{"id":1695,"date":"2014-03-11t09:34:24","date_gmt":"2014-03-11t09:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/sat\/?p=1695"},"modified":"2015-04-14t23:44:53","modified_gmt":"2015-04-14t23:44:53","slug":"student-post-jens-experience-with-the-sat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/student-post-jens-experience-with-the-sat\/","title":{"rendered":"student post: jen’s experience with the sat"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"jentoday, we’re hearing about jen’s experience with the sat. she has some great tips on studying (and on life as well!). thanks, jen! \ud83d\ude42\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

about me:<\/strong><\/em> hello! my name is giang but everyone calls me jen. i’m an\u00a0exchange student from vietnam and now living with my host family in\u00a0mccordsville, indiana. this cultural exchange program has encouraged me to\u00a0come back to the united states in order to study hospitality management. i\u00a0will probably apply to indiana university or purdue university with\u00a0acceptance of financial aid or a high scholarship. of course, the sat is one of\u00a0the main factors to help me achieve this goal. outside of school, studying,\u00a0college, and a billion serious things in the “adult world”, i have tons of interesting hobbies. i love trying new things, outdoor activities,\u00a0traveling, drawing (emphatically), playing piano and guitar. helping people\u00a0is a source of my happiness and spending time with my families (now i have\u00a02) can’t be replaced by anything.<\/p>\n

how did the sat become my biggest enemy?:<\/strong><\/em> i can hardly hate anything in\u00a0my life (i think my life is awesome!) until the sat became the biggest challenge\u00a0for me on the path to college. seriously, i even cried before sleeping\u00a0because my sat score on the practice test was terrible. so the first\u00a0challenge<\/strong> i had to overcome was my abhorrence for the sat<\/strong>. the second one is\u00a0probably the critical reading section (i mean…who doesn’t struggle with\u00a0this?). before i came to the united states, i rarely read books in english.\u00a0i would blame myself for being lazy. the challenge is i can’t comprehend\u00a0what i just read or understand why the author mentions this or that,\u00a0blah…blah… sometimes the context or topic is not familiar to me so i\u00a0had to reread it over and over again and still barely grasp the meaning of the\u00a0passages.<\/p>\n

how did the sat become my teacher?:<\/em> <\/strong>each difficulty is an opportunity and\u00a0i find it completely right in this situation. the sat really requires\u00a0persistence and a lot of determination if you want a high score. critical\u00a0reading taught me to read actively. i would never force myself to pay\u00a0attention to the detail and understand the reading if this\u00a0section in the test had not challenged me. i understand that when i get into\u00a0college, reading is an extremely important skill. this is a great\u00a0opportunity for me to practice and improve my comprehension. math taught me\u00a0to use strategies to win because this section is sometimes very tricky.\u00a0it’s a lesson of life.<\/strong> writing trained me to focus on necessary parts –\u00a0parts that give me points. as long as i understand what the graders need,\u00a0i will write the right sentence that they look for. also, i really like to\u00a0write and express myself so learning new words helps me use a variety of\u00a0vocabulary and sound smart. i can see the improvement in my writing over\u00a0time. oh, i forgot to mention that i really like the sat essay questions\u00a0(although the essay section intimidates me most). they are always important\u00a0lessons or controversial problems in our society – worthy of thinking about.<\/p>\n

how did i become a good student of the sat?:<\/strong><\/em> i forced myself to stay\u00a0positive and focus (one of my biggest problems). before the first time i\u00a0took the sat, i had several things to work on. first, i printed a pile of\u00a0sat new words which at the time i knew none of them. i set a goal of 20 new\u00a0words a day, no delay. because of my forgetful brain, i can’t memorize\u00a0formulaic and boring things. i came up with interesting stories or related\u00a0concepts to help me memorize new words. for example, “callow” makes me\u00a0think of “low” so it means immature, inexperience, low. another way that\u00a0has helped me a lot is to learn prefixes, suffixes and the roots of words\u00a0or etymology. believe me, these are incredibly useful. traditionally,\u00a0students make flashcards or things like that but these ways make me die in\u00a0boredom. so, be creative with everything you do.<\/strong> with math, i studied\u00a0formulas and did a lot of practice exercises. except those who are math\u00a0geniuses – they just do it. i can’t. the only thing that helped me is to\u00a0believe working hard will pay off. the writing section is even really like math, even\u00a0the essay. i recommend the book “how to ace the sat essay even when you\u00a0hate to write”. i raised 3 points in my sat essay. of course, i had to\u00a0write almost 20 essays to practice, not only reading the book would give\u00a0me such an improvement. (duh!) as soon as you get familiar with the\u00a0format of the test, types of questions, formulas, the length and time of\u00a0the test, you will feel comfortable with it.<\/p>\n

okay. just giving advice may not be persuasive enough. this is what i\u00a0got on my first test: 1490. it couldn’t be worse. i’m not embarrassed to share\u00a0this with you because it’s not about the score. it’s about how i overcame\u00a0myself and made improvement. the second time i got 1720. it’s not high but\u00a0not bad. i raised 230 points in almost 2 months. i practiced with the magoosh\u00a0one-month study guide<\/a> and it was incredibly helpful. i was persistently\u00a0doing the practice questions every single day and keeping track of my\u00a0improvement data. i’m telling you: it was difficult but i did it. don’t\u00a0hesitate to ask questions. magoosh supporters are the most enthusiastic and\u00a0conscientious people. however, remember to check carefully before asking.\u00a0that way you will be able to kind of self-criticize a little bit.<\/p>\n

thank\u00a0you for reading this super-long post. i hope students who have just started\u00a0studying for the sat test will not freak out and those who are trying to\u00a0achieve a 2000 on sat like me will get what they want eventually \ud83d\ude42 we can\u00a0all do it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

feeling inspired? check out magoosh sat<\/a> and find the prep plan that’ll help you become a better sat student!<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

today, we’re hearing about jen’s experience with the sat. she has some great tips on studying (and on life as well!). thanks, jen! \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 about me: hello! my name is giang but everyone calls me jen. i’m an\u00a0exchange student from vietnam and now living with my host family in\u00a0mccordsville, indiana. this cultural exchange program has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[36,25],"ppma_author":[24881],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nstudent post: jen's experience with the sat - magoosh blog | high school<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/student-post-jens-experience-with-the-sat\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"student post: jen's experience with the sat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"today, we’re hearing about jen’s experience with the sat. she has some great tips on studying (and on life as well!). thanks, jen! \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 about me: hello! my name is giang but everyone calls me jen. i’m an\u00a0exchange student from vietnam and now living with my host family in\u00a0mccordsville, indiana. this cultural exchange program has […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/student-post-jens-experience-with-the-sat\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"magoosh blog | high school\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/magooshsat\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-03-11t09:34:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-04-14t23:44:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/sat\/files\/2014\/02\/jen-sat-209x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"rachel wisuri\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@magooshsat_act\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@magooshsat_act\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"rachel wisuri\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"article\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/student-post-jens-experience-with-the-sat\/#article\",\"ispartof\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/student-post-jens-experience-with-the-sat\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"rachel wisuri\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#\/schema\/person\/3308fcbb0711c4ed38d0110d33890cba\"},\"headline\":\"student post: jen’s experience with the sat\",\"datepublished\":\"2014-03-11t09:34:24+00:00\",\"datemodified\":\"2015-04-14t23:44:53+00:00\",\"mainentityofpage\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/student-post-jens-experience-with-the-sat\/\"},\"wordcount\":1039,\"commentcount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"about the sat\",\"magoosh community\"],\"articlesection\":[\"sat\"],\"inlanguage\":\"en-us\",\"potentialaction\":[{\"@type\":\"commentaction\",\"name\":\"comment\",\"target\":[\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/student-post-jens-experience-with-the-sat\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"webpage\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/student-post-jens-experience-with-the-sat\/\",\"url\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/student-post-jens-experience-with-the-sat\/\",\"name\":\"student post: jen's experience with the sat - 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