Approximating Necessary Study Time
| Improving from ___ to ___ | Estimated Time Needed |
|---|
| 1500-1600 | 5 Hours |
| 1600-1700 | 6 Hours |
| 1700-1800 | 8 Hours |
| 1800-1900 | 11 Hours |
| 1900-2000 | 15 Hours |
| 2000-2100 | 20 Hours |
| 2100-2200 | 26 Hours |
| 2200-2300 | 33 Hours |
| 2300-2350 | 21 Hours |
| 2350-2400 | 26 Hours |
*These are only approximations and will obviously vary from person to person.
You will note that improving higher scores takes significantly longer than improving lower ones. This is because it is easy to study for most questions because those types of questions come up over and over again. As a result, simple generic studying of content that appears on the SAT for several hours will sufficiently cover the material necessary to improve from a 1500 to a 1600. On the other hand, if you are only missing a few questions on every test, you will have to study a myriad of topics to prepare for the remote possibility of each topic showing up as a test question. In addition, those topics will not generally be covered under SAT preparation sections, so the only way to adequately prepare for every type of question would be to take many practice tests.
Figuring out what you need to work on is a much simpler task. The sections you perform worst on are probably the sections that you need to improve. Generally you can categorize questions according to sections:
Math
Multiple Choice
Grid-Ins
Any Specific Section of Math You Need to Work on (example: functions)
Critical Reading
Sentence Completions (Vocabulary)
Passage-Based Reading
Writing
Essay
Choosing the Best Sentence
Identifying the Error
Correcting the excerpt
