There's part of the preparation that remains up to you. Are you willing to put in the effort and the time to get the score of 2200+ on SAT? It is going to take some serious studying. Are you willing to read dictionary front-to-back in order to increase your vocabulary, to write essays within a time constraint until you feel comfortable? Also to devote yourself wholeheartedly to the task of major score revision? It comes down to how badly you want this.
Students who do well on the SAT tend to be good readers who possess a good vocabulary and who can sustain the pressure of answering questions in short time as the test requires you to deal with nine sections. If you have already given mock tests for the SAT, you must first and foremost try and understand why you could not score as well as you would have liked to in each section.
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- Were you careless while answering the Math section and did not read the questions carefully or completely? Did you solve the questions correctly yet marked the wrong answer? If yes, then you must practice and drill more.
- Did you miss out on answering questions because of lack of time? Then you must work on your pacing. Allocate a good amount of time across questions by identifying the difficulty level of the questions. Make sure that you get the easy and medium ones right for sure and then tackle the hard ones.
- Did you skip questions because you had no idea on how to answer them? Then you need to review the content. You can also try elimination as an answering technique. Train yourself to look not only for the right answer but also understand the reasons why the wrong answers are wrong. This is especially true of the reading section where it’s common to get stuck between the right answer and a wrong answer.
Vocab – first you need to make sure you've got a good amount of time to study. If you're going to get your Reading score up to the 700s you certainly need to improve your vocabulary. Try to aim at learning forty to fifty words per week. If you learn 600-800 new words, you probably won't see more than a dozen or so on the test. But that could mean the difference of fifty points or more on Reading.
Practice timed sections - The SAT Official Guide and the Practice SAT Tests from Princeton Review both have practice sections that are designed to be just like the real test. The more realistic your practice, the better your performance during the actual test will be.
You may need professional help - Improving Reading scores tend to be trickier than improving Math scores. If you are really serious about improving your reading scores by more than 100 points, then it would make sense to consult a professional coach or institute.
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Because Writing and Critical Reading sections go hand in hand, practicing more and more questions from one of these sections should help you increase your score in the other.
Ideally, center your study around these topics -
- SAT vocabulary
- Revising sentences for clarity
- Grammar
- Skimming through a passage for important information
- Reading comprehension
- Understanding sentences in context
- Extracting the main idea
- Go through reviews books as they will tell you all you need to know
- Understanding different meanings and synonyms of a word
If you can get a review book, then please get a review book as soon as possible. They are incredibly helpful as the good ones are packed with tons of helpful hints and strategies that can propel your SAT game to a whole new level.
Detailed point breakdown –
Let’s make a goal score checklist. You're confident that you can get a 780 in Math. Let's say that you get 770 in Math. That still means there is 1430 points still left to get to 2200. It is reasonably simple; all you have to do is score a 730 in Writing and get your Critical Reading score up to a 700.
You need a score plan in front of you all the time as it will give you a goal to accomplish. You will know what you are supposed to score in which section. Half of the time it will be your hard work, but you need to stay motivated for the rest of the time to get where you want to.
Q: Is SAT easy for Indian students?
Q: Can Indian students prepare SAT exam syllabus at home without tuitions?
Yes, it is possible to prepare for SAT syllabus at home nd without any tuitions. Since SAT syllabus is huge, there's a lot of SAT prep material available online through which you can study and prepare on your own. However, this is not everyone's cup of tea, so, it is better to understand the SAT format and then decide whether you need coaching to clear SAT or not. Tips to prepare for SAT syllabus at home are as follows:
- Be thorough with the SAT syllabus
- Work on your grammar
- Start reading non-fiction apart from the school text
- Work on your vocabulary
- Work on mental math
- Practice and practice
- Understand your weak points and work on them
- Attempt mocks
Q: What is a SAT score?
Q: How many hours would require to cover SAT syllabus?
Check when you are going to take the SAT test. The SAT syllabus is vast hence it cannot be covered in a couple of hours. If you have a good amount of time say six months then you need to give fewer hours daily, on the other hand, if you have less amount of time for SAT test then you need to study more hours. Go through the SAT syllabus and understand how much it will take you to cover each and every topic and prepare a study plan accordingly. Thus, this completely depends on the applicant and how he/she wishes to cover the SAT exam syllabus.
Q: How many times can you take the SAT exam?
As in the case of the SAT, there are no restrictions set by the College Board, students can take the SAT exam as many times as they want. SAT is administered seven times a year in India. The test is usually conducted in March, May, June, August, October, November and December.
However, it is recommended that applicants appear for SAT twice - in Spring and one before Fall. This is because the highest SAT scores among the two will be considered by universities for admission. Since in a lot of cases, SAT scores improve in the second time, it is recommended to take the SAT exam twice.
Q: How difficult is the SAT?
The difficulty level of SAT depends on the student's preparation and background of academia. Though SAT exam is designed based on student's high school knowledge hence, those who have prepared well keeping the syllabus in mind and with ample practice may find the SAT exam easy. The level of SAT difficulty may vary person to person and ofcourse based on the level of understanding and preparation also. While a million students appear for SAT exam, only 25,000 get through it.
Q: How do I prepare for SAT exam to clear the cut-off for the top 10 universities globally?
There is no set rule which applies when it comes to preparing for SAT exam based on the given cutoff by a specific university. Applicants can check their knowledge by first attempting a mock test and then begin their SAT preparation. Based on each section's performance applicants can set targets for certain topics and attempt them as and when they progress with their SAT exam syllabus. This way strong areas will get stronger and weak areas will also get some attention. Also attempting mocks before appearing for the main exam is also a must. This way applicants will either fall in the SAT cut off as published by the university or they can appear for the exam once more if at all required.
Q: Is SAT Digital an adaptive test?
With the introduction of SAT Digital, the SAT exam has also become an adaptive test. This means that when the applicant attempts the very first module (irrespective of the section - RW or Math) the test functionality determines the difficulty level of the second module. Thus, the questions that will be tested on the second module will be based on how the applicants answered the questions on the first module. This, in turn, factors in an accurate assessment of the applicant's performance. Since the difficulty of questions on SAT change based on the first module, however, the overall SAT exam syllabus for testing the applicants remains the same.
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Comments
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For Indian students SAT may or may not be difficult, totally depends on the applicant and his or her preparation. Since SAT exam is designed for high school students based on their previous knowledge it shouldn't be difficult for Indian students on the whole. There may be a difference in subject combinations in senior secondary school level which may directly affect the student's performance in SAT, for example those who opted for non-Maths subjects may be disadvantaged for the Maths section. Thus, the base is the same for SAT exam sections for Indian students based on their high school. So, they would not have a lot have major difficulties in preparing for the exam.