So the fall SAT season is upon us maybe your kids have been preparing forever for this test or maybe it has snuck up on them. I have worked with both kinds of students and though the ones who have longer to prepare normally do better there are ways to improve your SAT score fast. You may be wondering how to improve your SAT score especially with only a couple of weeks or months left to prepare, but I will break it down for you step by step here.

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How to Improve your SAT Score Step 1: Find The Best SAT Prep Book

This step will be easy because you won’t have to do much looking because I have done the looking for you. The best SAT prep book by far is: Cracking the SAT by The Princeton Review.

I have been teaching the SAT for years and there is no other book that even comes close to the quality of this book. It offers so many drills and step by step instructions on how to do the different problems plus it has several SAT practice tests so you can just have well-rounded practice, which is useful. If you don’t have time to buy this book check out the college board SAT practice tests. They don’t give you as much as this book does but they will help a lot.

How to Improve your SAT Score Step 2: Take an SAT Practice Test

The second step after you have your SAT prep book is to take a practice test. You can take one of the ones in the prep book, or if you were not able to grab the prep book the college board has 8 free tests online. You need to take a practice test to know what your baseline is. They will help you focus on the topics that you are weaker on and not worry about the ones that you already understand.

When you take the practice test also clear out time in your schedule. You need to be able to sit down and take the test like you were taking it that day. This will give you a feel as to how the test will go and will better mirror the conditions that you will be under during the test. Also, time yourself so you know if time is a problem for you, so you can practice getting faster.

How to Improve your SAT Score Step 3: Grade your SAT Practice Test

Once you take the test you need to grade it. This will give you an idea of where your score is now and how much you might have to work to get it to where you want it to be. The College Board tests have scoring sheets that break down how to score your test and have answer explanations for all the problems, which are tremendously helpful. 

One question that is asked a lot is: What is considered a good SAT score? So truthfully a good score for each person may be a bit different depending on where you are starting, but I normally see SAT scores in four realms.

Under 1,000 is very low. Most schools require at least 1,000 to qualify for scholarships. 1,000-1,200 is low but also pretty average. 1,200-1,400 is good. This or higher is where all students should be aiming. 1,400-1,600 is excellent if you want to be in this last group it is probably going to take significant amounts of studying. Most of the students, I tutor that are at this level are 1) really good at taking tests, to begin with, and 2) eat, live, and breath SAT for at least a couple months (to years) to get to that level.

Back to grading the test though, grading your test will show you where your score is now and can show you how much you need to study to get your score where you want it. It also can show you what types of problems you struggle on. Are you always messing up the vocabulary in context questions? Does trigonometry have you tied up in knots? This will help you focus your studying in the next step to make sure that you can make the most improvements you can even in a short amount of time.

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How to Improve your SAT Score Step 4: Focused Studying

Now that you have taken a test and you know the areas that you need to focus on you should focus on those areas. I would do this in a couple different ways.

Way number one would be to go through that prep book that I mentioned above. It breaks down a lot of the different types of questions so if you know that you have a problem with a certain type of question read what they have to say about it and do the drills for that question. They have these for the reading, grammar, and math sections.

Way number two is to visit Khan Academy. Khan Academy has videos on every subject and they have an area specifically for SAT. You can go and search the areas that you need to specifically work on and look at the videos. You could also choose to do a practice test with them specifically and Khan Academy will layout all the videos that you should watch and work on for you. This makes things much simpler. Did I mention Khan Academy is free? Take advantage of all the amazing free SAT resources out there.

Way number three is to gather other resources to help you out. You should learn how the test is trying to trick you and two of the best resources to learn that are: Six Types of Wrong Answers of the SAT Reading Test and a worksheet to go along with it from Powerscore.

If you struggle with SAT grammar on of the greatest packet that I have found is McGraw Hill’s Essential Grammar Skills.

Lastly, if math is not your thing McGraw Hill also has a great math packet. It goes over all the different topics that you would need to know for math on this test and is just a great resource overall. *Note I know this says it is a 2011 study guide for the SAT, which is prior to the SAT changing format, but the Math drills are still super solid and useful. Check out chapters 7-11 if you need more help with math.

How to Improve your SAT Score Step 5: Repeat the Process

How much you are able to throw into this step depends on how much time you have before the test. You should at least take one more practice test after your initial one and initial studying. Then you need to review this test. To see why you got the answers wrong that you did.

For many of you, this may be all the time that you have. So get a good nights sleep the night before the test. For those of you who have more time, go back and study more on the topics that you are still struggling with. Get tutoring if you have time. Sometimes having someone else there to explain it to you makes all the difference. Keep it up till you get the score you want.

Practice Makes Perfect

With the SAT like many other tests, practice is super important. Sometimes standardized tests are not about how smart you are but how well you know that test. The only way to know the test is to practice and there are so many great resources out there. Get a prep book, take the practice test, Khan Academy it out, and get a tutor if you have time. Your score will improve if you work for it. Who knows you may even make the 1500 club.

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