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Killer Questions
The most important thing to remember for your test is to not allow yourself to get stuck. You're not expected to get all the questions right on the test. In fact, if you can answer just half the questions right, you'll get an above-average score! That means when you hit a question that's a killer, just guess and move on.
Guess and Go on
Find the questions that you can do or think you can figure out, and answer them. For the others, just guess and move on. If a question is within your range, work it. Circle the answer in your test booklet and then darken the proper space on your answer sheet.
Time Is Precious
As soon as you realize a question's a killer, put a question mark beside it, and fill in a guess answer. If a question will take a lot of time, even if you can do it, mark it, take a guess at the answer, and come back to it later if you have time. The most important SAT test strategy to remember is: Don't get stuck.
Choosing the Best Answer
Do you know what the directions on your test say? They ask you to choose not the right answer, but the best answer.
Why "best?" Because the "right" answer may not even be in the choices. So sometimes you've got to settle for the best of what they offer, and the best may not be great.
An Example
Suppose you read a passage, and it's all about how to improve your social life in high school. One question might go something like this:
Which is the most appropriate title for this passage?
(A) Improving your college social life.
(B) Improving your social life in school.
(C) Improving your test scores in high school.
(D) Improving the quality of life in high school.
(E) How to get backstage concert passes.
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Choices May Not Be Logical
Now you're thinking the title ought to be something like "How to improve a high school social life," or "How high school students can improve their social life," or "How a high school social life can be improved," or some arrangement of those words.
But on the SAT, there's a good chance that none of these will be in the choices. Let's analyze each of the choices one by one.
(A) Choice A has one key word wrong: college. The passage was about the social life of high school students, so the word "college" makes this choice off-topic and wrong. At this point take your pencil and "zap A" — cross it off in your test booklet.
(B) Choice B reads, "Improving your social life in school." To be perfect, it should read "Improving your social life in high school." Just the word "school," by itself, is too general. So far, however, it's better than choice A, and it might be the best answer of all. So quickly draw a question mark and keep going.
(C) Choice C is highly commendable, but also completely off-topic. Cross it off.
(D) Choice D, "Improving the quality of life in high school," is also not perfect. You'd like it to read "Improving the quality of social life in high school." Here you have "high school," but you don't have social life. So what do you do? It's too general, but it's possible, so consider it. Put a question mark beside it.
(E) Choice E, about acquiring backstage concert passes, would certainly improve your high school social life, but it's off-topic. Zap it!
Narrowing It Down
So now you're down to two possible answers. Compare choice B against choice D to find the better one. But even if you can't find the one winner, you've narrowed five choices down to just two, so take your best guess and move on.
Process of Elimination
Quickly eliminating wrong choices not only saves time, but helps you get more questions right. So remember, zap the losers and come out a winner.
Should You Guess?
What if you can't do a problem? Should you leave it blank, or should you take a guess?
The SAT people say that there's a "penalty" for guessing.
This simply means that if you get a question wrong, they'll deduct a fraction from your score.
Knowing the Odds
However, you should know that if you guess an answer, even if you have no idea what the question was about, the probability of your losing a point is the same as the probability of your gaining a point.
When in Doubt, Guess
So, our suggestion is that you always guess. If you take a guess, you have a chance of getting it right. But if you leave a blank, you get nothing.
And, if you can knock out even one answer choice and guess from the other choices, you'll have a better chance of getting it right. So at least take a guess — you should never leave a question blank.
Skipping Is Risky
If the odds mentioned on the previous pages weren't enough, there's another reason why you should not leave a question unanswered.
If you skip questions and leave blanks on your answer sheet, there's a chance that you'll throw your corresponding answers off-track and darken the wrong spaces.
Spare the Headache
Keeping track of where the answers go is a headache, and it's confusing.
But if you fill in an answer for every question, even with guess answers, you won't make this serious error.
Read the Questions Carefully
One way people lose points on the test is that they know how to work a problem, but they don't read the question correctly. Take a look at this question.
An Example
If 3n - 7 = 2, what is 5n?
(A) 3
(B) 6
(C) 9
(D) 12
(E) 15
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Working the Problem
You might answer the question this way:
- 3n = 2 + 7
- 3n = 9
- n = 9 / 3
- n = 3
What Is the Question Asking?
At this point, you might think A is your answer, because n equals 3. But the answer is not 3, because the question asks for the value of 5n, not n. You have to take the value of n (3) and multiply by 5 to get choice E, 15.
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