Aravnah Ornan

The schools that I attended didn't offer Latin; I don't believe that any schools in the county did. That was not in the inner city; it was in a county in Maryland whose name at the time was synonymous with overprivileged, overeducated suburbia.

I bought an SAT practice book and worked through the exercises. I got a 760 on the verbal SAT. For the GRE, I did the same thing and got a verbal score of 800.

trunks2k

I didn't read very much when i was younger and in highschool (still don't read much, I probably have a slight case of ADD). And I got a 700 on my verbal part of the SAT. Granted, I was in honors english. Most of the words on the SAT were words I knew because I used them often, or words I knew because I picked them up from other places (there were 5 or ten words on there that I knew from Bad Religion songs). And the stuff I didn't know, I could infer from context what they meant.

jkizer

I never had any Latin, and got a 780 verbal. My studying consisted primarily of going over an old prep book (Barron's, I think) that we had lying around...such fond memories. My dad always used an extensive vocabulary around me when I was growing up, which probably helped matters somewhat.

pariah

I hope I don't sound like I'm bragging...but I'm sure it will come off that way.

In 7th grade I took the SAT and received a 560 on the verbal portion of the test, and a 540 on the math. I didn't prepare at all, I had never taken latin, but I did read a lot.

I took the ACT in high school to get into university, so I don't know how much it would have improved after 4 or 5 years of reading.

IMO, READING is the most important thing. You don't have to read hawthorne (although you should)...The verbal section of act/sat is just a big vocabulary test, but all authors use the words not just classics.

Latin might help out, but you don't have to take latin to figure out what roots of words are after seeing them repeated and repeated in english words.

Cynical-Chick

Still cost hundreds. I just graduated, and I took the SATs twice.

And the analogies weren't that hard; I just wish they'd been like the analogies on Conan O'Brien.

Self-writing? Christ, I'm glad I took it when I did!


--CC, 27 composite ACT, ~1250 SAT

Shadowy Man

So, who is going to be the one to start a thread with a poll for everyone to put down their SAT scores?

I took the SAT twice and got the exact same both times!! Same verbal, same math.

Jimmy Higgins

I guess I just got no english at all. Depressing, really. Oh well. I'll stick to my engineering job and will give up this idea that it's a Latin mob job.

Still I wonder why it stops at Verbal and Math. I took two SAT II's, or maybe it was three in completely different areas, such as science and history, where I did better. I was rarely ever good in English. I have no idea why. I under science, but not english. Maybe they should adjust the test so it would better suit me.

ieyeasu

I took no Latin and aced the verbal portion of the exam.

Stiletto One

Taking Spanish, being a science geek, and also just reading a lot gave me a good bit of comfort with Latin and Greek roots, or at least gave me words which contained Latin or Greek roots. That helped me a lot. I have taken no Latin courses, and I took no SAT prep courses; I wound up with a 770.
I'm Asian, if you want to toss in the race card. *scratch*

Defiant Heretic

I got a 750 on the verbal, and the most Latin I've ever learned comes from Monty Python's "Life of Brian". I did, however, read quite a lot.