Psat Scores? :-(?

Question

I got like a 1160. Which I think isn't great. The college I want to go in to wants a 1300. Which is like 140 more. How can I improve. I did bad on the reading and the writing. How can I improve those skills. English is like my 2 language. I am 4.0 student taking hard classes like honors and AP soon. I am very good at math. How can I bring those scores up. I take the SAT Question Of the day. I think that is kindha improving me. I really want to get in to that college. PLEASE HELP.

Answer 1

This site offers free pratice tests or search "psats" for much more help



http://www.petersons.com/testprep/practice_test.asp?id=436&sponsor=1&path=ug.pft.psat

Answer 2

Ideas:
1) before the test: take as many practice exams as possible and study ONLY your mistakes. focus hard on why you missed the ones you missed, so that you understand the concepts and never make the same mistakes again (because you will see the same questions, or very similar ones, on the real test). Too many people, when they take practice tests, go back over the questions they got right...big waste of time. I got pretty good scores on the high school exams (high 1400s) with no real preparation, but actually improved that by 7%+ on my grad school entrance exam by doing just what I said above. 7%+ for you would get you to 1240-1250, and you should probably have more upside than that.
2) This will take more effort than just taking an SAT question of the day. If you're serious about this (and unfortuantely, you probably should be), treat it almost like another school subject (i.e., if you spend 8 hrs a week on your math class, spend at least 3 or 4 a week working on this until you get better).
3) during the test: on every question, identify immediately whether the question you're looking at is easy or hard. Any question that's going to take you much longer than a normal one, assuming similar point values, you absolutely have to skip it and come back later. this is crucial, way too many people run out of time and leave tons of easy questions on the table because they got tied up on the hard ones.
4) also during the test: have fun. Seriously, don't treat it as life or death, approach it as an enjoyable intellectual exercise. I'm not saying to relax and fool around, just walk in with purpose, focus, and positive attitude. that alone will put you ahead of 80% of the people there.
5) All that said, it is true that the PSAT is really only useful for getting into the range for a National Merit Scholarship, it doesn't really count for anything else. And with great grades like you have and some good extracurriculars, you can probably get in to 90% of the schools out there. But if you're looking at the top, top few, they will often favor people with great scores and good grades over the reverse (believe me, I know this from my own and my friends' experience.) So you are probably right to put some extra focus on this, and fortunately, you have some time ahead of you before it starts to matter much.
Good luck

Answer 3

PSAT's are just a practice before taking the real SAT's. If you got that high on your PSAT's they will go up on the SAT. That is a fact for most people. Also, SAT's dont make or break your chances of getting into the college you really want. I am a college freshman and went through the same thing.

If you try reading harder material that usually helps, because a major portion of the Reading section on the SAT is vocabulary.