Raising SAT scores (esp verbal) - How did you do it?

[Anonymous]

HS junior took Sept SAT. It was his first time.

Score was 1380 (760 Math/620 verbal). He’s disappointed and wants to raise scores. He did prep class this summer about 8 hrs/week. Taking AP Lang now.

Any recommendations for raising test scores? Especially looking for advice from those who have raised scores and how they did it.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

This was years ago, but my older kid raised verbal 90 points between fall junior year and Oct senior year by doing nothing. Experience in AP courses, probably APUSH, did the trick.

[Anonymous]

^to add, my younger kid was very disappointed in their score in August as it was gar below practice tests (practice 790 verbal). Hoping for improvement with a little bit of luck on future test date(s).

[Anonymous]

*far

[Anonymous]

My kid also saw a jump after taking AP Lang and AP Lit. Also spent a ton of time watching YouTube videos from kids who got perfect scores. They had a lot of test taking tricks to help

[Anonymous]

The best thing they can do is read as much as possible and finish junior year.

[Anonymous]

Verbal is harder and slower to raise than math.

I'd suggest reading novels since he is a junior and he has a lot of time to improve reading stamina and vocab. But that won't improve things quickly, it's more of a long burn.

[Anonymous]

8 hours a week is a lot! I wonder what would happen if you pulled him from class but he committed to some Khan Academy every day?

(Also, obviously, read read read)

[Anonymous]

Strong agree with the suggestion to read more. We bought a Kindle for our kid who didn't naturally read a ton. They read much more on the device than they ever did in hard copy. AND they looked up words they didn't know while reading. We bought them any books they wanted. Jumped from low 6s to high 7s in a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:8 hours a week is a lot! I wonder what would happen if you pulled him from class but he committed to some Khan Academy every day?

(Also, obviously, read read read)

DP. I do not understand this suggestion at all. You want him to not go to class? To self-study on KA instead of taking AP Lang?

[Anonymous]

Read for pleasure something moderately difficult (e.g. Dickens) for 45 min to an hour every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:HS junior took Sept SAT. It was his first time.

Score was 1380 (760 Math/620 verbal). He’s disappointed and wants to raise scores. He did prep class this summer about 8 hrs/week. Taking AP Lang now.

Any recommendations for raising test scores? Especially looking for advice from those who have raised scores and how they did it.

Thanks!

Read books and magazines that use properly good vocabulary.

Study Latin and Greek roots and practice breaking apart words by their roots.

sincerely,

Former GRE teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Read for pleasure something moderately difficult (e.g. Dickens) for 45 min to an hour every day.

This….

[Anonymous]

Seeing different students' score situations on reddit makes me wonder whether there is more variability im getting the harder section 2 than previously understood. For example, a kid scoring far lower than expected vs practice tests who thought they got most questions right, or a kid who thought they did terrible and ended up with higher score than expected vs practice tests.

[Anonymous]

1v1 private tutor. We have used Princeton Review and Compass. Both via Zoom weekly. Most recent child went from 1370 to 1450 to 1500 over a year of work. It was a grind.