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The verbal section of the SAT involves two sections, reading and writing. The main tip for improving your score is to get a good night’s sleep before the exam. Show up well rested and ready to do your best. Being nervous will only make you perform poorly.

The verbal section consists mainly of paragraphs that you must read to answer questions on your understanding of the material. Always skim through the passage first to get an idea of what the main idea is. After that you should view the questions. After knowing what you’re looking for, reread the passage in its entirety and then go back to the questions. Work through each question as you move through the paragraph and find the answers. As with all sections of the test, don’t spend too much time on any question that is giving you difficulty. If you can’t figure out the answer in a relatively timely manner, move on. If you still have time left at the end of the section you can return to the difficult question. It’s better to miss one question than several questions if you spend too much time on one.

When working on the vocabulary section of the exam, pay attention to all  the prefixes, suffixes, and roots of each word in order to determine the meaning of some of the words that you don’t recognize. It’s a good idea to learn these prefixes and suffixes before taking the SAT as it would be much more efficient than trying to memorize each word. SAT prep classes are also an excellent way to maximize your study time and give your scores a potential boost.

The writing section of the SAT will test your grammar skills as well as your ability to correctly organize ideas into sentences and paragraphs. One tip you should follow is to look for the obvious grammar mistakes first. These could include missing or incorrect punctuation and sentence fragments or run-on sentences. Another common error to look for is misuse of commonly confused words. You should get a list of commonly confused words before the SAT and spend some time reviewing it and making sure that you understand the different meanings. If you can’t find an obvious error, read through it a few times in your head and then try to rewrite the sentence or paragraph yourself. Often you will write it with the corrections included. If after these steps you still can’t find any errors, it’s likely that the statements are correct and don’t contain errors.

For most students, the most commonly feared section of the test is essay writing. The important thing about this section is not to stress out. There really are no wrong answers here. Just pick a topic on the question that you’re interested in or know a lot about. This should make the essay writing come naturally to you. Be sure to proofread when you’re finished to make sure that you did not make any grammatical errors. It’s always good to proofread your work at least twice if time allows.