Do this during the summer. You may want a total break from school, but taking a class or two a week and doing a half hour of homework five days a week will greatly improve your scores. You do have more time in the summer, but the biggest reason I say this is the PSAT you’ll take this fall–do well enough and you get money for college, but unlike the SAT, you only get one shot at it. Most juniors haven’t even thought about the test except when they registered and when they showed up to take it. Get a leg up on them and get some money for college.

You don’t need a very broad base of knowledge for the SAT anyway. You have probably covered most of the topics it covers in your classes already–and you don’t take the SAT until you are a senior. The big skill you get from a class is the ability to take the test better, which will help you take all tests better. Plus, they give you a list of 100-300 vocab words to learn–and once you know them, your writing improves by leaps and bounds. The math part is a little basic (algebra, geometry, the easiest parts of trig), but it’s the stuff you’ll be most likely to use in science or other classes. Preparing for the SAT early will help make your last two years of high school so much easier.

Being only a sophomore, I would wait another year at least to take an SAT course. They don’t teach you much, but kind of build on what you know to get you really prepared for the test itself. Because they are very expensive you want to make sure you know most of what you will be asked on the SAT. There is not much of a rush. And I think it might be better to take the SAT course during school, because you will be sharp with everything. It also depends on when you plan on taking the test itself, the closer to the actual test you take the class the better.

Hope this helps.

It’s been about 10 years since I took the SAT, so Im not sure how helpful I can be…

You probably don’t need Algebra 2 for the SAT, it’s pretty basic stuff. What gets confusing is the way the ask the question & learning the proper strategies to solve the problems. They will teach you this stuff in an SAT class.

I’d say you should start your SAT class ASAP since you are already a sophomore. Do it during school because you can’t really afford to wait until summer. There is A LOT of vocabulary to learn & A LOT of different math & reading strategies to familiarize yourself with, so the sooner you get started, the better. It’s not that you don’t have enough time to learn everything…. but what will really help is getting practice little by little until you can breeze thru the questions.

Find an SAT course that is ongoing & where you pay a flat price & you can show up as much as you want. It’s probably gonna be expensive, but it may be a good investment

I started an SAT course during my freshman year & went about once or twice a week until I finally took the exam. I didn’t have to stress much to do well on it

Good luck

Unless the courses are free at school…don’t take them… they are a rip off and only show you the format. The words will be random. I did geometry in 10th and was well over 1700.