my psat

Someone asked the same thing today so here is my lengthy answer. I hope it makes sense to you.

If you are a 10th grader, then yes, you have time to prep for the 11th grade version and improve your score. However if you are an 11th grader, it's is unlikely to expect a significant improvement unless you do some drastic things. What I mean by this is if say you got an 1100 but you your SAT goal score is 1400, that's nearly 300 points you have to make up. Your 1100 prolly translates to a 1180 SAT score so getting a 1400 will require you study differently and attack the SAT like was taking 2 AP classes, one in English and one in Math.

Consistent to most other people's recommendations here is my list of things you have to do.

1. Get the Official SAT test prep book with practice tests.

2. Open a Khan academy account and upload your PSAT or take an SAT practice test so you know what all your weaknesses are. Use Khan diligently and complete all the exercises and master the material.

3. Take as many practice tests as possible once you master the material. Some say 1 per week is a good goal. Maybe less for the time being but about 10 weeks before your actual SAT test you want to do 1 per week. If you see steady improvement on your practice tests, that's a good sign. Although practice tests are not the same since you are not in a large auditorium that is proctored or timed, they are fairly accurate. If you are scoring between 1350 and 1450 on practice tests, then 1400 is certainly possible on a real exam.

4. If you are stuck at a score either English or Math and Khan is not helping you, then you need to bring in other materials like Erica Meltzer Writing book, or the College Panda Series or the SAT Black Book, or Dr.Chungs SAT math problems. These will help you understand the how to take the test better.

5. If after grinding on supplemental books, you find yourself stuck yet, you have 3 options. 1.) Sign up for a SAT prep course like Kaplan or Princeton Review. 2. Sign up for SuperTutorTV online SAT course. or 3.) Switch to the ACT and see if you can score a higher percentile score on a different test platform. Sometimes the ACT is much better for certain types of students. While there is less math (1 section versus 2 sections) the math on the ACT is harder if you want to get a top score like a 33-36 on the math. Also, there is Science Section, so if you are bad at STEM, you might not like the Science section on the ACT and find it not worthwhile having to learning something else. Otherwise the English and Reading are both very similar. Overall the ACT has more questions so the pace is faster since the total time to take the test is the same.

Hope this all helps. I would not pay much attention to some of the youtube videos that say they did this and that and increased their score 300 -400 pts. These are usually videos posted by straight A students who walked in cold to their first SAT test but knew they had to grind to get to where they needed to be. If you are an average student with average GPA and grades, the probabilities are highly against you to get a 99% percentile SAT score like a 1530 no matter how much you study okay?

If you are junior, the sooner you understand whether you are suited for the SAT or ACT the better. So you might want to simply take a practice test for both and take it from there. Since all colleges are completely agnostic to which test you submit, please do not feel a sense of defeat if you have switch to the ACT. A high ACT will get you into a great school and is not looked down upon. It's like if you are runner and train for the 1500M versus the Mile. If you have top 1500M time, colleges want you, regardless of your 1 mile time.

Good luck.

Yes! I would recommend making, if you have not already, a khan academy and a college board account so that it can make you a personalized PSAT so that you can practice for next year!