How to Score a 1500 on the SAT Exam: Strategies & Tips

Hello SAT aspirants! It’s official, beginning in 2023, the SAT Suite of Assessments will be offered digitally. When students take the SAT, it won’t simply be a digital version of the current paper and pencil test. It will be a better & more flexible test that’s easier to take, easier to give, more secure, and more relevant.
With this change to the SAT, how difficult is it going to be to score 1500+? It ain’t Impossible!!

If you are planning to take the SAT in March 2023, you should ideally have begun your preparation for the upcoming exam. With the right preparation, you can make it to the DSAT Hall of fame score of 1500+ too.

But before we move on to understand how to prepare to score 1500+, let’s quickly understand what the changes to the SAT are.

THIS BLOG INCLUDES:

1.What is the SAT?
2.What’s Staying the same on the SAT?
3.What’s Changing on the SAT?
4.SAT Multistage Adaptive Model
5.Section Level Changes
6.Tips on How to Get Good Marks of 1500+ SAT Score
7.Why are SAT Preparation Classes Necessary?

What is the SAT?

SAT builds on the same foundation as the paper pencil SAT and will continue to be recognized by all colleges/universities around the world for admissions abroad. Your SAT score is a significant factor for measuring the college readiness of a student and an attribute that increases your chances of getting admission to some of the best, prestigious colleges.

The Guiding Principles of the SAT

The SAT Suite builds on the firm foundations of the paper-and-pencil SAT Suite to make the digital-suite exams

• easier to take
• easier to give
• more secure
• more relevant

Easier to take

SAT Tests are:

• Roughly 1 hour shorter
• Pre and post-test activities and administrative time have been reduced
• SAT can be taken over a wide range of devices
• The tests are concise and focussed
• The test features numerous tools, such as a built-in graphing calculator as well as the ability to annotate and to flag questions

Easier to give

In the digital form, 

• There will be no more shipping, packing, unpacking and distributing of test materials.
• The test has fewer separately timed sections
• Test timing and administration is handled by the testing platform and not a proctor
• The test delivery platform will be tolerant of momentary interruptions in connectivity (whether network or battery related) without losing students’ work or time
• Student who experience brief interruption due to connectivity, can quickly resume with no loss of testing time
• If students should their device battery fully drain during testing, they can simply plug in, restart, and resume testing without loss of either testing time or their work
• Testing platform automatically saves the answer responses

More Secure

• The custom built delivery platform displays only one question
• Copying test content is almost zero
• Students copying from their test neighbours is greatly diminished( although this is a remote possibility)

More Relevant

With the digital tests, 

• The number and variety of contexts serving as the basis for test questions have been greatly increased
• There are many more opportunities for the tests to represent the diversity of people, experiences, and interests around the world
• The chances that students on test day will encounter passages that they find meaningful and personally interesting greatly increases

What’s Staying the Same on the SAT?

• DSAT will continue to measure the knowledge and skills that students are learning in school and that matter the most for college and career readiness
• Scores will remain on the same 1600 scale
• The test should be taken in school or at a test center
• Free practice resources will be available for everyone
• Students will continue to connect directly to scholarships

What’s Changing on the SAT?

• The test has to be taken on a laptop or tablet
• The test will now be multistage adaptive to fairly and accurately measure the same things with a shorter test preserving test reliability.
• The suite assessments are substantially shorter lasting 2 hours and 14 minutes as against 3 hours
• Test takers will have more time, on average, to answer each question
• Students will receive scores faster – in days instead of weeks
• The test will be more secure. It gives every student a highly comparable but unique test form
• There will be more flexibility for administering SAT suite tests digitally

SAT Multistage Adaptive Model

In this model, each test section (Reading & Writing; Math) is divided into two equal-length and separately timed stages, each has a module of questions. Students will begin by answering questions in the first module which will contain a mix of easy, medium and hard questions. The questions appearing in the second module broadly depend on the test taker’s achievement level and performance in the first module. Questions would be of higher or lower order of difficulty in the second module than in the first module. The test adapts to present questions that depend on the student’s performance level in the first module.

Section Level Changes

Reading & Writing

• There will be a single Reading and Writing section instead of separate Reading, Writing and Language tests
• Reading and writing sections will feature many shorter texts than a few long texts and students will see a wider range of topics that represent works that they read in college.
• A single discrete question is associated with each passage or passage pair

Math

• Calculators are allowed throughout the Math Section as against the No calculator sections on the Paper pencil SAT
• Students can bring in their own calculators (to be approved) or can make use of the inbuilt graphing calculator built directly into the testing application
• The average length of the in-context questions has been reduced.

Tips on How to Get Good Marks of 1500+ SAT Score

Tip#1. Familiarity With the SAT Assessment Suite and the Questions on the Test

The SAT exam is for a duration of 2 hrs and 14 minutes. The two broad categories you are tested on are the Math section and the Verbal section. The Math section tests Arithmetic, Algebra, Data interpretation and Geometry. The Verbal section test Reading & Writing.

SAT – Verbal Section: The verbal section is broken down into Reading and Writing sections.

The Reading section will consist of short passages under the 2 categories Craft & Structure and Information & Ideas.

These 2 categories contribute to more than 50% of the questions in the verbal section.

The Writing section will consist of passages and questions under Standard English conventions and Expression of ideas and contribute to around 45% of questions in the writing section.

Reading Section. It comprises 5 passages on the Topics of US/World Literature(1), History/Social Science(2), and Science(2). There are 52 questions and the time for this section is 65 minutes.

The Verbal section will have 2 modules to be attempted. Each module will have 25 operational or scored questions and 2 pre-test or unscored questions.

The difficulty level of the second module will depend on how well module 1 has been answered. So it becomes extremely important to make sure that you answer the questions in module 1 with the highest level of accuracy to target a high verbal score.

Math Section : The math section is broken down into the 4 categories, Algebra, Advanced math, Problem solving and Data Analysis and Geometry & Trigonometry. 30% of the questions on the math are set in context and deal with applying math skills and understanding the context.

70% of the questions on the math section would be without context but the number of words expected on a math question would be less than or equal to 50. Any extraneous information is completely done away with on the SAT.

There will be limited information available to work on the question.

Student produced responses: These are question types where the candidate is expected to work on a question and plug in the answer. There would be no options available to choose.

SPR – Student produced responses on the SAT accept 5 characters for positive numbers and 6 characters for negative numbers. With the chances of getting negative numbers as the answer, it is also better to become familiar with working with negative ugly numbers.

This is one of the ways in which the rigor and stamina is maintained on the SAT despite the fact that the calculator is allowed on the entire math section.

In the math section, you will have to work around 20 operational or scored questions and 2 pre-test or unscored questions. Being a multistage adaptive test, the difficulty level of questions on the second module in the math section depends on how you perform in the first module.

Tip #2. Join An Online SAT Prep Course

To ace the SAT, you need a guide and mentor. SAT Online coaching (at least till the pandemic is under control) is a must. Whether you take up a one-to-one course or go for a batch is completely up to you. But SAT exam preparation can be at its best when you have a structured online course. You can check out the different course variants we provide at Manya to help with this.

Why are SAT Preparation Classes Necessary?

You may be good at solving questions. You may be one who excels in Grammar, or maybe even one who rocks at Reading comprehension questions. But, the most important question to ask yourself is – How long do you take for 1 question? Do you have the skills to answer accurately within a stipulated time?

It may not be so. Hence, it is recommended that you enroll in an SAT online course to learn strategies, techniques, and skills to beat the time per question.
If you haven’t enrolled yet, this would be an ideal time to do so. Around two and a half months’ time in hand should prepare you well for the August test.

Manya – The Princeton Review Advantage

Manya – The Princeton Review offers end-to-end study abroad services encompassing admissions consulting services, test preparation, English language training, career assessment, and international internship opportunities to study abroad aspirants. Founded in 2002, Manya holds an impeccable track record of enabling more than 4 lac students to accomplish their study abroad dreams through its network of 47+ centers across India.

Manya has formed long-lasting global alliances with several market leaders in the education industry in order to maximize the benefits of its large service portfolio. Their list of esteemed partners and affiliations includes – The Princeton Review (TPR), Cambridge University Press (CUP), Cogito Hub, British Council, Tuding to name a few. Manya has also forged 600+ partnerships with international universities across top study abroad destinations.