SAT Test Preparation Tips
Your SAT preparation should start with learning how to
handle each of the different kinds of questions asked on the exam. You'll want
to follow up by putting those skills together in several practice test sessions. Be sure you work with questions from
The Official SAT Study Guide (yes, we really do
think this book is extremely helpful, since it is the only source
of questions that have actually appeared on the SAT). Make sure you take your
practice tests in a setting that
simulates an actual test-taking environment as closely as possible.
The keys to maximizing your SAT performance lie in
mastering:
Time management
Anxiety control
Multiple choice guessing and process
of elimination
The appropriate
use of calculators
Keep track of the time
(Duh!?!)
You'd be surprised at the number of people who panic on test day because they
never trained themselves to watch the time. Use clocks or timers as you work on
practice questions, so you'll learn to pace yourself and intuitively sense when
10 or 20 minutes have gone by. Remember to bring a
non-beeping watch with you to the SAT exam (don't count on being able to see a
clock clearly). Before beginning work on each section, write down the time the
test will end. You can refer to that
note periodically during the exam to gauge your performance.
Allocate your SAT
test time wisely
Don't spend test time reading instructions. The
instructions for different kinds of SAT questions are quite standard. Familiarize
yourself with them before test day so that you can go into the exam room already understanding
how the SAT is structured and what types of questions
you'll be asked. Remember, the SAT is intentionally designed to make you feel time pressure.
You can alleviate that pressure by minimizing the amount of time you need to
spend on reading instructions. That time is better spent answering questions.
Pace yourself
You will give your best
performance if you pace yourself. Don't rush through every question just to
finish a section - but don't take so long on just a few questions that you leave
the rest unanswered, either. Taking practice tests will help you develop a sense
of a pace works for you, and that lies between those two extremes.
Know
when to skip a question
Every question on the SAT is
worth the same number of points. There's no bonus for figuring out a hard
question. That means it is
NOT in your best interest to spend an inordinate amount of time with the more difficult questions.
The most difficult
questions are placed at the end of the test sections. Don't feel bad if you
can't answer them. These questions are
designed to be answered correctly only 10% of the time. If you come to a
question on which you have NO
idea of how to eliminate even one answer choice, do not spend more than 20 seconds
on it before moving to the next problem.
Keep in mind, though, that sometimes an easy problem looks difficult at first glance.
Oftentimes, if you relax a moment, your mental "fog" will lift and you will find
yourself able to answer the question very confidently.
Keep track of your omitted questions
Put a question mark or other notation next to
each question you skip. That way,
if you have time at the end of the section, you will be able to easily identify
and take another try at your omitted
questions.
Do NOT
spend an equal amount of time on each question
Except in the critical reading section,
SAT questions are arranged in
ascending order of difficulty. That means that the easiest questions are asked
first and the more difficult questions are asked later. You should allocate the
amount of time you spend on each question accordingly. You will,
hopefully, be able to knock off the first, easy questions quickly, so that you
can spend more time on the difficult questions at the end of the section.
With practice, you will develop a good feel for the upper
limits of your question-answering ability, and of the best way for you to use your time
in each section. For example, you might find that even if you spend 7 minutes on each on the
last five
problem solving
multiple choice questions, you do no better on them than you would by guessing
at the answers. In that case, you would know that you should not spend an
inordinate amount of time on test day trying to work out the math in questions
at that level of difficulty.
Should
you have some time left over at the end of a section...
Don't stop working until the proctor
says to. Rather, go back and re-examine the questions you skipped. Answer any
that you think you know the answer to, or can make a good guess at. We also
suggest you double-check your answers
to the very first questions. It's precisely because these questions are generally very easy
that people tend to make dumb mistakes on them. Make sure you haven't been
tripped up by subtle wording or a misplaced decimal point.
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