Much of the resentment toward the SAT stems from the frustration that people feel when they don’t achieve scores commensurate with their grades. I believe there are two primary reasons for this disconnect.

First, students don’t read enough to score well on the verbal portion of the SAT. I too felt this frustration after I received a 550 on the verbal portion of my sophomore PSAT despite being a straight A student. However, after going through the test with one of my favorite teachers, it was clear that the gap between my grades and my score lay in my poor vocabulary. Like most high school students, I was overwhelmed with sports, AP classes and other commitments. As a result, I rarely read anything that wasn’t assigned in school. Ask yourself how many novels you read outside of school in the last year? If the answer is less than ten, then you could probably use some vocabulary work. In my case, I learned over 2000 words during my sophomore summer and raised my verbal score to a 780 on my junior PSAT.  While 2000 words may seem daunting, it is feasible if you try and learn 20 to 25 words every day.

Second, good students aren’t used to thinking on their feet. Getting A’s in high school often comes down to memorization and regurgitation. Teachers rarely put a problem on a test that requires students to think beyond the material they were supposed to have mastered. The SAT forces students to try and apply concepts in ways that they might not have seen in school. In order to succeed, students have to be flexible in their approach and they have to accept the fact that they won’t know exactly how to solve every problem.  If you are an A student in math but struggle with the Sat math section, here are a few things that you can do: join the math team; buy a math puzzle book; practice the SAT math questions as much as possible.

High School has become so grade driven that students expect tests to be fair and only cover exactly what the teacher outlined in class. The next time a teacher throws a trick problem at you, THANK HIM!