From Quora: "How can I improve my SAT score from an 1100 to a 1500 in 3 months?"

I can’t promise any specific increase in your SAT score, especially not a 400-point increase into the 1500s. A 1500 SAT score is between the 97th and 98th percentile, meaning it’s better than the scores more than 97% of students who take it get. An 1100 is a bit above the 53rd percentile. So you’re looking at going from a very average (okay, very slightly above average) score to an elite “killer” score.
You certainly can increase your score significantly by using resources available to you. First of all, use the Khan Academy SAT prep materials - they’re free, and they’re the official SAT prep materials of the College Board (who makes the SAT). You can find them here: Khan Academy


I’d also recommend a good SAT prep book. I do not believe the College Board’s Official SAT Guide (the book with the blue cover) is a good SAT prep book, although it is the official SAT prep book. The reason is, the SAT people aren’t going to teach you the tricks you can use when you don’t understand, or don’t have time to solve, a problem. I normally use the Barron’s SAT books, since they explain things well, and their problems are slightly harder than the real SAT problems (it’s better to practice for a harder test and find the real test easy than to practice for an easier test and find the real test very hard). Any commercial book (Barron’s, Kaplan, Princeton Review, Gruber) aimed at the post-2016 SAT (aka “the NEW SAT!”) should work just fine for SAT review- if money’s tight, you can probably get a book from 2016, 2017, 2018, or 2019 for free or very cheap (as in $5.00 online, including shipping, or literally a dime at a public library sale), or you can just use your public library’s copy for free (don’t write in it, please!).


If you do everything the Khan Academy and the Barron’s (or whatever) book tells you to do, and practice the things you don’t understand, you will do very well on the SAT. Easy places to make gains include the passage editing/grammar section, basic math, trigonometry, imaginary numbers, and the like.


You can improve your reading comprehension by learning word roots, suffixes, and prefixes (there are MANY sites online that will teach you that), and looking up words you don’t know when you read for school or for pleasure. I know you can figure out words from the context, but the actual meanings of words may surprise you. You can also learn to do the SAT essay well by reading opinion pieces in newspapers (online is fine), listening to YouTube videos and podcasts, and reading any online argument.
You can also learn some things by watching my YouTube channel: John Linneball Tutoring


Hope this helps,


John