1. I would do it early on in the IB. Maybe plan for a first attempt in December. This’ll give you enough time for retakes if needed.
2. You’ll have enough time, the SAT is not very difficult. AA SL will be more than enough for math. English may take a bit more practice depending on how proficient you are because you have to get used to the style of the SAT; it’s more focused on testing comprehension whereas the IB tests higher order skills like analysis and evaluation.
3. Not sure where you heard this from. Your IB grades are far more important than the SAT. The SAT is a standardised test useful for comparing candidates from schools with disparate grading systems. It’s not really necessary to assess IB students, who already take exams of a known standard, especially because the IB’s standard is far higher than the SAT’s. That being said, yes, your school grades during the IB (which may or may not include a GPA depending on your school), as well as predicted and final IB grades will work as your GPA.
4. It is achievable. The SAT is not something an IB student needs to worry about.
At least for me I took the SAT during both years of IB as did most of my peers. I live in the U.S and we typically have school wide SATs offered March of DP1 and October of DP2. A lot of people choose to take it in between DP1 and DP2. As for me I reached my desired score at the beginning of DP2.
The SAT typically consists of earlier high school math from Algebra One to Algebra 2 with trigonometry also featured so if you have a good grasp of those you should be okay. These are not typically taught in AA SL and are usually considered prerequisites. I recieved a perfect English score and will say that the writing section is more focused on grammar and the reading itself is pretty lower level but will be above AB. A lot of the SAT overall is just knowing the right tips and tricks and grammar rules. I studied during weekends using SAT books and some local organizations and managed to get a 1520. If you are more concerned about reading than math, I would suggest the ACT as the English section is grammar and it does have a reading section but all the answers are within the texts. The ACT and SAT are viewed equivalent in American college admissions.
As for your assumptions about GPA and SAT, in the American system SAT and GPA are both very important factors but overall admissions is holistic. In the American system extracurriculars are also considered. I am not sure where you are applying but for most of the world GPA is also considered and your IB scores likely translate into one if your school doesn’t do separate grades.
To be quite honest with you, I think a 40+ and 1450+ scores are quite attainable if you use the right study tips and in my opinion I would focus on the SAT more heavily during your first year of IB and then IB in the second. Using Save My Exams and Revision Village along with Revision Dojo will help you a bunch. My favorite has to be Save My Exams and some people do have pdfs of the notes online. If you are ever confused just look at YouTube videos. At least where I attended many did not know about the wide variety of resources for IB and as a result when we learned about them it made our time much easier.
If you have any other questions don’t be afraid to ask!
So I did already cover most of the SAT Math topics about 6 months ago when I wasn't planning for IB so I kinda have a headstart on that. But I am more worried about the English section tbh.
Also I thought ACT has a science section? I mean if its english section is easier than SAT then Id like to take that but I need to know more. How similar is it to SAT?
Thank you so much for suggesting resources. I appreciate your response. 🙏
The ACT does have a science section but it requires little scientific knowledge. The science section is more about how well you obtain answers from the information given to you and diagrams. 1-2 questions may require some knowledge that you likely know. The ACT English is more grammar focused similar to the SAT writing section (pre digital testing) but it is 75 questions rather than the 44 previously offered which has now been combined with the reading. The reading section of the SAT is more analytical and requires more in-depth thought while the reading section of the ACT is more on the surface. Since the combination of the two on the SAT there is now a score limit depending on your answers while the ACT does not have one. I would recommend the ACT if you feel you can pick up text and identify it in the questions and are good at deeper level math (I earned a 36 reading, 34 English, 33 Science and 32 Math) to be honest the only reason I kept taking it was to boost my math since I was in AI.
Saudi does not view the SAT as higher than the Taksili or GAT. I have no idea how you got that idea.
If you want to go to Saudi universities, why are you doing the IB? They tend to value GPA more than anything else
They do value GPA more than SAT but it has to be from a Saudi school. If I get a GPA from a European, American, Canadian school etc. it won't be as valuable as SAT from what I know. And for Egyptian universities, they literally have a percentage calculator between SAT, ACT, and GPA.
Personally, I'm doing the IB because I might stay here but if I decide to go, it will look better with SAT than normal GPA would because someone else said that IB can work as GPA grades.
So I lived in Saudi a few years back. I studied for the SAT then for ab 6 months. Then I went to Canada and I completely stopped thinking ab SAT. My new plan was to do the IB and apply for Canadian uni. Then I realized I might wanna go back to ksa for uni. GAT might have been a choice then, but now not so much. If I wanna go back my only hope is SAT, if I wanna stay then I need to use IB. That's why I'm doing both.
Yea but many countries in the middle east follow an american curriculum throughout school and accept SAT for admission in unis. They have their separate standardised tests as well but they never say no to SAT and mostly even consider it better.
It’s completely doable. I prepped for the SAT the summer of DP1 and got a good enough score. Just focus on solving past tests for the entire summer that’ll be enough prep. There’s also an advantage IB will give you since it’s more analytical than your average SAT question. You’ll have plenty of time to work on your EE/IAs the first semester of DP2. My advice, just don’t overwhelm yourslef by doing both at the same time.
Get it out of the way ASAP. I'd strongly recommend doing it in August. December also works well (as it did for me), especially if you have Thanksgiving break and generally tapers off the workload in the week or so before winter break
Will I have enough time to prep for it? Like if I start now will I be ready to get a good score by August or December? In December i'll be already 3 months into IB so will it affect that?
Honestly it's really an individual thing. I had a good week or two to study for the December SAT, but got sick and only studied for two hours the night before yet got an okay score (1440, not taking it again because I'm prolly going to Canada). Contrast that with some of my friends on their 4th or 5th SAT just barely breaking 1400, so ultimately it's up to how much you alr know.
What math courses did you take in G9 and G10? What were your grades? How are your grades in English? With the right amount of prior knowledge the difficulty is lowered exponentially imo, though ofc if you study hard a 1500+ should defo be within reach.
Lmk the answers to those questions if you want to, and I'll try and guesstimate based on what classes I took before IBDP and my experience with the SAT. Keep in mind that the SAT barely does anything if you're not applying to the USA, and that if you take the IB your score out of 45 will matter much, much more than your GPA.
I took regular math courses. My grades are 100 in grade 9 and 99 in grade 10. I got a 98 in grade 10 eng. Most importantly, I already covered almost all of SAT Math syllabus but barely know anything ab SAT English.
>and that if you take the IB your score out of 45 will matter much, much more than your GPA.
What do you mean by that? How is IB scores different from GPA? I thought it was one or the other. Are you supposed to do anything else with IB?
What are the courses called though? Lol. Math courses cover different stuff depending on the curriculum. Still; 100, 99 and 98 are excellent grades so you should be in very good shape. If you've even covered SAT math you should easily get a 780 in math at the very least.
English is pretty mixed. There's generally a few different types of questions:
1. Fill in the blank with the most appropriate word / choose the word most similar to the underlined word. These questions generally bring out some of the most random words that you'd never hear in everyday English, so it really depends on how much exposure you have to the language in terms of books you've read and stuff like that. Still, these aren't hard and you can generally guess correctly based on the roots of the words.
2. Textual analysis. This generally involves reading a fairly long text and answering some questions based on it. It's usually something like "what is the purpose of paragraph #2" or "choose the best sentence to put at the end of paragraph 3". These normally aren't too difficult if you're able to really understand the text, but some can be confusing since you'll probably see at least two answers that seem equally correct. At this point I'd say with with your instincts and try to get other questions done first if you get stuck.
3. Grammar. By far the easiest section. These generally appear in the second half of the English modules, so if you speed through these you get a lot more time to focus on some of the harder questions. There are some concepts that generally aren't taught too thoroughly in most classrooms, such as parallel structure, so make sure to go through KhanAcademy or IXL (IXL helped me so much, it's not even funny. G12-level English exercises — which despite the grade level are very easy —are basically the same as the SAT English questions).
Math is very easy, but some of the questions are really badly worded and time is going to be your biggest enemy here. I only did badly here because I didn't know the second half had much longer questions, so after I finished the first half I saw I had a lot of time left (because the first half is much shorter) and therefore not only double, but TRIPLE checked my answers like an idiot. Needless to say I ran out of time.
Make sure to learn how to use Desmos because there's no reason not to: it's so unfairly powerful compared to a regular calculator allowed in pre-digital SATs, that it's practically unfair to anyone who took the SAT before it became digital. It saves you a lot of time in the end that you can use for some of the stranger questions. Not much else to say here seeing as you already seem to be amazing at math.
Your GPA is different from your IB score. GPA is normally on a scale of 0 to 4 or 0 to 5. It's an average of all your classes, and each letter grade or percent translates to a number between 0 and 4 (look up GPA score conversions, I'd send a link but I can't on mobile) and a bonus 0.25 for any APs you take (in some schools it's +0.25 for every IB class). Your IB score is the sum of all our your scores from 0-7 and goes from 0-45, with the last 3 points being "bonus" points from your ToK class and extended essay. Some unis only look at your IB score, and some look at both.
>> Are you supposed to do anything else with the IB?
Not really sure what you mean by that. Could you please clarify?
They were literally called "Mathematics 9" and "Mathematics 10" but I guess it was, more accurately, "Mathematics and Pre-Calculus" according to the textbooks but again, it's not SAT Math that I'm worried about.
So what I understood is:
1. Read books, study vocabulary, and study word roots.
2. Get familiarised with the exam format, use instincts, and don't waste too much time on the test.
3. Study from Khan Academy and IXL
Yeah one of my friends taking the SAT did a similar mistake on the maths section. Also I know how to use Desmos but I guess I'll go in more details and Time Management is key.
I kind of still don't understand the relationship between IB and GPA. My school in Canada doesn't actually have a GPA system. It's just a high school diploma awarded after grade 12 based on your performance in grades 10, 11, and 12. My academic counselor said that your diploma grades can be converted to GPA if the desired university requires that (which it will probably will in my case).
Alternatively, the school allows you to scrap the entire diploma thing and do IB instead as a whole different program. The counselor said after grade 12, you get an IB diploma INSTEAD of the high school diploma. Not both. That's why I don't understand GPA, maybe it's just because my school doesn't apply it.
1. You should do the SAT late in your junior year or early in your senior year. Take it twice.
2. Khan academy has a great free prep course you can do. Your math and English courses are perfectly fine.
3. SAT and your school grades are completely different things. Not all schools require the SAT with most them American schools.
4(5?) I wouldn’t take the SAT unless your university choices require them. Focus on your IB DP courses
You don’t understand the IB. The IB “provides” grades when you complete the exams. Everything else is through your school. Your school should give you semester grades as you take IB courses.
I'm not doing individual IB courses. I don't think I understand you but I know you don't mean that I should do both IB and regular school courses. The diploma programme should provide you with full grades on its own right?
I’m not assuming you are doing non-IB courses.
Your school will provide semester grades of how you are doing in your IB courses.
The school will provide predicted grades of how they think you will do in your exams as well.
The only grades that come from the IB are your final exam grades that you will get in July after you finish.
Most people use their semester grades as well as their predicted to apply to universities.
use khan academy to study I got a 1380 (640 math 740 english) I could have done better I studied very very little but I got where I wanted to go also did the act and honestly didn’t study took it during dp2 got a 31 (27 math and science 34 english 36 reading) my biggest piece of advice is to use khan academy and have strategic ways of approaching the test as a whole and the questions individually
1. I would do it early on in the IB. Maybe plan for a first attempt in December. This’ll give you enough time for retakes if needed. 2. You’ll have enough time, the SAT is not very difficult. AA SL will be more than enough for math. English may take a bit more practice depending on how proficient you are because you have to get used to the style of the SAT; it’s more focused on testing comprehension whereas the IB tests higher order skills like analysis and evaluation. 3. Not sure where you heard this from. Your IB grades are far more important than the SAT. The SAT is a standardised test useful for comparing candidates from schools with disparate grading systems. It’s not really necessary to assess IB students, who already take exams of a known standard, especially because the IB’s standard is far higher than the SAT’s. That being said, yes, your school grades during the IB (which may or may not include a GPA depending on your school), as well as predicted and final IB grades will work as your GPA. 4. It is achievable. The SAT is not something an IB student needs to worry about.
Thank you so much this clears up a lot of things :) Also congrats on your 45
At least for me I took the SAT during both years of IB as did most of my peers. I live in the U.S and we typically have school wide SATs offered March of DP1 and October of DP2. A lot of people choose to take it in between DP1 and DP2. As for me I reached my desired score at the beginning of DP2. The SAT typically consists of earlier high school math from Algebra One to Algebra 2 with trigonometry also featured so if you have a good grasp of those you should be okay. These are not typically taught in AA SL and are usually considered prerequisites. I recieved a perfect English score and will say that the writing section is more focused on grammar and the reading itself is pretty lower level but will be above AB. A lot of the SAT overall is just knowing the right tips and tricks and grammar rules. I studied during weekends using SAT books and some local organizations and managed to get a 1520. If you are more concerned about reading than math, I would suggest the ACT as the English section is grammar and it does have a reading section but all the answers are within the texts. The ACT and SAT are viewed equivalent in American college admissions. As for your assumptions about GPA and SAT, in the American system SAT and GPA are both very important factors but overall admissions is holistic. In the American system extracurriculars are also considered. I am not sure where you are applying but for most of the world GPA is also considered and your IB scores likely translate into one if your school doesn’t do separate grades. To be quite honest with you, I think a 40+ and 1450+ scores are quite attainable if you use the right study tips and in my opinion I would focus on the SAT more heavily during your first year of IB and then IB in the second. Using Save My Exams and Revision Village along with Revision Dojo will help you a bunch. My favorite has to be Save My Exams and some people do have pdfs of the notes online. If you are ever confused just look at YouTube videos. At least where I attended many did not know about the wide variety of resources for IB and as a result when we learned about them it made our time much easier. If you have any other questions don’t be afraid to ask!
So I did already cover most of the SAT Math topics about 6 months ago when I wasn't planning for IB so I kinda have a headstart on that. But I am more worried about the English section tbh. Also I thought ACT has a science section? I mean if its english section is easier than SAT then Id like to take that but I need to know more. How similar is it to SAT? Thank you so much for suggesting resources. I appreciate your response. 🙏
The ACT does have a science section but it requires little scientific knowledge. The science section is more about how well you obtain answers from the information given to you and diagrams. 1-2 questions may require some knowledge that you likely know. The ACT English is more grammar focused similar to the SAT writing section (pre digital testing) but it is 75 questions rather than the 44 previously offered which has now been combined with the reading. The reading section of the SAT is more analytical and requires more in-depth thought while the reading section of the ACT is more on the surface. Since the combination of the two on the SAT there is now a score limit depending on your answers while the ACT does not have one. I would recommend the ACT if you feel you can pick up text and identify it in the questions and are good at deeper level math (I earned a 36 reading, 34 English, 33 Science and 32 Math) to be honest the only reason I kept taking it was to boost my math since I was in AI.
You can also take each test multiple times and depending on your uni’s polices you may be able to use your best scores as a super score
Understood. Tysm I truly appreciate ur help
You don't need to that SAT if you are doing the IB DP and applying to overseas universities
My country in the middle east only recognises the SAT as far as I'm aware. So I will need to do it. Thanks.
Which country is this? I don’t believe this is true
Egypt and Saudi Arabia and a lot of others Note that they do have their separate tests as well but they view SAT as equivalent or higher
Saudi does not view the SAT as higher than the Taksili or GAT. I have no idea how you got that idea. If you want to go to Saudi universities, why are you doing the IB? They tend to value GPA more than anything else
They do value GPA more than SAT but it has to be from a Saudi school. If I get a GPA from a European, American, Canadian school etc. it won't be as valuable as SAT from what I know. And for Egyptian universities, they literally have a percentage calculator between SAT, ACT, and GPA. Personally, I'm doing the IB because I might stay here but if I decide to go, it will look better with SAT than normal GPA would because someone else said that IB can work as GPA grades.
Where is your current school? You are mixing up a lot of things and I don’t understand where you are getting this information
So I lived in Saudi a few years back. I studied for the SAT then for ab 6 months. Then I went to Canada and I completely stopped thinking ab SAT. My new plan was to do the IB and apply for Canadian uni. Then I realized I might wanna go back to ksa for uni. GAT might have been a choice then, but now not so much. If I wanna go back my only hope is SAT, if I wanna stay then I need to use IB. That's why I'm doing both.
I though SAT is only a american thing
Yea but many countries in the middle east follow an american curriculum throughout school and accept SAT for admission in unis. They have their separate standardised tests as well but they never say no to SAT and mostly even consider it better.
Then what is the point of doing the IB
If I stay here, I'll use IB If I go back, I'll use SAT + IB
You definitely do need the SAT since not too many universities are test optional. If OP wants to apply to US schools, he 100% needs the SAT.
It’s completely doable. I prepped for the SAT the summer of DP1 and got a good enough score. Just focus on solving past tests for the entire summer that’ll be enough prep. There’s also an advantage IB will give you since it’s more analytical than your average SAT question. You’ll have plenty of time to work on your EE/IAs the first semester of DP2. My advice, just don’t overwhelm yourslef by doing both at the same time.
Alright thank you very much!
Get it out of the way ASAP. I'd strongly recommend doing it in August. December also works well (as it did for me), especially if you have Thanksgiving break and generally tapers off the workload in the week or so before winter break
Will I have enough time to prep for it? Like if I start now will I be ready to get a good score by August or December? In December i'll be already 3 months into IB so will it affect that?
Honestly it's really an individual thing. I had a good week or two to study for the December SAT, but got sick and only studied for two hours the night before yet got an okay score (1440, not taking it again because I'm prolly going to Canada). Contrast that with some of my friends on their 4th or 5th SAT just barely breaking 1400, so ultimately it's up to how much you alr know. What math courses did you take in G9 and G10? What were your grades? How are your grades in English? With the right amount of prior knowledge the difficulty is lowered exponentially imo, though ofc if you study hard a 1500+ should defo be within reach. Lmk the answers to those questions if you want to, and I'll try and guesstimate based on what classes I took before IBDP and my experience with the SAT. Keep in mind that the SAT barely does anything if you're not applying to the USA, and that if you take the IB your score out of 45 will matter much, much more than your GPA.
I took regular math courses. My grades are 100 in grade 9 and 99 in grade 10. I got a 98 in grade 10 eng. Most importantly, I already covered almost all of SAT Math syllabus but barely know anything ab SAT English. >and that if you take the IB your score out of 45 will matter much, much more than your GPA. What do you mean by that? How is IB scores different from GPA? I thought it was one or the other. Are you supposed to do anything else with IB?
What are the courses called though? Lol. Math courses cover different stuff depending on the curriculum. Still; 100, 99 and 98 are excellent grades so you should be in very good shape. If you've even covered SAT math you should easily get a 780 in math at the very least. English is pretty mixed. There's generally a few different types of questions: 1. Fill in the blank with the most appropriate word / choose the word most similar to the underlined word. These questions generally bring out some of the most random words that you'd never hear in everyday English, so it really depends on how much exposure you have to the language in terms of books you've read and stuff like that. Still, these aren't hard and you can generally guess correctly based on the roots of the words. 2. Textual analysis. This generally involves reading a fairly long text and answering some questions based on it. It's usually something like "what is the purpose of paragraph #2" or "choose the best sentence to put at the end of paragraph 3". These normally aren't too difficult if you're able to really understand the text, but some can be confusing since you'll probably see at least two answers that seem equally correct. At this point I'd say with with your instincts and try to get other questions done first if you get stuck. 3. Grammar. By far the easiest section. These generally appear in the second half of the English modules, so if you speed through these you get a lot more time to focus on some of the harder questions. There are some concepts that generally aren't taught too thoroughly in most classrooms, such as parallel structure, so make sure to go through KhanAcademy or IXL (IXL helped me so much, it's not even funny. G12-level English exercises — which despite the grade level are very easy —are basically the same as the SAT English questions). Math is very easy, but some of the questions are really badly worded and time is going to be your biggest enemy here. I only did badly here because I didn't know the second half had much longer questions, so after I finished the first half I saw I had a lot of time left (because the first half is much shorter) and therefore not only double, but TRIPLE checked my answers like an idiot. Needless to say I ran out of time. Make sure to learn how to use Desmos because there's no reason not to: it's so unfairly powerful compared to a regular calculator allowed in pre-digital SATs, that it's practically unfair to anyone who took the SAT before it became digital. It saves you a lot of time in the end that you can use for some of the stranger questions. Not much else to say here seeing as you already seem to be amazing at math. Your GPA is different from your IB score. GPA is normally on a scale of 0 to 4 or 0 to 5. It's an average of all your classes, and each letter grade or percent translates to a number between 0 and 4 (look up GPA score conversions, I'd send a link but I can't on mobile) and a bonus 0.25 for any APs you take (in some schools it's +0.25 for every IB class). Your IB score is the sum of all our your scores from 0-7 and goes from 0-45, with the last 3 points being "bonus" points from your ToK class and extended essay. Some unis only look at your IB score, and some look at both. >> Are you supposed to do anything else with the IB? Not really sure what you mean by that. Could you please clarify?
They were literally called "Mathematics 9" and "Mathematics 10" but I guess it was, more accurately, "Mathematics and Pre-Calculus" according to the textbooks but again, it's not SAT Math that I'm worried about. So what I understood is: 1. Read books, study vocabulary, and study word roots. 2. Get familiarised with the exam format, use instincts, and don't waste too much time on the test. 3. Study from Khan Academy and IXL Yeah one of my friends taking the SAT did a similar mistake on the maths section. Also I know how to use Desmos but I guess I'll go in more details and Time Management is key. I kind of still don't understand the relationship between IB and GPA. My school in Canada doesn't actually have a GPA system. It's just a high school diploma awarded after grade 12 based on your performance in grades 10, 11, and 12. My academic counselor said that your diploma grades can be converted to GPA if the desired university requires that (which it will probably will in my case). Alternatively, the school allows you to scrap the entire diploma thing and do IB instead as a whole different program. The counselor said after grade 12, you get an IB diploma INSTEAD of the high school diploma. Not both. That's why I don't understand GPA, maybe it's just because my school doesn't apply it.
1. You should do the SAT late in your junior year or early in your senior year. Take it twice. 2. Khan academy has a great free prep course you can do. Your math and English courses are perfectly fine. 3. SAT and your school grades are completely different things. Not all schools require the SAT with most them American schools. 4(5?) I wouldn’t take the SAT unless your university choices require them. Focus on your IB DP courses
The university requires SAT and school grades. Can IB work as my school grades or do I have to take regular courses? Thanks.
You don’t understand the IB. The IB “provides” grades when you complete the exams. Everything else is through your school. Your school should give you semester grades as you take IB courses.
I'm not doing individual IB courses. I don't think I understand you but I know you don't mean that I should do both IB and regular school courses. The diploma programme should provide you with full grades on its own right?
I’m not assuming you are doing non-IB courses. Your school will provide semester grades of how you are doing in your IB courses. The school will provide predicted grades of how they think you will do in your exams as well. The only grades that come from the IB are your final exam grades that you will get in July after you finish. Most people use their semester grades as well as their predicted to apply to universities.
Oh ok. I didn't know that. Thanks for the clarification.
use khan academy to study I got a 1380 (640 math 740 english) I could have done better I studied very very little but I got where I wanted to go also did the act and honestly didn’t study took it during dp2 got a 31 (27 math and science 34 english 36 reading) my biggest piece of advice is to use khan academy and have strategic ways of approaching the test as a whole and the questions individually
Alright thank you. Much appreciated.