Good luck to all the students taking tomorrow’s June 2 SAT test. As we did for the May 5th SAT test, here is our collection of last-minute advice and videos focused on SAT test day:
SAT Test Day: The Night Before and Morning Of
Real SAT Stories: Second Guessing on the SAT
SAT Directions: Optimize Your Time on Test Day
When to Guess on the SAT Writing Section
When to Guess on the SAT Critical Reading Section
When to Guess on the SAT Math Section
SAT Sentence Completion Questions: When to Guess?
Don’t Blame the Chicken Pox for SAT Math Mistakes
Approach to SAT Math Problems
Habeus Answer, or Show Yourself the Answer!
Mastering Your SAT Test Weaknesses
SAT Questions…Easiest to Hardest
Autopilot – Don’t Set a Course for a Lower SAT Score
A Lesson from a Course in Wills, Trusts and Estates
Bubbling: Avoid Mistakes in Your Answer Key
Please Put Down Your Pencil!
The Dreaded SAT Experimental Section
You can also see EVERY SAT post here. If you have an iPod, we encourage you to subscribe to our free podcasts and take ePrep with you on the go!
June 2nd, 2007 at 4:02 pm
I have just done my first SAT. Too bad I couldn’t finish my essay’s conclusion in time. Critical reading was more difficult than I expected. It has 4 sections. =_= The last out of 4 is like 10x harder than the first one.
Beside SAT, I found on some US universities’ websites that students enrolled can still pursue their interests like playing instruments for example. What does that mean? like we can continue learning musical instruments in private lessons or what?
secondly, is there university that provides some minor courses on effective writing?
lastly, what are “minors”? Are they like easy versions of degrees?
thanks in advance
June 4th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Allan,
The last CR section was probably the experimental one. It does not count toward your score, so you shouldn’t stress about it.
Pursuing extra-curricular interests in college typically means joining a club, team or other organization. If you are interested in playing an instrument, for example, you would continue that interest in college by joining the orchestra, jazz band or other musical group.
By the end of sophomore year, most college students are required to choose a “major.” I think you know what that is. Some students are so interested in a second field/subject area, however, that then take enough classes in that other field/subject area to say that they “minored” in that other subject area. For example, you can earn a college degree (i.e., “major”) in Biology by fulfilling all of the school’s degree requirements for Biology. At the same time, you can “minor” in music by taking a lot of classes in the music department (i.e., a lot but not enough to meet the full degree requirements).
At some schools you can receive a certificate for minoring in a given field. At other schools there is no formal minor degree. The bottom line is that if, for example, you major in Biology, but you take a lot of music classes, you can say that you majored in Biology and minored in Music. I hope this helps.
June 5th, 2007 at 6:58 am
Karl,
Thanks for your response.
But is it possible to take some form of formal instrumental music lessons at universities? Because joining musical club sounds to me more like only “playing” instead of “learning” the instrument. I hope you know what I mean.
Secondly, if I understand you correctly, in USA, students only take classes they are interested in the first two years of their colleges and only after that they start to choose their major. Right? For example, say I take mathematics, economics, and music in the first two years, and after sophomore year, I choose to major economics and probably minor in music.
June 8th, 2007 at 11:21 am
Allan,
You can take music lessons at most universities. Whether such lessons are part of a course or an extracurricular activity, depends upon the school.
While, in many ways, the first two year of college are about sampling different subject areas to figure out what you want to eventually major in, be careful. Some majors require a certain number of prerequisites. You don’t want to find yourself unable to declare a major in Civil Engineering, for example, because you failed to take the required math courses during freshman and sophomore year.
June 9th, 2007 at 6:11 am
Thanks for your response, Karl.
One last question. On my collegeboard’s control panel, I get this message: “You have 3 day(s) to add or change recipients for your June 2007 scores. Just click “update Score Recipients” next to your test. “. Meanwhile, I haven’t added any university on that list because I haven’t made up mind yet. It sounds quite intimidating. Is it telling me that after 3 days my June SAT score will be useless??
Please help ASAP
thanks
June 9th, 2007 at 6:12 am
Following the message above, btw, I still haven’t got my June SAT score yet online.
June 9th, 2007 at 7:44 am
Allan,
Don’t worry. Your June scores will not be useless.
Every time you register to take the SAT, your registration fee entitles you to send your scores to four schools (within a certain period of time) at no additional cost. Once the time period has expired, you have to pay a small fee to have your scores sent to the colleges of your choice.
I hope this explanation helps.
June 9th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Thanks for your response, Karl
Well, this is a bit irritating, because I will not know my score till 21 of June but I have to make my 4 choices within 3 days…….
June 9th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Allan,
I agree. It is an irritating situation. To read about what you should NOT do, click to the post below and link to the article:
http://www.eprep.com/2007/02/07/student-frustrated-with-ets-fees-allegedly-sent-bomb-threat/
June 9th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Come on, that’s well extreme. Very funny, though.
Btw, should I take toefl if my SAT verbal+writing isn’t so bad?
And, for international application, is it true that non-native English speakers will not likely be enrolled due to supposedly worse SAT grade than the natives in overall?
Thanks in advance
June 9th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Allan,
I definitely think you should take the TOEFL. If you don’t like your scores, you can always choose to not send them to colleges.
As far as admissions goes, your status as an international student may help you. All colleges look to enroll students from diverse backgrounds. What I am trying to say is that a low SAT Critical Reading score may not significantly diminish your chances of being admitted by a given school.
June 9th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
In IB, there are 4 levels for a language. A1, A2, B, and ab initio. The first is the level of native tongue, the second for approaching native standard, the third for studying as a second language, and the last for people who have no or little knowledge of the language.
I am taking A2 level English and I have asked my school admission counselor whether do I need to take TOEFL or not, and he thinks that I am exempted from TOEFL according to this statement “Native speakers are usually exempted from the TOEFL exams, as are IB students who follow English at A1, or A2 level. ” on my school’s university’s guidance booklet.
Is the above true? I want to ask this because I hope I can avoid paying the 155$ fee for TOEFL.
please help
thanks alot
June 21st, 2007 at 7:28 am
Ok.. I just got my SAT result….
I am quite disappointed because I got my maths score much lower than I expected. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I am now really desperate to read my exam detail to see what happen to my maths section (I thought I could have scored near maximum), but it’s only available at the end of June.
Another surprise is that I receive a 6 for my essay, which I thought it would be a 4 or something. Nevertheless, as Karl said, I should concentrate on my Maths score since I am not a native English speaker, but I got worse than I expected (Such disreputation since I am like the top maths student in my class).
For my reading and writing sections, I hoped I could get higher but that’s just impossible with like only 2 weeks of practice.
I think I should take the SAT once more again.
BTW, Karl, may you help me with my question in my message above?
thanks
June 22nd, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Allan,
Don’t worry too much about your most recent SAT scores. The scores only reflect how you did on the day you took the test. They do not measure your potential for success — academic or otherwise. Most kids have to take the test a few times before they get the score they want. Keep a positive attitude and keep practicing. You will get there.
I will have to ask Don or Seamus about your other questions. Stay tuned.
June 23rd, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Below is some additional information about my question (whether I should take TOEFL or not). Although I live in Holland, I am a Taiwanese, I started learning English from alphabets 6 years ago in ESL, and now I can speak Chinese, English, and some sufficient Dutch. Secondly, currently I only get my first SAT with a score of 1800, but I hope I can improve on my second after some summer practice. I tell you this because my school advisor told me that some universities judge whether TOEFL is a requirement or not based on a person’s nationality and so on.
Thanks for your response and I will be waiting for your answer.
June 25th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Allan,
If I were you, I would get an after-school job, earn some money, and take the TOEFL. While some schools may not require you to submit TOEFL scores, they will allow you to add such scores to your application file. The bottom line is that, if you can score high on the TOEFL, your scores will only improve your chances of being admitted at an American college or university.
I understand that $155 is a significant amount of money, but I can honestly tell you that I have never regretted sacrificing to make investments in my own education. (Who knows, you might even be able to write a compelling college essay about how you worked an after school job to help fund your own education.)
July 2nd, 2007 at 12:37 am
Thanks for your response Karl.
I now have another question to ask. Although there are quite a handful of good universities in USA to select from, yet I don’t have a clue which ones are suitable for me because fundamentally, I have no idea about my chance of being accepted in any one of them. Of course, I aim to apply for the universties of the best caliber in the fields I would like to study, but on the other hand, I do not want to, for example, apply for 10 of them and be turned down by all of them. So, could you tell me, for example, just how hard the matriculation into Princeton is? I know that each case is different, but I think there must be some basic bottomlines. Could you shed some light on this issue? (from the perspective of an IB candidate if possible as there is no real life example in my school).
thanks in advance
July 3rd, 2007 at 4:49 pm
In addition to above, I have another question regarding recommendation letters. I have joined an activity in a Dutch institute since 3 years ago where
my instructor, I think, knows me quite well in the field of activity I participate. However, his English proficiency is limited, especially in writing. Am I able to send a Dutch recommendation letter?
July 5th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Hi Karl,
Sorry for this redundant message, but I would like to know you didn’t respond to my previous two messages either because you overlooked them or you simply felt that I asked too much, since I saw you have already responded to several others today on this website, but not mine.
Best Regards
July 5th, 2007 at 5:20 pm
Sorry, Allan. I’ve been pretty busy over the last few days. I will review and respond to your questions later this evening. (My sister is here for dinner with her family. Right now, I have six kids tearing my house apart.) Talk to you later.
July 9th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Hello, Karl…
Have you overlooked my messages on
July 2nd, 2007 at 12:37 am
and
July 3rd, 2007 at 4:49 pm
again?
Best Regards
btw, I have asked about what “autopilot” is in SAT in another thread, but I couldn’t find it. May you tell me what that is?
thx in advance
July 10th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Allan,
I lot of applicants with perfect SAT scores get turned away by schools like Princeton every year. I am not trying to discourage you, I am simply trying to provide you with a realistic perspective.
The best way to get into a top-tier school is to (i) earn good grades and high test scores and (ii) excel in one or two extracurricular activities. Good grades and high test scores will show that you are prepared to do college-level work and distinction in an extracurricular activity will show that you understand the level of commitment that is required to truly excel at something.
I suspect that most American colleges require applications to be competed, in their entirety, in English. I further suspect, however, that it cannot hurt to ask a particular college whether it is permissible to submit a letter of recommendation in Dutch or another language.
Below is a link to the video podcast on autopilot:
http://www.eprep.com/2006/07/30/autopilot-dont-set-a-course-for-a-lower-sat-score/
I hope it helps. Talk to you soon.
July 16th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Thanks for the response, Karl
BTW, back to the SAT, is it allowed to go back and continue any of the previous sections on a real SAT test when a person has the spare time in the current section?
I ask this because one SAT taker told me that the test supervisor didn’t really care, as long as every one put down the pencil when the time is up.
July 16th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Allan,
Students are not permitted to go back and continue working on previous sections during a real SAT. In fact, if students are caught doing so, the test administrator is obligated to take their tests and expell them.
While you might encounter a supervisor who doesn’t care, you should not not disregard test-day instructions. Breaking the rules is a form of cheating and, by the way, there is nothing to stop another student from reporting such behavior.