even four hours of study each day - reading followed by math in the morning, or writing followed by math in the afternoon, or both.
(𝟮) 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗧𝗶𝗽𝘀 𝗯𝘆 𝘂/𝘄𝗲𝗶𝘆𝘂𝘂𝘂
I've taken the SAT twice, and my scores are 1560 (800 math/760 english) and 1590 (800 math/790 english), so here are some of my tips! (also, i only retook it because i really bombed the essay.)
for preparing:
— practice: there are tons of amazing resources not only on this subreddit, but also on various free prep sites like khan academy. before i took the test, i think i did every single past exam graded on the 1600-point scale i could find online, including the international versions.
— figure out your weaknesses: after you do a practice test or practice questions, go through and check your answers. on a separate piece of paper, mark down what concepts (for math) and types of questions (for english) that you've gotten wrong. if you've gotten multiple wrong of one type/concept, then make sure to study it thoroughly before taking another practice test.
— how to check answers: when checking practice tests, don't mark down on your paper what the correct choice was. when you go back and review what you did wrong, try to figure out what the correct answer should be without looking at the answer key. this will help you think about the question more thoroughly and hopefully will help with your thought process for similar questions in the future!
for testing:
— remember that the SAT is an OBJECTIVE test: in order to mass grade the scores of hundreds of thousands of students on a single exam, the collegeboard has to have an objective reason behind every single answer. don't let yourself get affected by emotions or individual perspectives, and answer the questions from a purely objective point of view. when picking an answer, always ask yourself if it answers the question from an impartial perspective.
— don't use outside knowledge: the SAT is a test that has questions that should be able to be answered without outside knowledge of a topic (this is mainly for english reading passages). when answering reading analysis questions, don't bother bringing what you learned in history class or from that wikipedia article into it. read the passage with a fresh mind and don't be affected by personal bias.