If you haven't done the practice test on the website (intentionally a bit harder than the actual SAT), and you haven't seen an ACTUAL SAT, I strongly urge you to spend a couple of minutes and download the FREE sample test from www.collegeboard.com . You should NOT take the test the night before the test, but at the very least leaf through the various sections to get a sense of the overall “feel” for the test.
Click here to read Adam's thoughts on the March 12th SAT test.
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Dear Rocketeers,
There hasn’t been anything new regarding the SAT to report in some time, but now that the PSAT results have been released and everyone has returned from his or her holiday, an update is in order, particularly for juniors (11th graders). As with all these bulletins, I recommend PRINTING out two copies and give one to your parents.
1) First, an IMPORTANT WARNING: juniors should not—not, not, not—take the January 28 SAT. NOT! If you want an explanation, see the FAQ section of the RocketReview website (www.RocketReview.com) and the news archive section where you should review ALL the previous updates (not everything will be relevant to your situation but there’s lots of important information).
If you’ve already signed up for the January SAT, switch the date to either April 1 or May 6 (see the next point). The ONLY juniors who should consider taking the January SAT are those who scored over 225, say, on the PSAT—and even then there are risks taking the SAT so early. Yes, even if you’re taking AP exams in May.
NOTE: if you took the SAT in November or December of last year—which was almost certainly too early—your best course of action would be to retake the SAT, if you want, not earlier than October.
Again, please don’t deluge me with emails asking for explanations of these issues. If you’re curious about the “why” for these timetables, see the FAQ and the earlier updates in the news archive section.
2) The SAT test dates after January are April 1 (SAT only), May 6 (SAT or Subject Tests), and June 3 (SAT or Subject Tests). The optimal time by far for almost all students to take the SAT is April 1. The April test gives you enough time to prepare, and does not conflict with the SAT Subject Tests. Moreover, you can request a copy of your test booklet after the April test (for a small fee), should you decide to retake the SAT in the fall.
Another problem with the May 6th SAT for any students taking AP exams is that they’ve moved up the AP schedule by a week. This change is especially likely to affect any students taking the European History or United States History AP’s on May 5th, or the Biology or Physics B/C AP’s on May 8th.
3) The optimal time to take most SAT Subject Tests is in May or June, when you’ve finished the course in that particular subject. Most colleges that require these tests require only two—at most three—so take only those subjects in which you excel.
NOTE: If you’re in 9th or 10th grade, the only SAT Subject Tests worth considering are the biology, physics, or chemistry—and only then if you are an OUTSTANDING test-taker. Remember that ALL students who take any given SAT Subject Test are good in that topic, and that 9th and 10th graders who take these tests will be competing with 11th and 12th graders who are wiser (at least in a test-taking sense) and who very likely have completed advanced or AP courses in those subjects.
Again, for more information on these and other points, see the FAQ and the earlier updates.
4) Juniors (11th graders) should begin preparing for the SAT NOW! For practice tests you’ll need to get the Official SAT Study Guide (from your local bookstore or Amazon.com, you’ll find a review on the website).
HOW you prepare is important, so be sure to review the FAQ section and ALL the previous updates in the news archive section.
5) The Power Ranked Vocabulary List will be officially updated in a week to include the following new words: adroit, amalgam, antagonistic, brusque, censure, cite, competent, connotation, constraint, debilitating, deprecate, dispassionate, dissension, doctrinaire, eccentric, egotist, empirical, enduring, facetious, frugal, gullible, hypocritical, impartial, impassioned, intricate, longevity, oblivious, obsolete, preoccupation, qualified, reciprocity, reclusive, reflective, renounce, resentment, rigorous, routine, scorn, shortcoming, solemn, supplement, therapeutic, vitality, and whimsical.
Our original core list remains strong, predicting very well the words on actual SAT reading passage questions as well as sentence completions.
6) RocketScore will be updated this month with an improved scoring formula (reflecting data from the most recent SAT essay topics), and several topics. In addition, I’ll be adding a new hand-scored so if you haven’t done the current hand-scored topic, you might want to do so in the next week before the topic is retired.
