My 16 year old daughter took the SAT recently for the first time. It was a practice SAT from the College Board website. I was worried because she hasn't taken any prep courses nor practice tests, this served as her first "real" SAT practice test. She goes to a good school and they have certain prep courses that she will take. I plan on enrolling her in TestMasters in hopes of score improvement. I was pleasantly surprised with her score of 1380.

She is scheduled to take the test Dec 3 and again either Jan 21 or later.

How accurate are the College Board practice tests if administered under exact testing conditions?

How much improvement can one realistically expect from a prep course like TestMasters?

TIA.

Check out my profile for my contact information.

The practice SAT is relatively close and can be a reliable measure for improvement. Our students who follow our curriculum are seeing gains in the 160 - 220 point range. So yes these services can work if your child does the work.

A student can study and improve their scores because the SAT/ACT each test fundamental concepts, ones that you can practice and practice some more to get better.

The two tests are very similar in format and structure, but different enough that some students may perform better on one than the other. Test prep professionals can examine scores from each and give a recommendation for which test a student should allocate their efforts to.

We can provide test prep for either SAT or ACT and our results and price for services can not be beaten.

Also, is your daughter a junior or a senior? If she is a junior, I caution her from taking the tests too soon. Some of the more elite colleges will ask for her to report all of her scores, so you need to be strategic with the tests you take and how often you take them.

I give free consultations and would love to chat about your daughter's college preparation efforts.

She's a junior and plays softball. She's being looked at by A&M, tu, BU, TT, and others. She will most likely be on athletic scholarship but I like as much information as possible.

I proctored the test per the instructions to ensure test day accuracy. If her score is more accurately reflected at even 1300 and gained 140 points, that would be an exciting 1440.

Noice.

Kid's PSAT scores came in today. They were NM range great. But he wants a prep course before the PSAT that counts in October. He wants, needs, must have a 1600 on that one.

That is the way he has always been about everything. Our greatest achievement is not messing that up, so far.

Kids.

Can anyone recommend a program to reach PSAT perfection in Austin?

The PSAT is just a short version of the SAT; both are administered by the College Board. So any SAT preparation course will also prep for the PSAT.

I don't know anything about Austin prep courses, but they should be pretty similar to what's available anywhere. We live in the Phoenix area and used the web course from Testmasters.com, which is based in Sugar Land. Testmasters.net is an entirely different company, based in California.

My oldest son did very well on the PSAT and SAT, which is why he is studying engineering at A&M. My next two sons did much better on the ACT than the SAT. (These were the old SATs, which scored to 2400 and penalized for guessing).

It's easy finding top baseball coaches in this town. Sad I have no idea where to find coaching for something that matters. Kid does 35+ hours/week of baseball in the summer plus will be wanting to work on getting his drivers license and lots of other summertime stuff.

Testmasters does offer one-on-one tutoring in most locations.

Here is some insight from someone who has taken the SAT in the past two years.
1. A month and a half is not enough time in between tests. There will be no time for improvement in between.
2. Test masters showed no improvement for me, but that's common for people scoring on the higher end. I scored a 1450 on the new scale before test masters and actually ended up lowering my score after test masters. Test masters teaches basic test strategies and for students on the lower end it helps a lot but won't offer much help to students on the higher end.

If you're interested in virtual, private tutoring, feel free to contact me. I've helped a variety of students improve their scores.

One poster stated how it can be difficult to improve those with the higher scores. Students of this variety need a tutor who can accurately diagnose their weaknesses and improve through repetition.

My contact info is in my profile and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

My daughter took a second College Board sample SAT one week after her first and vastly improved. She scored a 1490 and told me reviewing the mistakes from her first and touching up on the content aspects of her incorrect answers aided her tremendously. She felt extremely comfortable taking the Dec 3 official SAT. We haven't enrolled in any prep courses but if her score comes back and it's not reflective of her sample tests we will.

Every student is different, but there are broad categories. I took and did well on both the GMAT and the LSAT. In both cases, I used Barrons or something similar and just took a lot of practice exams. Then, after each exam I looked at the questions I missed. If I missed it because I did not know the subject matter well, then I reviewed the relevant matter summaries. Then, after a week, another practice exam, etc. This also helps with speed.

Come to think of it, I used the same strategy for the Multistate Bar Exam. Lot's of exams and review. So I never went to a formal class for any of my standardized tests.

For the ACT, ACT actually publishes The Official ACT Prep Guide, with actual exam questions. There is nothing similar from the College Board. My youngest sons used this guide exclusively and both got 33s. This was better percentile-wise than they did on the SAT. All 4-year schools accept the ACT and more students nationally are taking the ACT.

Yeah, that's what we're looking for, we know what he missed. He also took the SAT in 7th grade and is really good at testing. The kid is motivated.

We are looking to start this summer.

People from the high school seem to think it's silly to want a higher score. We have found "love the SAT", but are still looking. Clearly, if you have the time, buy the book and do-it-yourself is the best option.

I got a good recommendation for cramcrew Houston if anyone from Houston is looking.

Wow, scale wasn't 1600. Max PSAT was 760 in each part.

Noice.