Stuck at 1300 on the SAT and I genuinely don't know what to do anymore (700 Math, 600 RW)

[u/Dense_Motor89]

I'm genuinely desperate for some advice right now because I feel like I've hit a wall.

I'm stuck at around 1300, with 700 in Math and 600 in Reading and Writing. The thing is, I can get almost all the questions from 17–27 right, but the first 17 questions are absolutely destroying me.

I've tried sitting down and solving questions from the Question Bank, but I'm STILL getting so many of them wrong. Even when I ask ChatGPT to explain the questions I got wrong, I try to understand the explanation, and somehow I still get similar questions wrong afterward. It's genuinely frustrating because I feel like I'm putting in the effort but not seeing any improvement.

Reading is another huge problem. English isn't my first language, so some questions and answer choices are difficult for me to understand. Vocabulary is especially bad right now. I literally got all 10 vocabulary questions wrong recently, and that honestly crushed me.

My goal for November is a 1500, which means I need to get my RW score from 600 to around 700–720, and right now that feels almost impossible.

I'm not looking for someone to tell me to just practice more. I AM practicing. I need to understand WHY my approach isn't working and what I should actually change.

For people who improved their RW from around 600 to 700+:

- How did you improve your vocabulary without trying to memorize thousands of random words? (that without looking the word try to answer strategy is NOT WORKING for some of the words cuz i genuinely dont understand all 4 sometimes)

- What did you do when you kept getting Question Bank questions wrong, even after reviewing the explanations?

- What resources or specific study methods actually helped you improve?

I'd genuinely appreciate any advice, especially from people who were in a similar situation. I'm feeling pretty lost right now and need a better strategy because what I'm doing clearly isn't working.

[u/gaussx]

1300 is a good score. What are you targeting?

[u/Dense_Motor89 → u/gaussx]

1500 exactly

[u/EggplantMaleficent52]

quick q, are you running out of time on RW or finishing with time left? honestly i think vocab and reading are your whole gap. the sat keeps reusing the same academic words like undermine tentative corroborate mitigate, so id learn the high frequency ones first before grinding more question bank.

[u/Dense_Motor89 → u/EggplantMaleficent52]

Yes i am running out of time as well, i start with 17th qs and from there i get all of the qs right as its just rules..But then the only thing that im NOT able to understand AT ALLLL is the first 1 to 17 one im trying my best to solve but im getting all of tjem wrong from the qs bank asw.. Vocab too i got all 10 wrong😭💔

Can u please suggest where i can get the high frequency vocab list.. iv been seeing many but half of them are paid and some are like reallly hard ones which dont even come. The words u used were the exact ones i got wrong😭

[u/EggplantMaleficent52 → u/Dense_Motor89]

honestly the best free list is one you build from the question bank. filter words in context on medium and hard and write down every answer choice you dont know with its sentence. thats exactly the level they test. and for 1-17 start with medium before hard, and dont spend more than like 90 sec on any of them

[u/dannyzaplings]

This extension helps you find your biggest opportunity areas and target them. If you create a free account, you can import your practice test answers, which will give you a starting point of which areas to target.
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/gbibjbenldncjbondmfoemnjhcfkbgge?utm_source=item-share-cb

[u/College_Test_Coach]

Step away from the practice questions for a bit. Read the Atlantic, Economist, New Yorker, or Wall Street Journal most days. When you hit a word you don't know, guess from the sentence, then look it up and write it in a notebook with the sentence so you have context.

How are you doing with grammar and the other reading sections?

Remember, most schools allow you to super score. So, for November, focus on moving the 600

[u/Jazzlike-Movie-930 → u/College_Test_Coach]

I would also recommend reading books like Moby Dick, Robinson Crusoe, Frankenstein, the Scarlet Letter, Brave New World, etc. These books have a plethora of esoteric vocabulary words in these books similar to the vocabulary of that used in the SAT and ACT. If anyone reads these arduous but exciting books, I will guarantee that any person will ameliorate their vocabulary while reading these books. Of course, if the person is assigned another book in English class, stick with that book. But if the person is given a free read, then read any of these books mentioned. FYI, I remember reading these books in high school and read four of them in my senior year of high school. Heck, I remember in my 12th grade English class, that I had to write a book report/summary in my own words of about 4-5 pages and had to give a 3 minute speech in class of the summary/book report in my own words. Another was to pick an essay topic for one of the books and also write about it for 4-5 pages and again give a 3 minute speech about my writing. I also remember doing vocabulary quizzes (from the books that I read) and open book reading comprehension quizzes and rarely did grammar quizzes for my 12th. grade English class. That said, my 12th grade English class was not far off from the difficulty of my AP Language and Composition class in high school and Freshman Composition courses at my University. The bottom line is that people need to read challenging texts and perhaps take challenging English classes (e.g., AP English Language and Composition, AP English Literature and Composition, etc.) so they will be prepared for the SAT and/or ACT.

[u/Keyboard_bay]

Oh noo that sounds really frustrating, I'm kinda in the same boat but I found that for vocab words learning root words, prefixes, and suffixes help a lot even if you don't know what the word means since you can make a guess with your knowledge of root words. Honestly for questions that you keep getting wrong I would recommend just figuring out why you specifically got something wrong (maybe making small mistakes, not knowing a concept, not understanding the question, etc) and how you can get it right next time (I like asking someone who does know how to solve it to explain it to me, or you can use google) and then I do the same type of questions for like an hour. I would also recommend trying out a lot of different study techniques to see which one is the most effective (lowkey for me I just sit down for 6-8 hours and grind questions, but that doesn't work for everyone).But don't feel too bad about your score, it's a pretty good one! Good luck!!