Sat question

swewe

5-Year Member
Joined
Sep 7, 2011
Messages
12
We are getting my DS a private tutor to help get his Sat scores up. His Verbal/Critical Writing needs to improve. My question is do we need to work on his writing score. Does the Academy look at the writing portion of the Sat. Can we just concentrate on Verbal Portion.
 
If you are trying to improve your reading score I would suggest reading some classic novels, they will help you immensely with the vocab. Even if you don’t want to read them, the audio books are free online. For me this was a much less painful way to study for the SAT (avoiding countless study cards).
 
correct me if I am wrong but I am not aware of any academic books at the academy that are in audio????????
 
Yes, usafa currently looks at math and reading. I would focus there. A word of caution though...the one constant at the academy is change. So you never know when a policy will change. A good example is the University of California system. Up through 2009, they only looked at math and reading. AFTER the relevant testing period (for the 2010 grads), the UC system decided to look at the writing scores too. That was a very unpleasant surprise for the kids who didn't apply themselves to that section of the test. My advice is to concentrate on your math and reading, but still give the writing section a decent effort. Good luck.
 
Whether or not USAFA will look at writing, if your S did well on math he should do well on writing. When my S took SAT prep courses, they explained that kids who do well on math can also do well on writing.... there were simple logical rules to follow, and once you learned them you could ace the section. He raised his writing score from 630 to 790 after the prep courses.
 
In saying that USAFA doesn't look at the writing score, does that mean having a high writing score isn't really all that helpful to be competitive? It would be kind of a bummer, because I just retook the SAT, and my studying was heavily focused on improving the writing/grammar section...
 
USAFA super scores the SAT. If you are weak in one area you can concentrate on that particular area. I think it is more or less not an emphasis on the written section. However, I will quantify the "super score" theory on taking the SAT...Service Academies score this way, ROTC does NOT score this way. ROTC takes the best sitting, as do many universities. So it is in your best interest to do as well as you can in one sitting. If there is one lower score and a SA is your goal you can take it again for that particular portion. You still have to take the whole test regardless. Try to do the best you can on all sections every time you take the test.
 
Also, don't forget about the ACT. Often, students do better on one test vs the other. Our DS did well on the SAT, but REALLY well (composite score of 35) on the ACT. The Academy will take whichever you do better on (at least that was the case two years ago....).
 
I'm with Mike and Cris on this one. DS did much better on the ACT than the SAT for some reason. Those scores got him in. I myself years ago had ACT scores that far outpaced my SATs and helped get me my appointment. I always recommend that people try the ACT for that reason. You just never know.
 
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