First, a 1400-1500 is a very good score to get on the SAT. The average score on the 2005 SAT was a 1028.

Second, you need to identify where you need more points, verbal or math? What questions on the practice tests are most challenging to you? Once you have identified these areas, you can narrow your studying to the areas where you need more work.

Third, relax!! You can achieve greatness, but not at the cost of your sanity or health.

Good luck on your SAT!!

Take a practice test and look at your results. Most of these tests if you look at the results close enough will show where you did well and what areas you need to improve. If you are a whiz at quantitative comparison (I think that is what it is called, the one where you have to determine if column A or B is greater in value) then you can devote less time to that and maybe focus in more on geometry if that is your weak point. The same with verbal…I remember way back when I took the test I studied vocab until I was blue in the face and did pretty good on that part, but reading comp was not my bag mostly because I found the passages terribly boring. However, you will come up with your own best strategies for the test. Here are a few that I remember:

If you have to guess, try to eliminate some choices instead of just taking a random guess.

If a math problem starts with “which of the following” and you have to make a guess, typically the answer is “D” or “E” rather than “A” or “B”. The test makers actually build these types of questions into the test so that you will waste time plugging values into equations until you finally get to the right one. If you wish to calculate it, same idea. Start with answer “E” and work your way backwards instead of the other way around.

In quantitative comparison questions, there is no answer E for any problem. Also, you often don’t have to figure out exact values and can get away with estimating in most cases as you only have to find out which one is greater (or if they are equal which is C or there is not enough information given which would be answer D)

This doesn’t apply so much on the SAT but questions that use the word “always” are typically false rather than true. In most cases to everything there is an exception, therefore if you had to guess, guess false.

In vocabulary, go with the basic gist of a word if you don’t know its meaning. This is especially helpful in the antonyms section. If a word has a “positive” gist, look for an answer choice that has a negative one.

For analogies, make a sentence. It will help you get a better grasp on the relationship between the words. For example if you had the following analogy (I am keeping it real basic here):

Day:Night::Winter: (read as day is to night as winter is to ?)

You can write this in sentence form like this:

Day is the opposite of night so what is the opposite of winter?

If you saw SUMMER as one of the choices, I would say that is a safe bet.

For more information, you should pick up an SAT review book. In these books, they have general test taking strategies such as I described above as well as practice tests and review on how to do certain types of math problems, etc.

With reading, I do offer this advice: Before reading a passage, read the questions that go with the passage. While you are reading the passage, hunt for answers to questions and answer the questions that you can (like ones that ask for specific content from one part of the passage, whether they give you line numbers in the question or not) while you are reading the passage. Also, take notes on tone and mood, main point, and author’s purpose (persuade, inform, etc.) in the margins–these can be short notes, like 1-2 words per item. Then, go back and answer any questions in the passage for which you need knwoledge of the whole passage.

Also, taking a class with a test company could help you–but they are expensive, you know. Try to take a class that has a small size so you can get more indivual help. You could do Princeton Review or something else. If you don’t improve some, you will get your money back.