Im an american citizen but I've lived in Europe my whole life. I've always planned on going back for University, now that it is time to do so, I found out I need to take the SATs. The SAME SATs you all take. In english. I can't do it! I've never studied MATH in english, I definitely will not be able to pass the reading/wriing part of it since the only english I ever speak is during the summer when I visit my cousins! I speak fluently, but I'm way beind in the other areas. And it's not like all I need to do is PASS, I need really OUTSTANDING scores. How do I prepare? I've heard in America you have special books that help you and professors and all sorts of preparations. I don't think I'll be able to get ahold of that kind of material. What should I do? If you've taken the SATs, and you know it was hard for you, and you sense that I wont be able to do it (becase I only have 2 months to practice for it) please tell me now, so I wont put myself through the pain of spending my whole summer studying for it to find out I failed.
Do I have a shot here? Was it hard? How should I prepare? What kind of things came on the test that I should ractice on? Thank you!
Your best shot is to come back to the US and take an SAT class.
The SAT math questions aren't hard, they're just tricky. They screw around with the way the words are arranged in the question to trick you. make sure you are fully awake during the math portion and read each question carefully.
Also, try to buy an SAT practice book, in the back of the book, there should be several rip out notecards that have vocabulary words on them. Rip out those words and study every single one of those words. They will provide a great deal of help on the SAT
As for the grammar part, you might want to have take a english grammar class for it. Whether here or in Europe. If you normally don't write english, then the grammar section will be ridiculously hard for you.
Visit collegeboard.com and check out their timed writes. Do as many of those as possible. Keep in the mind that the essay portion of the SAT asks you "bullshit" questions. They ask you questions with answers that are impossible to prove, such as , "Is capitalism morally corrupt?" Keep in mind they don't care about what your answer is, they care about how you answer it. For example, (although this would never happen) if they asked the question "was the holocaust a horrible even in history?" and you answered no, but managed to answer it in an eloquent way and supported your viewpoint with well written arguments, you would get a decent score, unless if some holocaust survivor grades your paper of course...
In addition, American universities also look at other aspects in your life when it comes to accepting you for their college. If you are good at any sports, such as track, you could possibly get a scholarship. Also, knowing a second language should help you with your chances of getting in college.
You can take the SATs as many times as you want, but they only offer it a limited number of times.
The ACT is a very important test, some colleges prefer it over the SAT, so yes the ACT is a test you should also take. I have no idea what is on it though.
If possible, take the SAT II's. The topics in the SAT's are universal ones such as math, chemistry, biology, etc... so a lack of an English background shouldn't impair your scores too much.
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Wow thank you for this answer, it was so detailed and helpful! Thanks!
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