What are some things that I should study for SAT in order to increase my score by 250 points

Darlie,

My first recommendation is to determine whether you have an option of taking either the SAT or ACT. If the school will accept either test, then you need to determine which test is more suited to you, and take that one! This article has a comparison of the two tests, including a matrix you can use to help evaluate which is the better test for you! It also has free downloadable study guides for both tests.

https://blog.prepscholar.com/act-vs-sat

Sometimes people overlook the easy stuff. By this, I mean those things that require no studying at all. This includes getting enough sleep, eating a good breakfast, being well-hydrated, and exercising. You need your body to be in top condition to improve test performance.

I have one suggestion for multiple choice tests. Let me demonstrate how it works. Suppose I gave you a ten question true/false test, in Japanese, and you do not know Japanese. If you randomly selected true or false for each answer, you could miss all of them. However, if you put either all true, or all false, you would likely get about 50% of them correct! So, what I do, is walk into the test with a letter in my head. Today, I pick "B." For any question that I flat out do not know and cannot solve, I will put B, and move on. But, what if I can narrow it down to A, C, or D? or A or D? simple . I will take the letter to the furthest left. Mark "A", and move on. This frees up a lot of time and reduces stress. It is NOT a substitute for studying! Also, if I run out of time before finishing a section, I will mark "B" for all remaining questions prior to time running out. A few of those will be correct!

Also, I recommend you find out how the schools you are applying to will use the scores. Do they use only the total? Do they also use one or more section scores? Which score do you need to raise - only the overall score, or, do you need higher scores on a particular section? If your only focus is the overall score, it may work better if you study material you are already strong in. That is, if you are strong in vocabulary, it may be easier to improve the vocabulary score than to try to get to be good in math! I took this approach on a promotional exam - mastering my strengths, rather than improving my weaknesses. It worked really well - I outscored everyone else by 20 points! This is not to say you should ignore the other areas -just focus more on your strengths!

Hopefully these suggestions help - best of luck!

Kim

Hi Darlie,

That's a good question and a 250 points increase is actually really doable! I took the SATs awhile ago, but here are some tips I would recommend:

1. Practice makes perfect - For me, I knew my weakest subject was Reading. I bought every single SAT practice book I can get my hands on and just did one or two practice sections a day. (My local library had a ton of practice books as well, but I invested in my own so that I can make notes and come back to questions when I needed to). Any question I missed, I would not only review the answer, but I would flag that question to come back to later in the week. I made sure I can correctly answer any of the questions I missed each time I came back to them.
2. Vocabulary is important! - Within Reading, I knew I had to work on broadening my vocabulary and the ability to identify context clues. I started reading articles from Time Magazine and New York Times in my free time and also, for each practice test I did and any article that I read, I made a list of any of the vocabulary words that I didn't know and made sure to learn and memorize the definition (coming back to that list frequently to make sure I didn't forget the ones I previously memorized)
3. Keep a record - In order to assess progress, I made a list of all the practice tests I did, how many questions I missed in each one and the scores I received. It helped mw continue to track and monitor my improvement and made it easier to come back to and review any questions that I got wrong.

I know everyone's method to studying is different, but I really do think the more context, practice and familiarity you have with the test, the better you'll perform! Doing the above, I was able to increase my Reading section by a significant number of points (scoring a perfect 800) on what was my weakest subject by far when I first started the studying!

Best,

Xiao

Most schools offer the Pre SAT, ACT and the regular exams as well. In addition, some may even offer a prep course for 6-8 weeks on Saturdays. I would recommend do a prep course but also purchasing the newest version of the SAT prep book in preparation.

Many students do not test well but do excellent in school. If this is the case, you may try the ACT as opposed to the SAT. Both are unique. TACT is more subject related and questions are asked a bit differently as opposed to the SAT.