SAT's. Suggestions from ex-takers?

[beijingboy]

Hey everyone. I'm currently a sophomore. 10th grader. And i haven't taken the SAT's yet. I'm planning on taking them later on in the Junior Year Oct-Nov Section. Any tips? Thanks, it'd help a lot. Appreciate it.
D

[vangelic1]

When studying, make sure you understand basic roots of words. For example, many English words are latin based and if you understand the basic root of one of these words, you can guess the meaning of any word. For example "uni" means one. So you can get words like unify, union, unicycle, unique, or universal. Unify, union, and universal relate to several things being one. Unicycle is a cycle with one wheel as oposed to a bicycle which has two wheels. And unique implies that a thing is one of a kind.

Study the root words. Do timed practice tests. If you are learning a lot of vocabulary words, practice using them when you talk or when you write so that you will easily remember the word when you need to.

[outofbreath]

Great tip Vangelic!

I wish more high schools offered Latin classes these days.

In fact, I regret that I took Spanish instead of Latin in HS.

[undercover577]

Your best shot at getting the best score possible for you is to push yourself and study with the best materials you can get your hands on. I spent 5 straight weeks studying online and scored a 760 in Math. The key for me was to build my brain to handle the lengthy test while remaining sharp throughout. I worked on timing how quickly I could answer questions, and all along forced myself to answer hundreds of questions. After a while, I began to find which areas I was weakest at (geometry and reading comprehension) and so then focused my studies primarily on those areas. The hard work paid off.

If you like studying online, I recommend mathforum.org, or if you want a website focused strictly on the SAT: check out XLPREP.com. They have excellent coverage on the new SAT and have a free demo.

Remember: you are in control of how well you do on test day. Practice, study and succeed has become my motto.

[lil mnchkin]

Going along with the Latin tip...Even taking Latin courses through online independent study programs can help you with your SAT scores. I've signed up for Latin 1 this year, and I will hopefully have finished the first year before I take my SAT in May. BYU is where I'm taking mine, and so you'll obviously have a trustworthy source from them. In some cases you can take the online courses for school credit if you get approval from your counselor or principal. Best of luck!

[laserprecision2]

take a lot of practice tests from those prep books...or if you want to do online i suggest www.smartdoodle.com

Since you've never taken a test before you should at least figure out where you stand and what you have to work on.

[patton]

The key is to start taking the test early and often. Pratice in between each test. There are a lot of SAT test prep courses and products available. I would suggest princetonreview.com or collegeprepcoach.net or kaplan.com The SAT is actually a easy test but there are a lot of tricks. Good Luck