How to Ace the Sat For Free, Without Any Classes

How to Ace the Sat

I scored well on the Sat (not a 2400, but around there), so I view I'd write some spicy tips for you all to do the same.

First of all

**Note: If you're already signed up for Sat classes, just skip this section and make the most of your classes. There's still a lot of (hopefully) beneficial stuff in here, though!**

Sat group classes are worthless. You would heighten just as much by taking convention tests on your own. Sure, classes might "force" you to study, but it no ifs ands or buts may be wasting your time because instead of reading a book and thinking things through (active learning) you are able to just sit there for an hour and tune out while the teacher drones on and on (passive learning). For the most part, 00 franchise Sat classes à la Princeton enumerate or Kaplan are naturally reiterating what is widely available in their books. The difference in the middle of their group classes and their books? Let's see...

00.00

- 30.00

0.00

Not 200 more points on the Sat. Not 50. 0.00.

...

Think About What You Could Do With All That Money!! This is a good way to inspire yourself. Do you no ifs ands or buts need to pay 00+ for motivation? No. Avoid this organized torture!! And f you must take an Sat class, pick a smaller, hidden firm with references, or even better, a hidden tutor.

Required Supplies

Note: Only use the Cb materials for the tests. The rest of it is full of mostly generic and vapid guidance that you don't need to spend time reading.

• The legal Sat Study Guide by The College Board, .97
• The legal Sat Online course by The College Board, .95 [Use this only if you need more tests.]
• Maximum Sat: Second Edition by Pete Edwards, .99 [The first edition is fine if you want to save money]

Optional Materials

There are a few other Real Sat books, but they're not as widely available. These books all go for less than including shipping, so they're a great investment if you need extra practice. Why use fake questions by fellowships like Princeton enumerate when you can get the real thing? Obviously, drop the Quant Comp questions and analogies, but the rest is still great for practice.

• 10 Real Sats, Third Edition by The College Board (Paperback - May 1, 2003) [red cover]
• 8 Real Sats by College entry exam Board (Paperback - Sep 1996) [white cover]
• 10 Real Sats by Cathy Claman (Paperback - Aug 1997) [white cover]

One Last Thing

Find habitancy who took the October or January Sats, because these habitancy might have copies of their tests you can borrow and take. These tests are as real as they get. :) Oh, and give the compassionate souls that lent you tests a nice present or two. (Thank you Justin & Peter) You could also use old Psat tests for practice. Note: The pretest on the Cb online course is the October 2005 test.

Steps to a Pretty Sat Score

The material on the Sat isn't high-level at all, so for the most part all of you will just be brushing up on stuff you're hazy on. Thus, you don't no ifs ands or buts need to read Sat books from cover to cover. Use them more as references, like how you would use a dictionary.

1. If you haven't already, do some type of diagnostic with no prep. This isn't no ifs ands or buts necessary, but it's nice to see where you are. The free convention tests given by Kaplan or Princeton enumerate are great for this step. I improved about 300 points from my Pr convention test in January, so (maybe) that's what you can expect as well. I suppose you could use a Psat score for this as well; however, by the time you are getting ready to take the Sat, you have probably improved naturally from your sophomore Psat. Personally, I view taking the Psat in sophomore year was a waste of money so I didn't bother taking it, but do what you want. :)
2. Take 1-2 tests without time limits and with open books/answers. Take your time: basically, you're just getting to know how the test is built and becoming familiar with random topics you've forgotten.
3. Take tests with fulfilled, books. You're allowed to go overtime at first, but be within the time limit by the third or fourth test. enumerate any incorrect answers and also any 'weird' questions that you barely got right or that you took a lot of time on.

Note: You don't need to take the whole test at once. In fact, it's good to take it one section at a time so you can enumerate the section you just took before you forget it. It's not valuable at all to take a full-length test more than two or three times to build up your stamina. You'll have adrenaline on test day anyway. Lots of it. :) If you are no ifs ands or buts worried about your concentration, look up some attention exercises on the net.

Critical Reading

Read, read, read. It's hard to make up for a lifetime of not reading, but you can at least make a valuable dent. If you think it won't lead adequate to be worth your time, think of it as preparing for the Gre or Lsat (grad school standardized tests). Reading will heighten your vocabulary and valuable reading skills. Try to read "critically;" think about tone, voice, style, where the author is leading, themes, and so on. Then, convention on Sat questions, also paying attention to the rhetoric as much as you can. Do a section a day (or week; whatever), and you'll start to see patterns and the way Cb thinks.

Also, don't think too much into a question. The obvious respond is normally the right one; if you have to twist an respond so it'll fit, it's not right. This is one of the things you'll 'get' after you see a lot of questions.

Vocabulary: Maximum Sat has an awesome vocabulary list in the back about 400 words long: memorize it first, then go on to other lists. Also, when you take convention tests (by Cb!), take note of which words you weren't completely sure about and learn those as well. Depending on how much you read and how much vocab you already know, you can spend more or less time on this section. I stuck with the Maximum Sat list and random words on convention tests and that was all I needed. You might need more. Or less! :)

If you want to heighten your Cr scores, spend most of your vigor comprehension the techniques to identify the patterns of Sentence Completion, and especially valuable Reading. This is more leading than mindlessly memorizing thousands of random vocab words. Seriously, that 3500 Barron's Vocab List hecka scares me. Does anyone no ifs ands or buts attempt to memorize the whole thing??

Math

Maximum Sat's math section is very concise. If you are pretty good at math, you don't no ifs ands or buts need to read through all of it, but use it when you encounter a query you don't know how to do or find something you need to brush up on. Others will have to read all of it; it no ifs ands or buts depends where you are in regards to math. If you see a weird query that you have no idea what to do with, the solution is naturally to ask a friend. :D

Once you're scoring around 700 in the math section, concentrate on gaining speed and accuracy on level 1-4 questions. Brush up on Algebra 2 if needed, as many hard questions lie in that area. After a while you can naturally skip all the easier math questions and go directly to the level 5 questions.

Writing

Again, Maximum Sat has a great writing section. Use it just like you use the math section, but read through at least Writing part 2 and the first half of Writing part 3, because these parts cover the errors that appear the most.

The essay no ifs ands or buts isn't that important. If you get excellent on the manifold choice, for example, you can get a 9/10 (depending on the curve) on the essay and still receive an 800. concentrate on enhancing the Mc before you work on the essay. Also, after a few convention tests, make a list of the grammar stuff (or any stuff actually) that you tend to mess up on. For me, that meant random error Id questions where I read too fast and assumed there was no error instead of seeing the subject-verb error.

The Essay [12 Steps to a 12]

Note: I will update/adjust this section once I get to read my actual essay.

1. Cb is seeing for an essay that makes an exceptional argument, not a masterpiece. Do not waste time trying to think of good vocab while the first run. It is the form, argument, support, and details that gain you points.
2. Read wikipedia! Seriously, it'll teach you lots of stuff that you can put in your essay. pick a few topics and learn all about them. Here are some examples to get you started. There are lots of examples outside of history/lit that you can use, though. Read sparknotes if you haven't read a obvious book in a while and need to refresh your memory.

History: French/American/Any Revolution; Activists; Civil possession movement; George Washington/King Louis 16th & his wife; Gilded Age/Progressive era; Wwi, Wwii, Germany after Wwi Literature: 1984; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Brave New World; Catcher in the Rye; Fahrenheit 451; Frankenstein; The Crucible; The Grapes of Wrath; The Great Gatsby; To Kill a Mockingbird; Les Miserables; Lord of the Flies; Macbeth; The Merchant of Venice; Spoon River Anthology; The Scarlet Letter Philosophy (courtesy of JueYan Zhang): John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism; John Locke/Jean-Jacques Rousseau's social Contract; Immanuel Kant's Principle of Truth and Choice; Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

3. Read the Quote and the Question. The quote sets the tone for the question, so don't skip it! I must note any way that some habitancy think it's a good idea to skip the quote entirely. Write a few essays and rule which way works good for you. I find the quote helps me think of examples, but some may think that it no ifs ands or buts tends to confuse them. Subsequently, make sure to no ifs ands or buts directly respond the question, and not go off on a tangent about the quote.
4. Immediately after comprehending the question, begin your first sentence! Jot a few Letters down to refresh your memory, but that's it! The ideal situation is to spend just a exiguous or two on the quote and question, dive into writing, and have a exiguous to spare at the end to hunt for grammatical errors or to upgrade your word choice in a few areas.
5. You need to keep thinking of examples as you write. Solid examples that carry at least partial academic weight (well-known person, historical/current event, movie, philosophical concept, etc.) are good than personal anecdotes, but if you can't think of solid examples immediately, just write a no ifs ands or buts nice essay on a good personal example. Time is not on your side, so do not hesitate to make up, errr use, personal examples.You could also use a paragraph to refute an discussion against your essay.
6. Another way to advent the essay is to use one example and eye dissimilar aspects of it. Here is an example of an essay from the collegeboard online course that did this and received a excellent score:

   Often, habitancy are judged by their accomplishments. dissimilar groups look at what an private has done, & judge that someone from only what they see either this someone is fit for this job, or that specialty track. This is the ever-basic competition. It is all around us. Jobs, schools, & wars depend on it. The strong survive for one reason. They are able to adapt & overcome. They will run headfirst into a problem, then back up and look at it from a dissimilar angle. The weak will run into the qoute the same way, but after backing up, will run into the qoute again & again until they get too frustrated to continue or ask a stronger private for help. The stronger, however, will be long past that qoute and onto a more enthralling one. This point was displayed while World War Ii & the improvement of the jet engine. The Us & Great Britan were having great problems getting all the bugs worked out from uncontrollable thrust amounts & out of control speeds, to faultless & total engine detonation. However, the German Luftwaffe had already perfected the engine & had put it to work in the Me 262. The allies were being destroyed by an enemy that they had nothing to match with. Allied planes were being shot down in weighty numbers, & there was nothing anybody could do, because the Us jet engine was far from finished. In response, new tactics were developed. Instead of just hoping to get a lucky shot & running into that wall, the Allies found a way around the wall. The idea was that while takeoff & landing, the 262 was very vulnerable, because it had to slow down dramatically to be able to land. Because of this, the Allied planes could now not only catch, but destroy many 262s that would have otherwise been impossible to destroy. This new tactic won the air war over the skies of Europe. Ever since man has been around, they have been manufacture tools. From the most primitive spear, exiguous more than a sharp stick, to the most technologically advanced military fighter, the F-22 Raptor, man has been manufacture devices to help them for millions of years. It is the strong who in the first place found these tools. The weak will be quickly killed off in attacks, while the strong & agile will quickly improvise something, then revise it later to make it better.

7. Stay Focused. In each paragraph, re-read the query to tie it all together. You don't want to write two whole pages only to comprehend that you digressed and went off on a tangent. You can no ifs ands or buts lengthen your essay by continuing to mention how your examples fit with the topic.
8. Content is King; distance helps, but it isn't everything. Two pages of mindless Bs will do nothing for your score. The habitancy that do fill up the whole two pages and receive 12s have a lot to write about, not random stuff. Myself, I wrote 1.5 pages and received an 11, sigh. I edited the essay instead of writing more because I couldn't no ifs ands or buts think of a way to write more and have the essay still flow. Also, I suck at writing fast soo that's also a suspect I couldn't get to a whole 2 pages haha. Maybe you don't have that problem. Do have at least 1.5 pages..
9. There are no rules, so let it Flow. If your ideas require one continuous paragraph for the whole essay, so be it. This probably isn't a great idea, but the point is don't stress out about having three main examples fit perfectly into three main body paragraphs. You are allowed to make a new paragraph just for one or two sentences if you so desire. It doesn't even matter if your thesis is the most leading line - so don't spend time crafting a excellent thesis.
10. Have a point of view. If possible, go for a nonconformist view. Go for the point of view that somehow embraces the beauty of life, succeeding, and expand (it sounds corny, but it works). Don't depress the reader...impress him or her with a new and innovative direction on the prompt. But Only if you can think of good examples for this, fast. Otherwise, just go for the point of view/argument you can keep better. This is just something to keep in mind when you first read the question.
11. Write legibly. Also, hand exercises might be a good daily addition to your Sat studies. :) Ok, it'll probably help more for preventing "computer linked injury," but if you're reading this on a computer right now, you probably need it.
12. Regarding the Intro & Conclusion:
    • Summarize and grab attention. They don't have to be long; the body counts for the most points.
    • You don't need to focus too much on the conclusion; it's Ok if your introduction and/or body are very long and your conclusion is short. Think of the Sat essay as more of an inverted triangle structure (like a news article). Tie the thesis to an adequate conclusion and you'll do fine. Having two pages is much more leading than having a conclusion. If you can think of one, try ending with a thoughtful statement, either your own or a proverb/quote. Just something to keep in mind If you can think one up for the prompt.

Lastly

Visualize, anyone your goal may be. :)

Retaking the Sat

Hopefully you won't even have to think about this, but if you do, there are a lot of factors to consider. What are your Sat branch Test scores? What would you have to sacrifice, time wise, in order to retake? (Are you supposed to be preparing for other exams? Are you no ifs ands or buts busy with extracurriculars that you would have to give up or cut back on? Or are you fulfilled, with everything and basically relaxing?) Did you get ready a lot for your earlier Sat or not? Have you already retaken the Sat? A lot of habitancy say taking the Sat more than 3 times looks bad. I don't agree or disagree with the statement that it looks bad to retake a fourth time, but do remember the law of diminishing returns. In the end, this is your own decision: anyone you decide, follow through with it and don't do it half-assedly. :D

A Note on the Sat

The Sat isn't everything in admissions: it matters, but not That much. A 2400 doesn't guarantee you admissions anywhere, and a 2000 doesn't keep you out of anywhere (a 600 might, though). Instead of obsessing over that excellent score, it's good to just live and enjoy your life. You are not a hook for Harvard. You're a person. There's a suspect why universities look for vibrant, happy habitancy who do enthralling things for themselves and others. Scores can only get you so far in life.

You are what matters. The real query remains: Are you a number?