5 Ways to Improve Your SAT Score
Today we have a guest post from Jennifer Cohen, the President and Chief Word-Nerd at Word-Nerd.com SAT Vocabulary Prep.
The SAT can strike fear in the hearts of parents and students alike. Knowing that one test can have a major affect on your future can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be a source of dread. With the right preparation, you can score well. Here are a few general tips for getting on track with the SAT:
- Start early and be prepared! This should be self-obvious, but it bears repeating. It is amazing how many students wait until a week before test day before they think about getting ready. Going in cold guarantees a mediocre score at best. This doesn’t necessarily mean you need to go sign up for pricey courses or tutoring. Those things can help, of course, but there are plenty of great inexpensive books out there, not to mention a wide selection of online courses that won’t break the bank. Give yourself a minimum of three months to prepare. You don’t want to burn out with a week of cramming, and you don’t want your SAT prep to interfere with your regular schoolwork. Take advantage of your summer break for prep if your schedule during the school year tends to be overloaded.
- Practice, practice, practice. The majority of your prep time should be spent on doing practice questions. Just be careful of practice SATs not published by the College Board. In other words, practice questions created by test prep companies aren’t going to prepare you as well as questions written by the people who write the real thing! You can download a free practice test from the College Board website, but you should seriously consider investing in “The Official SAT Study Guide.” You won’t regret it.
- Read everything you can get your hands on. Reading is the best way to maximize your Critical Reading score. Reading improves your ability to think critically, and it gives your vocabulary a nice boost as well. Just remember that challenging material will help you the most, so don’t spend all of your time reading your favorite fashion or sports magazines. If you need suggestions, the College Board has a recommended reading list on their site.
- Learn how and when to guess. There is an art to guessing on the SAT, and you should never, ever take random guesses. Since you are penalized for wrong answers, random guessing is likely to hurt your score. If you’re completely stumped, just leave it blank. On the other hand, if you can eliminate at least one wrong answer choice, you should guess. Most of the time, you’re going to be able to rule out more than one choice, so your odds get even better.
- Don’t ignore vocabulary prep! Since only about a third of your Critical Reading score focuses on vocabulary, it’s easy to put it low on the priority list. Don’t! Those extra points earned from vocabulary prep may be the difference in gaining admission to the college of your choice, or winning a scholarship to help you pay for the college of your choice. The key is to make vocabulary prep as easy as possible so you don’t have to spend too much time on it. Word-Nerd’s SAT vocabulary prep is definitely the best resource available for efficiently learning frequently tested words.
