SAT I exam - or ACT instead??

[cjsh]

I know some of ATers are college students..

I am looking for some advices/suggestions/recommendations from you.

Any good prep materials that you can suggest?

does anyone take private prep course like Kaplan or Princeton Review? good or bad or waste of money ($800)?

Any advice to how to prepare the exam? what to do?

I appreciate any good advices.

=======================
School counseler prefers ACT to SAT. She claims ACT tests what you know, SAT tests what you don't know..
anyone have any opinion??

 

[chiwawa626]

Get a boook like the Barons Sat book that review basic skills then has a bunch of practice tests....Right now our school got a grant and is offering the IVY West course, (up there with kaplan and prinston..) for FIVE BUCKS! w00t

 

[minendo]

Never took a prep class and never actually studied/prepared for the exam. I didnt score the greatest but it was good enough to get me into the school of my choice.

 

[freebee]

I attended a prep course (asian thing) and found it helped a lot. Its not so much about learning new material but teaching about how to take that type of a test.

The barrons books, the 10 real sats, etc. are all good. And yes, if you can, try to study all those words in the barrons books.

 

[cjsh]

thanks for info.

freebee, can you tell me what prep class you took? how much? where? you can pm me if you want.

 

[freebee]

I went to a chinese prep academy in flushing nyc, forgot which one...might have been called Mega? There are a lot of them here (in nyc) as asian parents love to send their kids to prep programs . The cost was similar to the kaplan and princeton reviews. I paid about 700 dollars.

 

[soccerbud34]

A well known SAT prep course is called Prince Review.
It lasted for a couple months, and it can cost you up to about $800.

Someone prep book you can use is called 10 Real SAT's
Its published by College Board and are 10 actual real SAT's =)

good luck

 

[Scootin159]

Depends on what school you want to go to. If you're trying to get into Harvard 50 points on your SAT's may make a difference, but most schools just break it down into 3 levels (<1000, 1000 - 1299, 1300+). A prep course generally won't help you enough to make a difference, nor will re-taking it. If you get a 990 (or something really close to a breaking point) it may be worth it to retake, but if you get a 1210, keep it

BTW, most college admissions offices are very helpful in letting you know how big a role SAT's play in your acceptance (there are still schools who care less about SAT's remember).

 

[soccerbud34]

All colleges will take your highest SAT score so do not worry.

But if you take the SAT more than 3 times, some colleges might down upon it.

good luck!

 

[Novgrod]

Schools don't care about the SAT as much any more because it really tests little more than how well you can take the SAT.

They still care plenty, and your best bet is to get a review book and just take practice tests until you're sick of them. Then take a third practice test and you'll want to puke.

 

[S0me1X]

Take many sample SATs. Find what your weaknesses (vocabulary, reading, various areas of math, etc.) are, and work on those.

 

[RudeBoie]

I just think it depends on the person. I never needed help to figure out the SAT's, but some people like the strategies that review sessions give.

I say take lots of practice, and perhaps but software. If you think it's not enough, then take a prep class.

 

[cjsh]

Our school counseler prefers ACT instead of SAT. She says ACT tests what you have studied (math, english, history, science), but SAT tests many you don't know. that's why there are so many SAT prep courses..

Anyone have any opinions?? Anyone took ACT instead SAT?

thanks

 

[Broncho]

cjsh, I took both the ACT and SAT back in 96-97 when I was a senior in high school. It used to be the ACT was a southern thing and the SAT was a northern thing. Also, the SAT is still more widely accepted than the ACT. Personally, I would recommend you take both, but make sure you keep the rules strait. I think I'm remembering this right, but don't trust what I'm fixing to say. On the ACT they don't take off for wrong answers so if you aren't sure it is recommended that you guess. On the SAT they do take off for wrong answers so don't guess. I got that backwards when I took my first SAT test and scored kind of low. I realized what I did and retook it and went up 140 points. If you can afford to take both, take both because you will be almost guranteed that whatever schools you are looking at will take one of them.

 

[JotaJ]

I took the SAT's one time and got a 1230 i think. I got a red book called "The underground guide to beating the SAT"s" or something like that. They had 500 vocab words in it. I memorized a majority of them and scored a 1310 on em. Ended up with a 1340 as my highest combined on 3 tests. You should get a book with vocab and memorize the shiz outta em!

 

[darkjester]

I remember when I was taking those tests (I took both, sans prep courses) I was told by high school counselor that schools on the east coast care more about the SAT (comes from Princeton, NJ, on the east coast). The ACT was more for schools on the west coast (I don't remember where that originated). Anyway, I'd recommend taking both at least once. If your scores on one are bad, just don't send them out.

--oh, and the ACT has a science section. The SAT doesn't. Good luck!

 

[fatalbert]

take em both,

studying isn't really necessary

<--- didn't study at all, got a 1430, and a 31 composite

 

[MisterDuck]

Honestly, I'd take both tests - depending upon where you want to go to school, different colleges accept different tests. I know that traditionally, the east and west coasts tend to be SAT oriented, while the "mid" portions of the country tend to favor the ACT.

I took both. I thought the ACT to be more generally knowledge based, while the SAT tended to be a bit more "tricky" (especially in the math section).

If you're really concerned about it, I'd reccomend taking AP level classes for english and try to complete at *least* pre-calc or calculus prior to taking either of the tests. There's a number of good books that you can pick up at the library that have pre-tests and other resources to help improve your test. With the ACT (which I thought was much, much harder) I'd consider taking it twice, since you can. Generally, the second time around you're going to score higher for whatever statistical reason and it doesn't count against you to take it twice. I didn't take it twice because my score the first time around was more than good for me, but I regret not trying to take it a second time just to see if I could actually better that score.

The education you receive at high school is actually a very good precursor to taking either test, assuming you actually do the work, pay attention, and focus on learning the material rather than getting a good grade. Hell, I bet if you read for an hour every day of "quality" reading, you'd do fine on the english and vocab sections - neither test takes a lot of studying, imo, and more so just a general willingness to learn.

"Genius is one percent inspiration, nintey-nine percent perspiration."



Good luck.