If you didn’t know, you can take the SAT during your sophomore year. However, don’t expect to get a perfect score this early on. Let’s discuss what the average SAT score for sophomores is and what you can do to improve it.

Here’s a rundown of SAT scores schools are looking for in 2020.

What’s An Average SAT Score For Sophomores

The answer isn’t as bad as you’ll think.

In general, 1300 is a good, solid score for a sophomore attempt at the SAT. While it’s definitely not 1600, remember that the SAT is taken mostly by high school juniors and seniors. Getting a 1300 with two full years of eligibility and practice left is a great place to be.

Ways To Improve The Average SAT Score For Sophomores

Take Challenging Classes

Get yourself into classes that sharpen up your critical thinking skills.

Shoving information into your brain alone won’t guarantee a perfect SAT score. The SAT doesn’t just examine what you know alone. Because it is standardized, the SAT tests students’ knowledge regardless of their school district’s teaching quality.

Where challenging classes make a difference is in developing your critical thinking. Knowledge alone isn’t enough. You have to also sharpen up on how to think through a problem.

The critical thinking skills you develop will pay off on SAT test day. You’ll have new skills like:

• Identifying inconsistencies fast
• Recognizing biases fast
• Interpreting data more accurately
• Recognizing patterns in context

All of these individual skills are crucial for critical thinking and analysis questions, which show up a lot on the SAT.

Read A Lot Of Different Things

Don’t skimp on reading before the SAT.

Reading a lot during sophomore year is crucial before taking the SAT. Why? Because you’re exposing yourself to a lot of different pieces of information:

• New vocabulary words
• Different genres and styles
• Different perspectives

Also, while reading, you’ll pick up tools for the Reading section:

• How to recognize literary devices
• Identifying point of view and tone
• Analyzing biases
• Recognizing forms of persuasion

Those skills will be very important when analyzing Reading section passages and questions. Don’t limit yourself to fiction or non-fiction either. Read both, from short stories to scientific journal articles.

Anything you can get your hands on that relates to Reading section topics should be on your shelf. You’ll be prepared for the different reading passage types on test day finally.”

Practice Your Writing Skills

Being a strong writer pays off on the SAT.

Despite being optional, we always recommend practicing for the SAT Essay for these reasons:

High score set apart applicants from from students who skip it in college admission board eyes’, You’re better equipped for college-level writing assignments.

Being a stronger writer here doesn’t mean becoming overly creative right away. Instead, the focus should be on building up your craft. Important skills to practice include:

• Building a rich vocabulary
• Practicing writing with different sentence structures
• Ability to analyze written passages

If you need help, don’t be afriad to ask your teachers for feedback on written assignments. Work on any specific problem areas both you and them notice. Also, look at attending any afterschool writing workshops or clubs.

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