Ok here's the deal. I am in grade 11, and I plan to attend an American University after graduation. I plan on taking the SAT in June. The thing is, I have no clue what I am doing. Every practice test I do, I end up bulldozing through most of the Critical Reading section. I try to expose myself to these complicated and archaic words that 97% of the population will never know of in their life. When it comes to doing a practice set, it almost always includes words that I have never seen before. How do I overcome this? And also, is it better to have the marks submitted to the University directly, via school code, or to manually submit them after I receive them? Thanks in advance.

Are you telling me that NONE of you have taken the SATs before? At this point, any advice will be appreciated. There is no such thing as stupid advice, so come on.

As I went to school and live in Europe, I have not even got a clue what you are talking about. I know this forum is for off-topic items, but we are still a computing forum. Why don't you check on some university-forums in the US, I bet they have all the info you need. You could also go to your current school-administration and ask them. Surely they have student-councelling?

O.K. Kid , Real is right but since you are a Canadian! quickly;
Open your mind and forget about what you may or may not use down the road.
SAT are primarily to do 2 things , Find out how much and varied knowledge you have retained(memory)
How you think when you don't know the answer.(abstract)
The English language is an evolution of a number of languages eg. Greek, Latin, etc.
When you don't know a word try to consider it's roots or constuction. Use your Imagination.
Bottom line , Don't make yourself crazy ! Be calm ! Do some practice tests. answer the stuff you know first, and go back to the stuff you need time on .
You will do fine .
Last; It is always best to send Marks etc through Channels , but this is not a critical issue in terms of your eligibility and acceptance to University.

BTW I am a Uof T Alumni '81'
Good luck!

Hey Kid - I think Len hit it on the head. When it comes to words try to figure out the construction and be creative when doing so. I've taken the SAT, but math was always my strongest subject so that helped balance things out for me. Also keep in mind that you can take the SAT more than once. It's in two parts, math and english, and you can take your highest section scores to make your final score. I've only taken it once but I've heard of many people taking it more than once to raise their scores in a particular area.

As far as preparing for your first time I'm sure there are plenty of free online preparatory sites out there. There are also the Kaplan books, but unfortunately I haven't used any of these to recommend any.

Well I took the ACT, I think its a better test overall since it tests more fields. I didn't prepare for that when I was in HS and it didn't really matter I don't think for me.

I took the G(raduate)R(ecord)E(xam) before getting my MS and I hear it is the same test format as the SAT (well not the same, but pretty similar). I only took it once because I did good enough to get accepted to grad school. The only preperation I did for it was doing a couple practice tests that were on the CD they sent me when I registered to take it.
I also tried to review some of my algebra-calculus that I had learned and forgotten a lot of years ago.
IMO the math you can prepare for by brushing up on your understanding of how you do certain types of problems. As far as the english part or reading or whatever it is I think you can't do a whole lot to prepare. You can study up on it and improve your score I'm sure, but I think proportionally you get more results per period of time studying if you study the math rather than english.

I am also in 11th grade and i took the SAT this october for the second time. I took them last year and got a ok score (1250) but that is beside the point. If you are having trouble, try waiting for the spring SAT as it is going to be a whole new type of test. They are adding a writing and i think they are scrapping the section you are talking about. I love the writing part as i am a editor of our school newspaper