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SAT Advice for a Foreign Student?
An anonymous reader asks: "I am a student from the UK who is currently in the process of applying to a university in the US. This means that I need to take the SAT Reasoning Test. I have read study guides and seen sample questions, but the more I look around the more I seem to be seeing general 'study skills' information aimed primarily at explaining how to learn rather than what to learn, which results in a lot of pages to work through for seemingly little data. What would help me immensely is any kind of resource aimed at an audience unfamiliar with the tests. Does anyone have a link to a list of exactly what I am expected to know and in what detail I need to know it, as well as anything else that can help me prepare for the exams?"
A prep course isn't absolutely necessary. I didn't take one and did just fine.
Neither are the SATs if it comes to that. I didn't take them and I did just fine. It depends on who you are and the quality of the school. In fact, the better the school, the less necessary they are.
KFG
It's a logic test - says so right on the thing. What do you need to know? 9th grade math and a decent array of English language words. Beyond that, it's completely up to your brain. The guides you're seeing aren't telling you how to learn; they're telling you how to read and understand the questions, and how to beat the test's tricks. Understanding what the SAT is and knowing how to handle its questions is about 80% of the test. The rest is general knowledge they're expecting most people to have. Honestly, if you're a bright kid, there should be nothing holding you back from scoring a near-perfect SAT score if you have a solid 8th grade education.
The SAT isn't testing your math or language skills; it's testing your ability to reason. As such, it's testing something that's innate (re: ability vs training). The prep classes, study guides, and sample questions are geared toward teaching you how to approach the test itself and the questions. They teach you about how the test is scored, how to pick apart the wording of the questions, and what kind of attitude to take with it. Frankly, if you need help with the knowledge end of things, no prep class on Earth is going to save you. Without the basic knowledge (and we really are talking about basic - 8th grade - knowledge), no amount of reasoning or test taking skills is going to save you.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
I agree completely. And you can take a year abroad in the U.S. (wait until you're 21) and do some research for professors who will want to bring you back for graduate school.
You seem to have totally missed the point. The SAT is an American standard. The person asking the question is from the UK. Despite Tony Blair's efforts, the UK is still not part of the USA.
Exactly why do you think that a person from the UK would know the content of American tests, and how many prep classes for American tests do you think that there are in the UK?
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