SAT Plateau

[PhilaMan23]

Hello,
over the past year I have been doing everything I can to get a higher score on the SAT, I started off with 1110 and have worked up to a 1210 superscore through 3 tests. I feel like I just am at a plateau with my scores now. I’ve done multiple prep courses in addition to the free Khan Academy courses. I understand service academy scores are way higher than 1210, but I’m not really sure if I’m just a bad standardized test taker.
Would a 1210 be competitive for any academy?
Id be happy to be appointed anywhere. And I do plan on taking again in December.

 

[A1Janitor]

The competition is at the slate level.

Nobody knows if you are competitive without knowing your leadership, academics, etc. or your competition.

Just my opinion - it would be tough to beat others unless you have something the SAs want.

 

[sktr127]

Hello,
over the past year I have been doing everything I can to get a higher score on the SAT, I started off with 1110 and have worked up to a 1210 superscore through 3 tests. I feel like I just am at a plateau with my scores now. I’ve done multiple prep courses in addition to the free Khan Academy courses. I understand service academy scores are way higher than 1210, but I’m not really sure if I’m just a bad standardized test taker.
Would a 1210 be competitive for any academy?
Id be happy to be appointed anywhere. And I do plan on taking again in December.

What is your SAT Math score at? I find that it is the easiest to improve in for the time you have until Dec. There's a plethora of walk-through tutorials on youtube going over some of the toughest math problems, and once you are comfortable with those, you've crossed the biggest math SAT hurdle. The other part is knowing what formulas to use & when, and I'd recommend doing more advanced algebra & geometry tailored to the SAT because that is the bulk of the SAT math section. Also, take this with a grain of salt because I'm a more math-inclined person, and you may find the reading section easier to improve on, but I unfortunately have no advice for that except scouring youtube for advice, which is what I did lol.

 

[NavyHoops]

If you have the means with your family, hire a highly qualified SAT/ACT tutor. They can evaluate where you are strong or weak, test tips and possibly move the needle.

 

[bananafish]

Do you feel like there are some concepts which you just haven’t learned yet? Or is it the SAT testing format and question style that gives you difficulty?

I think of the SAT as a two layered test. The first layer is the actual concepts. The formulas, math concepts, vocab words, and grammatical rules that you need to know. Hopefully you already know all of this, but it’s possible you don’t. The SAT basically recycles the same concepts for each test, so on one hand you absolutely need to get these all down, but on the other hand once you know them all you’re set.

The second layer is all of the goofy tricks the SAT plays on you. This is stuff like messing with the axes on graphs, using weird units, giving unnecessary info just so you waste time sifting through it, and giving answer options that are only half right. The thing is that just like how the SAT recycles concepts, they recycle tricks. So you basically just need to memorize all the common tricks to look out for.

So in short the SAT is a mix and match of the same concepts and the same tricks. First you need to actually know all of the concepts (layer 1). Then you can learn all of the tricks (layer 2). At that point you’ll know everything on every SAT test.

An awesome SAT tutor should help you with both layers. Personally, I had layer 1 covered by my education, hobby reading, and Khan academy SAT practice. Then a mediocre tutor (non-tutor family member) helped me with layer 2.

This is just some advice from a fellow applicant. I’m by no means fully qualified to give advice regarding standardized testing (and I’m totally unqualified regarding admissions). However, I did get a near perfect SAT score, so I think it’s worthwhile to share my thoughts on the test

 

[SeePower]

Hey, @bananafish, what's considered a near perfect SAT score? Just curious. 1550+ I am presuming?

 

[PhilaMan23]

What is your SAT Math score at? I find that it is the easiest to improve in for the time you have until Dec. There's a plethora of walk-through tutorials on youtube going over some of the toughest math problems, and once you are comfortable with those, you've crossed the biggest math SAT hurdle. The other part is knowing what formulas to use & when, and I'd recommend doing more advanced algebra & geometry tailored to the SAT because that is the bulk of the SAT math section. Also, take this with a grain of salt because I'm a more math-inclined person, and you may find the reading section easier to improve on, but I unfortunately have no advice for that except scouring youtube for advice, which is what I did lol.

590, and it’s just some questions I just don’t know how to do

 

[sktr127]

590, and it’s just some questions I just don’t know how to do

not a bad start! id recommend honing in on the problems that you don’t know how to do, and Dec is more than a month away, so you have some time. If worse comes to worst, i could do my best to help on some problems but i’m sure there’s so many resources on the internet going over similar problems, if not the exact ones.

 

[bananafish]

Hey, @bananafish, what's considered a near perfect SAT score? Just curious. 1550+ I am presuming?

My score was mid 1500s. Not sure if that’s exactly “near perfect” but I didn’t want to give the exact score

 

[sktr127]

Do you feel like there are some concepts which you just haven’t learned yet? Or is it the SAT testing format and question style that gives you difficulty?

I think of the SAT as a two layered test. The first layer is the actual concepts. The formulas, math concepts, vocab words, and grammatical rules that you need to know. Hopefully you already know all of this, but it’s possible you don’t. The SAT basically recycles the same concepts for each test, so on one hand you absolutely need to get these all down, but on the other hand once you know them all you’re set.

The second layer is all of the goofy tricks the SAT plays on you. This is stuff like messing with the axes on graphs, using weird units, giving unnecessary info just so you waste time sifting through it, and giving answer options that are only half right. The thing is that just like how the SAT recycles concepts, they recycle tricks. So you basically just need to memorize all the common tricks to look out for.

So in short the SAT is a mix and match of the same concepts and the same tricks. First you need to actually know all of the concepts (layer 1). Then you can learn all of the tricks (layer 2). At that point you’ll know everything on every SAT test.

An awesome SAT tutor should help you with both layers. Personally, I had layer 1 covered by my education, hobby reading, and Khan academy SAT practice. Then a mediocre tutor (non-tutor family member) helped me with layer 2.

This is just some advice from a fellow applicant. I’m by no means fully qualified to give advice regarding standardized testing (and I’m totally unqualified regarding admissions). However, I did get a near perfect SAT score, so I think it’s worthwhile to share my thoughts on the test

i totally agree. Just goes to show how standardized testing doesn’t really measure your intelligence well, just how hard you study specific topics & methods. I know so many smart people who didn’t get good SAT/ACT scores partly because they’re not good test takers but also because the test setup is odd.

 

[A1Janitor]

i totally agree. Just goes to show how standardized testing doesn’t really measure your intelligence well, just how hard you study specific topics & methods. I know so many smart people who didn’t get good SAT/ACT scores partly because they’re not good test takers but also because the test setup is odd.

Any low scores attributed to not properly preparing?

And let be honest - there are plenty of free services that have these specific topics and methods.

 

[sktr127]

Any low scores attributed to not properly preparing?

And let be honest - there are plenty of free services that have these specific topics and methods.

that is true yes, it does take a lot of preparing. It took me a while to get my score where it’s at right now. Lot of discipline too.

 

[A1Janitor]

that is true yes, it does take a lot of preparing. It took me a while to get my score where it’s at right now. Lot of discipline too.

My son took a course. It was like 4 classes. I liked it because he could take the course as many times as he wanted to improve.

He ultimately decided to keep his score from the first test and not take it again.

 

[sktr127]

My son took a course. It was like 4 classes. I liked it because he could take the course as many times as he wanted to improve.

He ultimately decided to keep his score from the first test and not take it again.

ohh i see. my parents got me a tutor. tbh he wasn’t really helpful because whenever i had a question about the reading section, he’d say “well obviously it’s in the passage..!”, and then bs his way thru the explanation, which didn’t really help. He was good at teaching math, but that’s not the help i needed so in my case it was a waste of money. I resorted to youtube tutorials abt SAT Reading and ended up doing fine lolll

 

[brewmeist]

I've mentioned this many times on this forum... Learning how to take the test is just as important as knowing the material. As others have mentioned, take prep classes if you can afford them.

My kids did not take prep classes, but instead found as many tests as possible online. They printed them out, locked themselves in a room, and used a timer. It's the only way to prepare for the pressures of fighting the clock. They figured out when to move on to the next question, when to take a best guess between the only two possible answers, etc. Their goal was to make sure that they had the time to answer every single question on test day.

 

[PhilaMan23]

not a bad start! id recommend honing in on the problems that you don’t know how to do, and Dec is more than a month away, so you have some time. If worse comes to worst, i could do my best to help on some problems but i’m sure there’s so many resources on the internet going over similar problems, if not the exact ones.

I’m taking pre-calc right now. I’m hoping he kinda goes over some of the things I’m not getting. Kahn videos are going to be on my watchlist for the next month. I hope that the SAT isn’t a hold back or anything yk?

 

[bananafish]

I’m taking pre-calc right now. I’m hoping he kinda goes over some of the things I’m not getting. Kahn videos are going to be on my watchlist for the next month. I hope that the SAT isn’t a hold back or anything yk?

You’re taking pre-calc right now? Are you a senior? There might be a couple of math concepts on the SAT that you haven’t covered in school yet. I strongly suggest going through the entire Khan academy math SAT prep curriculum. You don’t need to just review—you need to learn some new concepts/formulas.

If you’re a junior, then you’ve got plenty of time to learn and prepare so no worries. Definitely make it a priority to increase your score though

 

[99Gold]

i totally agree. Just goes to show how standardized testing doesn’t really measure your intelligence well, just how hard you study specific topics & methods. I know so many smart people who didn’t get good SAT/ACT scores partly because they’re not good test takers but also because the test setup is odd.

It is not meant to measure intelligence. It is not an IQ test. It is designed to tell whether a student meets college entrance criteria. Part of that is knowing material and part of that is knowing how to take a test.

You’re taking pre-calc right now? Are you a senior? There might be a couple of math concepts on the SAT that you haven’t covered in school yet. I strongly suggest going through the entire Khan academy math SAT prep curriculum. You don’t need to just review—you need to learn some new concepts/formulas.

If you’re a junior, then you’ve got plenty of time to learn and prepare so no worries. Definitely make it a priority to increase your score though

Pre-calc is not necessary for the SAT. As long as your Algebra II course had trig, you know what you need to know. Even then, the trig is basic and nothing more than I teach in my geometry class. As an SAT tutor, the one topic I find my students don’t know are circles. Not sure why that is always missed in their math curriculum. There are only 1-2 circle questions so that wouldn’t break an SAT score.

I agree with the Khan Academy recommendation. Not only can you practice questions, they have a lot of test strategy videos. I will be using it to learn more about the digital SAT myself until there is more data out.

 

[bananafish]

Pre-calc is not necessary for the SAT. As long as your Algebra II course had trig, you know what you need to know. Even then, the trig is basic and nothing more than I teach in my geometry class. As an SAT tutor, the one topic I find my students don’t know are circles. Not sure why that is always missed in their math curriculum. There are only 1-2 circle questions so that wouldn’t break an SAT score.

Yeah I was thinking of the circle formulas. Personally I covered those near the end of pre-calc. I thought there were a couple of other SAT formulas that were covered in the beginning/middle of pre-calc, but I’m probably wrong.

 

[NavyHoops]

i totally agree. Just goes to show how standardized testing doesn’t really measure your intelligence well, just how hard you study specific topics & methods. I know so many smart people who didn’t get good SAT/ACT scores partly because they’re not good test takers but also because the test setup is odd.

Honestly we see this every year… get it out of your head. If results were done by how hard someone worked, I would have seen some kids with 1500+ that could barely scratch 1200. Doing the same thing over and over getting the same result isn’t going to work. Tutors are not all create equal. Not every family has the means for a tutor. Not every kids brain works well with standardize testing. But it’s the one thing that is a constant across every kid, regardless of school, grades, etc.

You will see every type of test at a SA and after it. Once commissioned, the tests don’t stop. They actually increase in importance, because a fail can mean a wash out. A fail can mean lack of life saving knowledge. You can’t tell someone I don’t test well. You will be tested for your entire college and post college career in the military. Get comfortable under pressure.