Moreover, SAT subject tests, which are required by many of the top colleges, are given on the same days and times as the SAT, so test takers cannot sit for both the SAT and the subject tests on the same day.  Therefore, if a junior who needs to take subject tests sits for his or her initial SAT in May, he or she may have only the June and October SAT administrations to retake the SAT and attempt to upgrade subject test scores.

We suggest that juniors sit for the SAT at the January or March administration, planning to take the SAT a second time in May and the subject tests in June.  Then, the October date in senior year can be used to retake subject tests, take the SAT a third time (more on this below), or just relax.  Since 2007, when we started recommending that our juniors begin SAT testing in January or March, many of our students who have done so have reported gratifying results.

An objection we field again and again is that juniors “haven’t had the math yet.”  The fact is that 95% of the math on the SAT is arithmetic, simple algebra, and simple geometry, areas that have been covered by the end of tenth grade.

Another parent concern revolves around how colleges look at multiple SAT scores.  The most common practice among admissions offices (remember that each college establishes its own procedure) is to “mix and match” the best “split” scores from various tests to create a “superscore.”  So, for example, if Cathy’s scores on the March SAT are Math 640, Reading 570, and Writing 590, and her scores in May are Math 610, Reading 670, and Writing 660, any college to which she submits her scores is likely to combine the Math 640 from the January test with the Reading 670 and Writing 660 from the May SAT, making her “superscore” 1970.   It’s important to understand why colleges follow this procedure.  It’s not to be nice, but rather because colleges submit the scores of admitted students to publications like U.S. News & World Report and Fiske College Guide.  USN&WR uses each college’s submitted scores as factor in its college rankings.  So, it’s in the college’s best interests to aggregate each applicant’s best SAT scores.  As for any bias against students who sit for the SAT multiple times, we have detected none.  Several years ago, one of our students who compiled a 380-point score increase did so while sitting for the SAT four times.  She recently graduated from Williams College.

Please comment or feel free to call us or email if any of this is unclear.  The bottom line is that, in our opinion, anyone who is planning to apply EA or ED to competitive colleges should consider beginning his or her testing earlier than is usually recommended.

Most of the books and articles about the SAT that I’ve seen prescribe either learning long lists of vocabulary words (you can imagine how often that suggestion falls on fertile ground) or reading more.   Yes, reading more will work, but in order for that reading to build vocabulary, the student must be willing to keep a dictionary handy and look up every word with which he or she is not familiar.  It’s not enough to think you know the meaning or to always rely on the context.  A example of how context can mislead: Recently, one of my students, while discussing a passage in which the term “maverick astronomers” was used, told me that, as far as he knew, “maverick” meant “angry old guy.”  I asked him how he came to that conclusion, and he said that otherwise why would John McCain refer constantly to himself as a “maverick”?  Good question.

Nor will prefixes and suffixes help on the SAT.   The people who write the test weren’t born yesterday, and they know that if they really want to test a person’s vocabulary, they can’t give blatant hints.  So, one of the SAT’s favorite vocabulary words, “extol,” which means “to praise highly,” is one that is almost never “figured out” by a test taker.  My students inform me that they only reason they know that “sublime” has a positive meaning is that there is a band by that name.

Our Sentence Completion practice packets for 2009-10 include glossaries that feature short definitions of every difficult word used in the packet.  Students who rarely open a dictionary can easily turn to another page within the exercise to pick up the definition of a difficult word.

If you would prefer to play with vocabulary in order to learn it, try our vocabulary quizzes on the Quizlet web site (links below).  We have gathered around 400 words that we have seen used repeatedly on the SAT and loaded those words with their meanings onto the site.  Click a link and try a few words; doing so will only take a few minutes, and it might be very helpful to your Reading SAT score. 

List of Terms from A to C
http://quizlet.com/set/326333/
List of Terms from D to F
http://quizlet.com/set/326903/

If you’d like the rest of our Quizlet SAT set, drop us a line at vocabulary@maineprep.com and we’ll send it along.