C-How I raised my SAT score by 790 points-NOTPRINTED

How I raised my SAT score by 790 points-My story spuding10204-09-2014 at 3:50 am in SAT PreparationLet me start off by saying that my situation is somewhat unusual but not unheard of. Plenty of people have gamed the SAT to gain high scores from low scores-it is really all about practice.Before I begin, I want to explain what role the SAT has in the college admissions process as I have seen it over the past year. The SAT is very very very important for a few reasons. First, it allows colleges to compare students around the world. Second, it allows colleges to determine if your grades are inflated and whether your school is easy or hard. That being said, the SAT will be important to some of you more than others. For schools that do not rank applicants, the SAT and indeed all standardized testing will be heavily emphasized. If a school does not know whether your 85 is the highest people score in your class or whether it is the lowest, they will look at your standardized tests. It’s pretty logical really. Next, the SAT will be more important for well off privileged kids and less important for poor kids. Studies show that kids who are on the privileged end tend to score better and for obvious reasons. If you are a minority, your SAT scores can really give you a strong boost in the admissions process. What I have noticed is that very few URMs with 2250 or 2300+ scores tend to get rejected by many schools. Now, it's not a sure thing but if you apply to enough top schools with those scores as a URM, you should expect some good news in march. If you are not hooked--white or Asian-- your scores will usually need to be higher. This is especially true for Asian and international applicants. Since there are so many qualified students applying from overseas and who are Asians, it becomes almost a requirement to have top SAT scores. This is usually taken in context of one's socioeconomic situation as well.Now for my storyIn the fall of my sophomore year I took the SAT and scored a 1420/2400. This was obviously a big blow to my self-esteem since I always thought that I was smart and would be applying to top schools. Every one of my scores was below a 500. Many of my friends scored higher than me (I go to a really bad school) and so, I was noticeably down. So I decided to come on to college confidential and develop a strategy to study. I started studying at the end of my sophomore summer. First I decided to take practice tests from the blue book un-timed. I did not initially focus on writing since that is theeasiest section to pull up.For the reading section-FROM A 480 TO A 770-Get direct hits volume 1 and 2. This book will have almost every if not every word you need to know.review your mistakes and rationalize why the correct answer is the correct answer.-when reviewing the answer choices for CR try to find the subtle difference between similar answers. For instance I remember doing a section where the author said he liked to get lost and he gave an example of some mountain where he skis. The question asked what does the mountain represent or something like that. The two answer choices were-it was a desolate place or a was it a place that the author liked to get lost. The answer was the latter as the passage never mentioned the place to be desolate but you would associate the mountain with the words desolate and isolated because mountains are inherently just that. Thus find the subtle differences supported by the passage.-try LSAT CR as it is harder and similar. I learned how to think better for CR with the LSAT questions and passages. I found that the LSAT allowed me to learn how to find the subtle differences that are crucial for cr.-Also try to read the questions first and then underline in the passage but don’t read all the questions at once. Go one by one. For instance if the questions says in lines 20-21 blah blah blah then underline those lines and read up to that point with careful analyses of those lines. If your struggling for time then this will most certainly help you. At the end of the passage answer the main theme questions. This saves time because you can read the passage once and answer the questions rather than read the passage then look at the questions and then reread the passage which wastes time. This might not work for everyone but it helped me.-Try taking the SAT on a Sunday. For religious convictions I took the SATs on Sundays however, if you can take it on Sundays do that. The reason is that the SATs are always recycled on Sundays as they sometimes are for internationals. Since they recycle 'em, the words for direct hits--which are based on previous SATs-tend to show up more often. On one of my SATs, I had a blue book question.Finally don't get discouraged by CR. Critical Reading is the hardest section to improveand my score stayed the same for a long time.For the math section-FROM A 460 TO A 710Math was never my best section but I improved nonetheless. Take the practice tests, again un-timed initially, to gauge where you are. After taking the practice test, look up the answer explanations in the blue book or the online SAT course which offer 9 tests. I used Dr. Chung’s book somewhat but mainly relied on just taking practice tests. If you ever need more of an explanation, type in the question into google and you will almost always find the question discussed on CC. This is really awesome since after the 19 practice tests run out, you can still get answer explanations.For the writing section- FROM A 480 TO A 730I just used Erica Meltzer's SAT Grammar guide. This book is golden, literally, and is the main reason why I improved so much on this section. Work through this book, take the practice tests, and look up answer explanations not from the College Board, since they suck for the writing section, but through CC.2) Take one section a day whenever you’re not tired and more sections whenever you have time. I did one section a day after school. If I was really tired I would go to sleep, wake up at 6am when it was very quiet in my house and when I was no longer tired, and do a section. NEVER TAKE A SECTION TIRED. On weekends you will have more time. This means you should be doing around 4 or more sections on weekend days since you have extra time and are well rested. Using this sort of schedule you should be able to do about 1-1.5 SAT's per week. During my winter break, I did one SAT per day.3) Don't become discouraged, power through. There will be times when your score does not move or even goes down. Just continue and it will eventually go up, I promise.4) Get the answer explanations to CR and math for the blue book and the online course through the College Board. For everything else, just type the question into google since almost everything has been dissected ad-nauseam on College Confidential.5) For the essay, don't start practicing until about a month before the exam since that is easily "manufactured" using the guide on CC entitled "How to write a 12 essay in 12 days". Once you start writing essays, just give them to someone in your area to read and to give you some feedback. Again don't worry too much about this since that guide is very useful.6) Never use other tests except those made by the College Board. Therefor don't use Princeton review or Kaplan tests or anything of the sort. Use their info if you want to supplement stuff like if you need to actually learn new math or stuff but don't use their tests since they will only throw you off. The only exception to this is LSAT CR which I found to be harder and more nuanced than the SAT CR which ended up helping me.7) Don't read more books or newspapers for CR. It's a waste of time. The best way to raise CR is through practice tests. If you want to read, don't do it to raise your SAT score.I ended up taking 65 practice tests over the course of 1 year. I used the 1) blue book-10 tests (twice once at the beginning of my study and once at the end when I forgot the exams) 2) The Online SAT Course from the college board- 9 tests.3) PSATS I found for sale on Amazon- about 9 tests4) 25 previously administered SAT exams that I found online. You can find these if you do some digging online. Start from the March 2005 tests an onward and only use the CR and some math from pre-2005 after you finish the "good ones". The pre-2005 testsare still good for some CR and math just not the outdated stuff like the analogies ext...Finally realize that motivation is the most important aspect to all of this. No one will hold your hand. It needs to come from deep within you. This is one of the points in your life where you can create a road that will lead to success. That’s not to say it's the only way but it's an important test. Don't give up no matter how hard it gets and no matter how little your score moves. The only direction by studying is eventually up.I was recently accepted to: Duke, Cornell, Northwestern, NYU (full ride), Macaulay Honors (free ride), and Sophie Davis (accelerated med program).I was wait listed by: Yale, Princeton, UChicago, Rice, Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins, Amherst, Washu, and UPenn.I will most likely attend Duke in the fall.Best of Luck.。