How to Improve Your SAT Reading and Writing Score: 8 Strategies

Every aspirant at some stage or the other struggles with scoring an SAT reading and writing score between 300 and 500. So, you are sure not alone in this rat race.

However, working through the cut throat competition and excelling in the reading and writing sections of SAT requires you to prepare strategically with more determination and more importantly to possess the ability to solve problems under pressure, or so to say, time constraints.

Thus, you not only need to work on your reading and writing skills, but also with your time management skills.

In this blog, we would be discussing the 8 different strategies, which are sure to help you improve your SAT reading and writing score around 600. So, make sure you stick around and read along.

8 Strategies to Improving your SAT Reading and Writing Score

First and foremost, you need to clearly understand that scoring high wouldn’t be a cake walk. You need to work on your foundations before anything else and then start working your way up keeping a target score in mind. In this case, it is highly recommended that you target a score of 600, so you know what it would take to prepare for a higher score like that.

Here are the 8 strategies to help you overcome all your hurdles and improve your SAT reading and writing score.

1. Start working on your Reading skills

Talking about the reading section, you can imagine how reading long comprehensions can be time consuming. And time is all that you will be worried about. Simultaneously, you would have to work on your paragraph comprehension to be able to answer the questions more accurately.

To excel in this section, all you would need is to work on your reading habits. You must read actively, be able to summarize points at the end of every paragraph, indulge in the finest and most diverse study resources, and most importantly, try to emphasize on important points, phrases, examples, etc.

2. Understand the exam pattern

It is extremely important for you to familiarize the exam pattern and look into the format of the SAT reading and writing sections to help you get a better hold of what would be required of you and keep any last minute surprises at bay.

To get started, the reading section consists of 52 questions, and the writing and language section consists of 44 questions. You can expect reading topics around social sciences, current affairs, literature, science, history, etc. where you would have to focus on the main essence, ideas, tiny details, etc. And similarly, in the writing section, you will have to work on your effective communication skills, vocabulary, grammar, etc.

3. Work on your weaknesses and understand your mistakes

For this, you would have to go through a lot of practice tests. This will gradually help you to understand your weaknesses better and help you work on your areas of improvement. Also, learning from each and every one of your mistakes will take you a step further towards success. Eventually, this will help you build your confidence, particularly at the time of the actual test, and help you eliminate any possibility of repeated mistakes.

4. Work on your time management skills

This is one of the most critical aspects of the SAT exams. Usually students find it extremely difficult to solve all the given questions in the given time limit. Therefore, managing your time effectively, and by that we mean, setting a time limit for all the reading passages, writing sections, etc. comes in very handy.

5. Work on practicing multichoice questions

Again, we all know that practice makes a man perfect. However, in case of multichoice questions, it is always good to believe your gut, but then, your gut should also know quite a few things, such as the ability of eliminating the 3 wrong answers confidently.

You need to be 100% sure of the right answer, as all the other 3 are there to confuse you further. So, it is imperative that you work on your analytical abilities as well as your time management skills. And for that, you will have to practice a lot.

6. Get your updates on the SAT trends

It is highly advisable to keep yourself updated with any changes in the format or pattern of the exam or questions in it. For that, a best practice would be to solve the latest question papers. If you look at the recent trends, it seems that the SAT questions are focused more around data interpretation skills, which implies you need to constantly keep your eyes on the same.

7. Work on mental agility

You need to break your preparation time into manageable levels and limits that would help you focus better. For example, you could take some quick grammar questionnaires, spend some time working on your comprehension reading and analyzing skills, and also have set timers to solve test papers.

8. Work on prioritizing the questions

This is another important aspect of scoring in the SAT exams. You should start by solving the easier questions first to leave your with enough time to work on the tricky ones. Also, you can anytime skip a question that you find more time consuming, mark it and revisit it at a later point when you have some time left in your hands. This way, you would be able to manage your time efficiently.

Conclusion

Considering the overall format of the reading and writing sections of the SAT exams, you clearly need a lot of practice around time management, data interpretation and solving full length tests for that added dose of confidence.

Eduquest is here to help you establish that confidence and begin by working on your foundational principles and knowledge of the exam pattern. Leave your struggles with us and we will lead you on the path to success with many more brilliant study strategies to score well in your SAT reading and writing sections.