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Strategies for Dealing with Math SATs

I'm going to try and give some tips about actually writing the Math SATs. These should be helpful for writing any sort of math test, or any test really.

Let's start with the basics- answer the questions

Your SAT will contain a total of 54 math questions in 3 different sections. The questions are progressive in each section, starting off with the easy ones and then increasing in difficulty. That's a fairly good think, since you'll know how you're doing based on where you get stuck.

The bulk of your SAT Math sections is multiple choice. But don't celebrate just yet- there's a correction factor. All questions have 5 possible answers, and every right answer gets you 1 point, but every wrong answer gets you 0.25 of a point off. While that may sound unfair, it's actually more fair than most tests, as it ensures that the most probable score on a test with guessing all answers is a 0. So, first thing to do is- study.

When going over multiple choice, you may ask yourself this:

When should I guess the answer, and when should I leave it a blank?

Well, if you know the answer, don't leave it blank. But say you can narrow your options down and you're sure that 2 of the possible answers can't be right. Now the expected gain from your answer is 0.5, so you should guess it. This logic actually holds true even if you're 100% sure that just one of the answers can't be right.

The basic rule for guessing here would be simple- if you can cancel out any of the possible answers, your expected gain is positive, so you should take the chance and guess. Yes, you may get the answer wrong and your overall mark will decrease, but statistically, if the same thing happens for a lot of questions, you're in a good position to score an extra few marks just by guessing, and that's a sweet deal.

On the other hand, if you can't cancel any of the answers, there's 0 expected gain, and the probability is that you will get the 0.25 of a mark taken off. The rule here should be this- if it's only a few questions where you have no idea what they're talking about, don't take the risk. If there are a lot of them, you might as well go for it, because the more questions you're guessing the less likely you are to get too many of them wrong.

Just on a quick side note- these are stats we're talking about, they're never foolproof and they only give projections which aren't perfectly accurate, so if you just guess every single answer on the test there's no guarantee you'll be getting a zero.

And then those grid-ins…

As stated earlier, most questions on the exam are multiple choice. But not all. There is a portion of the math SAT that consists of grid-in questions. Before you panic and scream "WHAT THE #$##$@@! is a GRID-IN????", take a look at an example from the College Board website. This doesn't look too bad, does it? The questions are of the same type as the multiple choice ones, and sure, there aren't any options to choose from, but there is no penalty for getting it wrong either. There is no guessing strategy or anything, just try to answer the question.

Of an important note here would be the grid-in system. You're supposed to fill in bubbles that correspond to digits, a "." or a "/" (for decimals and fractions). The confusing thing is, the grid accepts many different ways of filling in any particular answer, so don't get freaked out by this. Read the official instructions on the link above before the test, and make sure you're comfortable with what you're writing there and how you do it.

Other tips for dealing with your test are as follows:

1. If you get stuck on a question, move on. Trying to figure it out only wastes you precious time, which you might as well be using for answering those next questions which you may know how to do. If you finish early, come back to the questions you weren't sure about and figure them out or take a guess.

2. Make your calculator count. Make sure before the test you can use all of its features and that you know where all the buttons are. Being quick with those keys will save you a lot of thinking time with even the most basic additions and will shrink your margin for error, but being slow and unfamiliar with your calculator can cost you too much time.

3. Don't be over confident, everyone makes mistakes, even you (and even me!). Read the entire question, watch out for the little things that you tend to forget, like a minus sign or the order in a ratio, and don't speed through it. Yeah, you're short on time, and you should keep in mind strategy 1, but going too fast will cause you to make small, stupid mistakes you could've avoided by slowing down a tiny bit.

4. Use your brain. Like the calculator, it's there for a reason. Don't try to answer a tough question before figuring out what it's asking you. Draw the picture, or try to visualize and understand the situation. Thinking about every question a second or two before starting to perform the actual calculation will pay off. And remember that a lot of the SAT questions attempt to test your critical analysis and problem-solving, which means that they want you to think.

5.Know your enemy. Reading this stuff is step one, but go on to those practice questions and other info websites, find out exactly what the SATs or any other test is about. Also, deal with administrative stuff beforehand- don't go into the test without knowing exactly how much time you have, which booklet you have to answer, etc.

6.Know yourself. Are you a master of word problems? Does trig make your head spin? Know what you're good at and what you're not, so that you can decide which questions are worth thinking about and which you can dive into fast.

7.Don't worry. Before the test, make sure you get a good night's sleep and be as calm as you can. You can do this, but only if you believe in yourself.

This is it. Follow these tips, and you should be on your way to success.

Good Luck!

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