SAT Study Guides and stuff

[Escaep]

So. I need to start studying for the SAT and have been looking for some study guides. Do you guys have any recommendations for good study guides? I have been looking at this one.

 

[Gemma]

wut is an SAT?

 

[poo poo head]

lol, am i the only one who never studied for the SAT? I didn't do bad on it either.

Anyway, you should check around your school, sometimes they have SAT study sessions and programs that could really help and they are usually free. If not, get that study guide, it says its the official study guide, might as well check it out.

 

[ríomhaire]

I took an SAT test a few years ago as an entrance exam for a course. According to the results I did better than 98% (in maths) of Americans who took the SATs the previous year. Note: I did this test several years ago and I only started college a couple of weeks ago. That was a damn easy test.

 

[Gemma]

SATS- ks3's/gcse's/A levels??

 

[Escaep]

wut is an SAT?

It is a test that many colleges look at and the students who score higher are more likely to get in. Some colleges also have a minimum score level.

Wikipedia:

The SAT Reasoning Test (formerly Scholastic Aptitude Test and Scholastic Assessment Test) is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. The SAT is owned, published, and developed by the College Board, a non-profit organization in the United States, and was once developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service (ETS).[1] ETS now administers the exam.

The current SAT Reasoning Test is administered in about four hours and costs $45 ($71 International), excluding late fees.[2] Since the SAT's introduction in 1901, its name and scoring has changed several times. In 2005, the test was renamed as "SAT Reasoning Test" with possible scores from 600 to 2400 combining test results from three 800-point sections (math, critical reading, and writing), along with other subsections scored separately.

 

[Gemma]

A-levels then
maybe
i think
i duno
:/

 

[theotherguy]

Gemma, yes, SAT's are the American equivalent of A-levels.

As for guides, don't go to a study session. They are statistically shown to be useless, and just cost you money.

If you really want to study, buy a study guide. Barrons (I think that is the name of one of them) is supposedly good, but hard. Princeton review's is a bit too easy. Most people go for the college board official ones.

My suggestion: take practice tests, and take them often. Practice tests are probably the best way to train yourself for the test.

 

[delusional]

Do what theotherguy said.

And don't go into the test after drinking two Monsters. It doesn't help.

 

[dfc05]

Gemma, yes, SAT's are the American equivalent of A-levels.

As for guides, don't go to a study session. They are statistically shown to be useless, and just cost you money.

If you really want to study, buy a study guide. Barrons (I think that is the name of one of them) is supposedly good, but hard. Princeton review's is a bit too easy. Most people go for the college board official ones.

My suggestion: take practice tests, and take them often. Practice tests are probably the best way to train yourself for the test.

Yep, practice is the best (although I'd caution against taking too many because then you'll burn out and get so sick of the exams that you start doing worse). I took a paid course which was pretty much useless for me, but I ended up getting a scholarship from them which more than paid for the course.

There is a book published by College Board or ETS or whoever does it, with 20 Real SAT's. If you want to get study guides, check them out from the library so you don't have to buy them. Sometimes they have cd's with practice tests on them.

I'm not sure how the SAT is now (I took it 4 years ago), but if they have any of those ridiculous analogies/antonyms/sentence completions, find a bunch of vocab lists and memorize those. You can find these pretty easily online or in a practice book.

Is the SAT seriously only $45? The GRE is $140... :angry:

 

[DEATH eVADER]

So the British and American SATS are totally different?

 

[L3N!N]

You could study if you really think you would do poorly.

It's an accumulative test on what you have learned throughout your whole life in the two basic, but most essential, parts of study: Language, Math.

Basically decides if you're a bum or not.

 

[Vegeta897]

lol, am i the only one who never studied for the SAT? I didn't do bad on it either.

High ****ing five.

 

[Ennui]

I didn't study (or even consider studying) and I got a 99th percentile score on both math and reading. If you really have to study, I'd pick which section you're more likely to suck ass on (math or reading) and getting an SAT study guide for it. I have tons of friends who went to study sessions and things like that and it didn't really help them all that much. Really it has more to do with how much you absorbed through school.

 

[soulslicer]

SAT is a piece of shit compared to A levels.

Everything except the English Section of course.

 

[Dumb Dude]

The night before my SAT test I went to sleep at 3am because I was playing Counter Strike. I ended up getting near an 1800. Not too bad for having 0 preperation for it.

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

Just go to community college 2 years and then university. You'll save a LOT of money, probably learn more in your required prerequisites, and you dont need to take SAT or ACT

 

[Escaep]

Just go to community college 2 years and then university. You'll save a LOT of money, probably learn more in your required prerequisites, and you dont need to take SAT or ACT

I am a Junior in high school and am already doing that. At Christmas i will have 27 credits done. By the time i graduate i will have 60 credits which is equal to my AA. The best part about it is that it is all free, paid for by the county--books, tuition, other stuff except gas to drive there. So, i hopefully will enter college as a Junior.

 

[theotherguy]

Just go to community college 2 years and then university. You'll save a LOT of money, probably learn more in your required prerequisites, and you dont need to take SAT or ACT

The problem is, most (respectable) universities won't even accept transfer credit from community colleges, especially if the credit is in your field.

You can get some of the silly pre-requisites out of the way like, say, english credits and some basic math, but not much of your real, major-oriented classes.

But you could get credit for these classes anyway using AP or IB.

There is absolutely no reason for you to go to community college first unless you feel that you need to graduate early, or did really bad on AP, IB and SAT.

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

The problem is, most (respectable) universities won't even accept transfer credit from community colleges, especially if the credit is in your field.

You can get some of the silly pre-requisites out of the way like, say, english credits and some basic math, but not much of your real, major-oriented classes.

Well at least here in AZ almost every county community colleges credits will transfer to state universities. You should always check first of course. If someone just didnt know its their fault for not checking if their credits transfer.

save a lot of money doing math, english, etc and some beginning major credits (if you have a good CC) and then transfer for your final classes

 

[99.vikram]

I'll be giving the GRE in a year or so. Can anyone tell me how hard it is compared to SAT?

Also, anyone know a good guide for the GRE? I'm using Barron right now. Stupid vocab lists...

 

[dfc05]

GRE is about the same difficulty as SAT. All the math is high-school level math (no calculus) although I felt like there was a bigger time crunch on that section...

I could send you a good GRE word list. I think I still have some of those practice test programs that came with the books if you want those too. Peterson's seemed to have overly-difficult tests. Kaplan was about right. Don't think I tried Barron's.

You should check the GRE website -- if you search around enough, they have a huge list of writing topics so you can practice on those as much as you want. They also have a free downloadable program with 2 practice tests. I'd recommend using those, if only to get used to the format if you are taking the computer-administered test. Their program goes to 800x600 resolution. The text is ridiculously huge and pixelated, the scroll bars for reading passages are annoying, and it can be distracting if you're not used to writing passages in nasty huge font.