SAT, how do I get a 1500+

Answered

here are some things that helped me get an 800 on the english section:

1. first, look at your scoring breakdown on the bigfuture app and figure out which specific types of english questions you struggled on. this will help you define your focus points for studying.

2. the english section is broken down into four major question categories: information and ideas, craft and structure, expression of ideas, and standard english conventions. each of these categories have different types of questions, e.g. cross text connections, rhetorical synthesis, quantitative evidence, etc. there are many different methods of answering questions based on their types; my advice would be to learn a good amount of these methods and apply them to each question you practice on.

3. practice practice practice. use the college board's educator question bank and question of the day to practice with thousands of questions from past exams. in the question bank, you can specifically filter for specific question types to narrow your studying. taking bluebook practice exams provided by the college board is another great way to practice in a timed setting.

4. some specific tips that helped me on the exam:

a) right when the timer begins, skip to halfway through the module and answer all grammar questions first. if you're a native or fluent english speaker and speak english regularly, proper grammar comes pretty naturally to you, and incorrect choices will sound odd to you when put in the sentence. this makes the grammar section the fastest one to complete, so you won't run out of time to score easy points later on.

b) use the living daylights out of the "mark for review" button. it's another great way to save time and maximize points.

c) ALWAYS READ THE QUESTION FIRST, then the answer choices, THEN the stimulus. it'll help you know what you're looking for, so you can answer faster.

d) use process of elimination as much as you can. this is especially helpful on quantitative evidence questions (ones with tables, charts, etc.); for example, if a chart shows that there is a higher quantity of variable A than variable B, eliminate the option stating that that variable B is greater than variable A. also, options with extreme language, i.e. "always," "all," "never," "zero," "100%," etc., are almost always incorrect.

e) worst case, go with your intuition. don't try to change your answer last minute because you gaslighted yourself into thinking your original response was wrong--trust your gut more than your head.

i hope this was helpful! good luck on your exam <3