How to crush the SAT (from 1580 scorer)

okay here's the honest truth about the SAT I  know that it's something that a lot of people   are really stressed about but you don't need to  make it a stressful experience so I'm going to go   over a little bit about my experience studying  for the SAT some tips that I have for students   who really want to crush the SAT and also how to  make it a little bit less stressful so my name   is Vivien I went to Stanford and studied computer  science and I got a 1580 on the sat back then it   was out of 2400 but when I calculated my new score  using the new test I got a 1580 and I'm also the   founder of acle AI which is an AI tool that helps  high schoolers get ready for college right now   we're focused specifically on test prep and so  I do work at a SAT prep company I will disclose   that and so you can take this video with a grain  of salt but I really just want to help students   understand why the SAT is important and also how  they can do better on tests like the SAT some of   these tips are going to sound a little bit intense  because I'm really focused on helping you get the   best score that you can for people who are looking  to go to a little bit less selective colleges you   can also just spend your time studying Reading  Writing doing all of these things that you enjoy   doing and that's actually going to help you  do better on the SAT so my main thing is that   I think students should start thinking about the  SAT earlier because then it's a lot less stressful   to prep for it beforehand if you are looking for  A600 you will have to be pretty intense because   the SAT is a bit of a game and you just have to  understand how the game works in order to get that   perfect score okay here's my story about studying  for the SAT so I actually got a private college   counselor when I was a freshman in high school  which is a super privileged thing that I was   able to do um I grew up in a really competitive  High School uh in paloalto and I went to a public   school which again public schools in my town  were really great but they had you know we had   about 300 graduating seniors every year and one  college counselor for all of them so they really   couldn't get to know you that well and frankly a  lot of the times they were helping out students   who were at the average or below average and  helping them sort of graduate from high school   and maybe not as focused on the kids who are  looking to get into really selective colleges   and I actually started studying for the sat with  that counselor when I was about a sophomore in   high school um I actually know other people who  took the SAT when they were in middle school or   freshman because they wanted to go into really  selective summer programs I was not one of those   students but I started studying for the SAT when  I as a sophomore because the philosophy that we   had was that the earlier that we started we could  do a little bit each week and then sort of build   up from there and so I took uh one math and one  reading and writing section per week for about a   year and then by that point my average score when  I took a mock test was you know in that 90th 95th   percentile and so I was feeling really good going  into the test and I didn't have to cram as much   and during that time one of the most important  things that I did was that I actually just loved   reading and especially if you're already taking  uh you know honors English classes or things like   that that can really help improve your reading  and writing score because you start to learn a   lot of vocabulary you start to see these grammar  sentences and the ways that things are constructed   and that can really help you do better on that  sat intuitively so you don't have to memorize   a bunch of things okay so here's one honest truth  about the SAT which is that it's really built to   trick you it's not always about knowing all of  the material but sort of more how the questions   are asked and a common thing that I see is that a  question is maybe three or four sentences long but   really there's only a few words in that sentence  that actually matter for you to get the question   right and so what I always recommend is that if  you're getting stressed during the test just read   through the question and if something doesn't  strike you right away you can just skip to the   next question and come back to this one most of  the time those really long questions most of the   information is just there to lead you off off  track so I recommend taking a beat closing your   eyes taking a deep breath and then rereading the  question and making sure that you eliminate all   of that extra information so I'll show an example  problem here where there's a ton of information   and they give you a lot of numbers like 35% or  5,000 and there's a bunch of mixed signals that   you're getting from the question but if you read  what it's actually trying to get you to do you can   write out some really simple equations that can  help you get to the answer so so the main thing   here is to just remember that these questions are  kind of set up to overwhelm you a little bit but   as long as you take a step back you can go ahead  and Crush that question okay the second honest   reality that I have about the SAT is that the  reading and writing section is really hard to   cram for if you want to get a good score on that  reading and writing section I would recommend just   reading at a higher level for a long period of  time before you take the SAT and that's going   to make things a lot more straightforward for you  so for example when I was in high school I took   mostly honors English classes and we would read  you know some of these American Classics we would   read books that were written in older grammar  or older English so that I could start getting   used to the different sentence structures and so  other than taking those uh AP classes or honors   English classes you can always just read more in  your spare time I would read things like the New   York Times or the Wall Street Journal books or  non-fiction pieces that you can learn different   kinds of sentence structures from vocabulary from  and that's actually the best way to prep for the   SAT but also for later life because you can reuse  a lot of those words in your day-to-day remember   that a lot of the skills that you learn for the  SAT should help you in your career later down the   line and they're not really just this Sprint for  the SAT but it's really a marathon of learning   over your lifetime okay and so as I mentioned  before the reading and writing section A lot of   the times it just takes a lot of years of reading  and writing but for the math section there are   actually a lot of hacks that you can do that will  help you take the SAT in a much more effective   way so one of the things that I would recommend is  getting a ton of practice with a Desmos calculator   because a lot of the times if the answers are just  written out as a multiple choice you can reverse   solve the question by plugging the answers back  into the equation I'll put a question here where   you just see that out the other hack that I have  is learning more number sense so this is really   just around understanding the T-shirt size of a  number so for example is 10,000 way too high but   is one way too low you'll see a sample question  question that I have here where the order of   magnitude between the answers here is really big  you have one answer that's in the hundreds and   then one that's in the tens of thousands which  one are they actually looking for that would let   you eliminate half the answers and if you're  able to eliminate two answers then you could   actually just guess between the remaining two and  remember there's no guessing penalty so each time   you have about a 25% chance of getting the right  answer so you should always guess and if you can   eliminate even one or two answers that's going to  up your probability of getting the right answer   a lot more okay and another unsurprising reality  about the SAT is that it really favors people who   plan ahead there are going to be people who can  take the SAT on their first go and get an amazing   score and good for them but for the majority of  people you want to plan ahead so that you're not   stressed leading up up to the test and so for most  people you really want to take advantage of the   fact that you can actually take the SAT multiple  times I don't usually recommend taking the SAT   three times because that's sometimes Overkill but  you can always take it once to get a better sense   of the testing environment and then take it again  and you can also supercore those two different   tests that you took so you could take the better  score that you got on either section and add them   up depending on the college if that lets you and I  would really recommend if you're taking mock exams   to act like you're in the testing environment  sit in a quiet place take the entire test   front to back make sure that you understand  that the timing is really really critical   because skipping ahead to certain questions is  going to be better for you because there is no   guessing penalty you want to make sure that you  get to every question and that you have enough   time to answer the harder questions which might  be at the back or you just can triage yourself   a little bit better so you can spend more time on  the questions that you needed extra help with okay   and related to planning ahead is that the more  times you can practice a mock exam the better   and I want you to think about taking the mock  exam in about half the official time that you're   allowed to take the mock exam so this sounds  like a really intense tip here but what I'm   really trying to help you do is understand how  the test day will feel and practice at such a   level that the test day will actually feel really  easy for you because you actually practice on hard   mode and if you're able to take the test in half  the time that'll give you a ton of time to go back   review your answers make sure that you're happy  with everything you did make sure you didn't skip   any questions whatever have you and just having  that extra padding if you don't don't actually   know how to do a question that's totally fine  and just skip it and come back and at the end   if you still don't know how to do it then just  go ahead and guess so the way that I think about   this sort of halftime thing is like you would be  an athlete training for the Olympics right if you   were training in Denver or Colorado at way higher  altitude when you actually go to the Olympics you   would be in a lot better position than a lot of  your competitors because you are training on hard   mode okay and my final reality check about the  SAT is that I know that it's stressful but you   can really think about it as a way to help you set  yourself up for success in the future that is both   through getting into more selective colleges if  that's your goal but also having this constrained   thing that you're practicing for that you're  really putting a lot of effort into will help   prepare you for later life as well the reality  is that life doesn't get easier after high school   you'll have to set your own calendar you'll have  to set your own schedule you won't always have a   boss telling you exactly what to do and a lot of  the times in high school your teacher is telling   you what to do but the SAT is one different thing  where you can start practicing setting your own   schedule being your own boss and understanding how  long it will take you to do something like the SAT   and having something to work towards so I hope you  found this video helpful thanks for watching and   let me know if you have any other questions about  the SAT and what other topics you want me to cover

Channel: Vivian Shen

Views: 4,356

Keywords: how to get a perfect score on the sat, how to prepare for the sat, how to raise sat math score, how to raise sat score, how to improve sat math score, sat prep, how to raise sat math score in a month, how to raise sat score in a week, how to raise your sat score fast, how to study for sat, sat tips, sat math, sat test, how to self study for the sat, how to get a 1500+on the SAT, sat study plan, How I Got A 1600 On The SAT, sat reading and writing tips

Id: tbY1GK4OqyU

Length: 10min 23sec (623 seconds)

Published: Sat May 18 2024