SAT Multiple Choice Test
Questions
Nearly every question on the SAT
involves some version of multiple choice answers. That's
good news. It means the correct answer to almost every
question on the SAT will be right in front of you.
We have even more good news. The
Educational Testing Service, which writes SAT material for the College Board, is
extremely methodical in the way it constructs test questions. There are clear
patterns to the way it asks questions and presents answer
choices.
So
what's the good news in all this?
With practice and
preparation (there's that darn phrase again!) you will be able to dramatically
raise your SAT score by recognizing ETS question formulas and exploiting that
knowledge to make educated guesses where you don't really know the answer to a
question.
Multiple choice
"patterns"
The SAT test writers ensure that there is a relatively
equal number of correct answers corresponding to each of the multiple choice
letters. That does not mean, however, that you should mark
20% of your answers As, 20% Bs, ..., and 20% Es. The distribution is not that
even. In a section with 25
questions, there may be 4 As, 5 Bs, 7 Cs, 3 Ds, and 6 Es.
You can count on certain patterns, though. One of these is
that you will not find more
than 3 consecutive multiple choice questions with the same answer. If you
find you've answered 4 or more consecutive questions with "A," for
example, you will know that at least one of your responses is incorrect. Of
course you will not know
which one of them is wrong - but at least you've got a starting point.
If you find yourself in
this situation, we advise you to remain calm. Just make a notation in your test
booklet (not on the answer sheet), and revisit this series of questions at the end of the
section, if you have time. Otherwise, don't worry too much about it. Chances are
good that you got 3 of the 4 answers right.
Process of
elimination is your friend
Process of elimination is one of the most powerful
strategies you can use on a multiple choice answer exam. By identifying and
eliminating the obviously wrong answers to a question, you narrow down the
number of possible right answers to three, or even two. At that point it's in
your interests to guess at the right answer even if you're not sure what it is.
You will find many
useful process of elimination tips within each of the individual SAT multiple
choice test prep sections on our website.
Back
to top
|
