Give me the straight dope, ladies. Can SAT scores really be brought up?

[Nicole M]

My son, a junior, got his scores today and they are solid. Not stellar, not dismal, just fine. A little low, but within the range for students accepted at the schools where he wants to apply. Historically, he's been a terrible test-taker, so I'm proud of him. This was his first try at the test.

 

I work on a college campus, and everyone I've talked to today has told me that their scores went down on their second try. What the...?

 

Were your students able to hike up their scores a smidgen? We've been doing test prep and all that, and planned to continue, targeting his weak areas. I had also thought he'd take the test at least one more time, if not twice. What are your thoughts on this?

[Paz]

I'd have him take the ACT. Ds did really well on the ACT and average on the SAT. Most colleges only asked for 1 or the other. We are in the south so I believe the ACT is used more here. It may depend on where he is applying.

[LoriM]

My daughter raised her scores from mid-500s(both verbal and math) when she was 15 to 700+ when she was 17. So, yes, I'd say you can raise your SAT scores. :) Oh, and her essay score went up from 8 to 12.

[Sandy in Indy]

Oh, it's absolutely possible. DD raised her math score 100 points on the second attempt. (Thank you Chalkdust!) Overall DS improved 30 points in his 3 attempts...and it was just enough to qualify him for a scholarship. Well worth the effort.

 

Somewhere I read that you can expect a 10 point bump in later attempts just based on the experience of having previously taken the test.

[Tokyomarie]

Tests taken several months beyond the first test are likely to result in higher scores both from continued study in the regular curriculum and from experience taking the test. Both of my daughters have had higher scores on re-testing taken at least 4-6 months after the first test.

 

What kind of test prep have you been doing? The test prep that made the most difference in our family was prep focused on learning the tricks of the SAT test-taking trade. Learning how to attack different types of questions commonly presented did more for my girls than any specific prep focused on vocabulary study or even just repeated practice answering questions.

 

Beyond that, I made sure they continued to read lots of classic literature & grapple with its content and hit the math study hard to keep learning additional concepts. My oldest didn't do any targeted vocabulary study outside what she did in her literature studies. My second child did continue a vocabulary study book as part of her language arts work.

[Maverick]

Absolutely they can be brought up. Math in particular can see a big jump (I've seen 100+ pts improvment) just from studying the specialized types of problems on the SAT and some test taking tricks. Studying grammar and vocab can help on the reading & writing tests, especially when studied along with strategies for using process of elimination, looking for common types of wrong answers, etc. I taught test prep at a Sylvan Learning Center and I'm convinced that scores can be improved with focused study.

[Chris in VA]

Ds' second attempt yielded a 150 pt increase in the Critical Reading and Writing sections, but a 50 decline in math. Go figure. He didn't do anything to prepare for the CR/W sections, and just continued in math. I think he was too slow on the calculator--but other than that, we can't figure out what happened. He took a test in June and in Oct.

[Kareni]

I also think a score increase is possible. We only paid for one true test; however, my daughter took a full test at home at the beginning of 10th and 11th grades before taking the actual SAT test in March. Each time her score increased to some extent. We tried to mimic the test conditions at home.

 

Congratulations to your son for his good first performance and best wishes to him if he elects to retake.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Nicole M]

This is encouraging. I was so surprised when all kinds of folks I talked to said their scores went down. The second time I make a recipe it never seems as good as the first time (overconfidence?) so I wondered if that was the same idea.

 

We did the same thing, Kareni, with the test at home. His scores improved significantly in the real test (100 points in each category) but still are on the low end of the range that most of the schools he is interested in are accepting.

 

My son has been working with a math tutor, and she has helped him with strategy quite a bit. His math scores were much higher than I expected. His biggest issue is that he is so incredibly slow. With most tests, he tends to not finish the problems, but get the ones he does finish correct. I have even considered having him tested for a learning issue, but am undecided on that.

 

His verbal scores were a little lower than what I expected. I feel he could bring those up. We have some materials that we haven't used, and I dusted those off today -- SAT vocabulary cards, for instance, with humorous images on them that help give a visual cue. I do the SAT questions of the day religiously (I love them! Except, of course, when they're math problems. ;)). I don't think he's doing them carefully, if he's doing them at all. We'll start doing them together.

 

I appreciate your encouragement. Thanks all!

[Pam "SFSOM" in TN]

My son, a junior, got his scores today and they are solid. Not stellar, not dismal, just fine. A little low, but within the range for students accepted at the schools where he wants to apply. Historically, he's been a terrible test-taker, so I'm proud of him. This was his first try at the test.

 

I work on a college campus, and everyone I've talked to today has told me that their scores went down on their second try. What the...?

 

Were your students able to hike up their scores a smidgen? We've been doing test prep and all that, and planned to continue, targeting his weak areas. I had also thought he'd take the test at least one more time, if not twice. What are your thoughts on this?

 

Ds raised his score in one and lowered in another simply by taking the test one more time. Because what the schools use to evaluate are the *highest* scores, it's fine that the other scores are reported. So he got a Very Nice bonus by taking a second time.

 

For example, if on one sitting a kid gets 530 math, 412 critical reading, 600 writing and the next time gets 450 math, 550 critical reading, and 620 writing, what is actually used to evaluate for entrance is 530 math, 550 cr, and 620 writing. (That is, if the school even uses the writing score, of course.)

 

AND he did test prep (with Bravewriter) for the writing section and brought up his score 130 points there. So yes, I'm a believer in focused short-term test prep for areas the student is satisfied with, and I'm a believer in re-taking the test. It made the difference in ds being able to attend his first choice school or not (merit scholarship-wise).

Edited April 9, 2009 by Pam "SFSOM" in TN

[Brigid in NC]

I definitely think that scores can be raised -- and raised considerably, with effort. This has been true for us on both the ACT and the SAT.

 

Here is a link to lots of good College Board info. Scroll down to "Repeating the Test" and you will find data on students who took the test from 1 to 5 times.

 

http://professionals.collegeboard.com/testing/sat-reasoning/scores/sat-data-tables

 

The average score for all test takers goes up in each re-take. Of course that is an average, and there are lots of factors involved in retakes that might not make this data applicable to all students. But it does show that, on average, scores do go up as more tests are taken.

 

Best of luck!

~Brigid