Need advice! People who've taken an SAT. help me?

Question

I got an 1870 on the PSAT during my sophomore year :(

Now I'm about to start my Junior year, and I might be taking the REAL SAT at the end of the year! :O I really want a perfect 2400 or at least close to it. What books do I need? What do I do?

Also, is taking the SAT expensive? I've heard that you can take it up to three times, and keep your best score out of the three, but would that cost a fortune? I'd prefer to get it the first time.

Any advice helps. Best answer to whoever goes the extra mile in their help.

Answer 1

SATs aren't that expensive compare to the amount of college tuition you or your parents will pay later on.

You shouldn't be setting up your hopes too high. 2400 are hard to come by.

Barron books have helped me immensely. You should invest in some of them.

We all prefer to reach that 2400 the first time, but some of us aren't that lucky. If you are determined to get 2400, you will probably will like to take it 3 times.

Some colleges will not pick the best score overall. Some will take the best score out of each section and then add it up. Some will only take the composite score (math and critical reading scores) and add them together in comparison to 1600 (the highest score you can get with 800 for each section.)

Answer 2

Your ambitions are great, but certainly possible. I was in a similar position to yours last year, I had a 1950 score, and needed 2300+ to get into Princeton. The best books I found were tutorfox.com sat guide, and princeton review's cracking the SAT. Good luck!

Answer 3

Being fixated on getting a high score on a standardized test isn't exactly intellectually mature. If you're genuinely smart, your time and effort would be much better spent on bigger and more important things.

The best resource for SAT prep is probably the Official SAT study guide, published annually by the College Board. It contains a lot of sample tests that reflect actual test questions. Practicing while reproducing actual test conditions might help improve your score.

An improvement from a 187 to a 2300+ isn't very likely. My friend, who got a 190 something on the PSAT, ended up scoring in the mid 2200s on his third try after significant test prep. I took the PSAT without any prep, got a 230, and took the SAT with a summer's worth of preparation. Needless to say, my score didn't change at all.

It isn't the end of the world if you don't get a high score. If you're trying to impress your friends, you have other problems greater and more urgent than a less-than-satisfactory test score.  

Answer 4

If you want to aim for a perfect score, try The Official SAT Study Guide and the Princeton Review's Cracking the SAT.  They're the two books that I attribute my 2360 to.  You need to read through them, do practice tests one at a time, analyze your mistakes, and acclimate yourself to how the SAT questions are worded and what kind of answers they're looking for.  I must note that I began my SAT preparation as a seventh grader, so with the limited time that you have, you can't expect as big an improvement than you may be hoping for.  

Taking the SAT without a fee waiver is quite expensive (the cost per test is somewhere around $50, if I remember correctly).  You can technically take the SAT as many times as you wish, but it begins to be very costly to do so.  When your score report gets sent to colleges for your grade, you will be able to pick (starting February 2009) which scores you send, so you can technically take it as many times as you wish, then pick the scores that you want to send to colleges.  There's no limit on how many times you can take the SAT, as long as you have the money and the time.