SAT Articles

Cheat Sheet / Updated 08-14-2024

You’re approaching the end of your Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) prep journey — nicely done! It isn’t easy, but it doesn’t have to be easy for you to handle it and do great. Here are a few tips to help you do well on exam day.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 10-05-2023

Although there's no shortcut to success on the math sections of the SAT, you can study and prepare in order to get the best SAT score you possibly can. Knowing what will be on the test (and what won't be) is key so you know what to brush up on. Also, some basic strategy goes a long way toward helping you get the best score you can. Finally, mapping out a time-management plan to answer (and skip!) the right questions can really boost your score.

Article / Updated 08-14-2023

Sitting through the actual SAT is like being on stage. No matter how well you know the song or the routine, the first time you get up there it’s a new experience and your performance goes south. However, the second time is always much better. Students tell me again and again that the second time they took the SAT went much better than the first time, partly because they had more practice, but also because the second time they were used to it. This may be how the testing process goes, but you can close that gap and make your first SAT go much better by using the SAT practice tests to prepare for the testing experience. Here are 10 ways to get the most from the practice SATs. Practice an Entire SAT in One Sitting How well you can answer the questions doesn’t matter if you can’t maintain your energy for the length of the exam. When you’re in a pressure cooker like the actual exam, your brain is in overdrive. Whether you’re omitting the essay (for a four-hour exam) or including it (for five hours), you need to become used to working intensely for these hours in one stretch so you can go the distance on exam day. Practice Not Making Mistakes Under Pressure Did you get stuck on an early question and not finish the SAT Writing and Language Test? Did you skip a line on the bubble sheet? Did you get lost in the pages, unable to find the question that you wanted to return to? Did you know better than to make these mistakes? Of course you did, but this happens to everyone, especially under pressure. Only by falling into a trap do you learn out how to avoid it. Work out the bugs on a practice SAT. Make these mistakes at home, where it doesn’t matter, instead of on the actual exam, where it’s life or death (or a scholarship). Practice with Others in the Room Nothing is more distracting on your SAT than hearing someone using scratch paper, sighing, turning pages, cursing, or chuckling confidently while she works her exam. Get used to distractions by taking your practice SAT with friends or others who are also taking the SAT and, therefore, need to practice. The sounds as they work and sigh and groan or pat themselves on the back (because they also used SAT For Dummies) become less of a distraction as you get used to the noises and the now-present feeling of competition. This also helps your friends improve their scores while they help you improve yours. Practice as a Dress Rehearsal Play by the rules of the testing center. No phone, hat, drink, snack, neck brace, or anything that brings a modicum of comfort is allowed within reach in the exam room. Your breaks are short, and your scratch paper is your test booklet. If this is not something that you’re used to, it will drive you nuts on exam day, so make sure it’s a road that you’ve been down before, and it won’t be as bad. Do you get thirsty? Hungry? Uncomfortable? Chilly? What do you wish you had: water, a sandwich, a power bar, coffee, aspirin? Keep these thoughts in mind and plan accordingly on test day. You have access to your personal belongings during the breaks, so bring these things in a bag and grab a quick refreshment during your break. Practice Your Competitive Edge The practice test doesn’t matter, so why try hard? In the third hour of the practice, you’re exhausted, and you just want to get through it — and that’s okay because it’s a practice test, right? Wrong. If you’ve never tried as hard as you can for four or five hours, you won’t do it easily on exam day. You may intend to, but working at half effort on the practice exam is a hard habit to break, and it carries to the real thing. It’s like running a race by yourself versus running a race against someone else: You try harder when others are in the game. One way to get around this is by recording your scores and trying to beat your last performance. Another way is to try to beat a friend’s score. The best way, though, is to take the practice exam with a friend in the room also taking the same exam. Try to beat this person: This makes it real and competitive, and you’ll bring this edge to the actual exam. Practice Your Test-Taking Strategies As you study and practice, you develop strategies for taking the exam. Maybe you work all the easy math questions first and then go back to the tougher questions. Maybe you try different ways to take on the SAT Reading Test. These strategies give you control over the exam, but different strategies work for different test-takers. What works for you? What doesn’t? What does it depend on? You should know the answers to these questions before you take the actual exam. As you take the practice SATs, focus on your strategies. You will find things that work and things that don’t, or you’ll find your own take on an established strategy. Finding and honing your strategies that work is a very important part of your prep process, but do this before test day. One thing you could do is go through a practice SAT that you’ve already worked. Because the questions are familiar to you, you can focus more on the test-taking strategies. Practice Using the Bubble Sheet Students hate the bubble sheet. They practice and circle the answers in the test booklet, and they stop right there. Like it or not, the bubble sheet is part of the exam, and I’ve seen enough practice exams where the math or English question is answered correctly in the booklet but bubbled incorrectly on the sheet. It counts just as wrong, and the student is mad. One student refused to practice with a bubble sheet. Then he took the actual SAT, and he told me after that he had somehow bubbled two answers on a single line! I think he had also lost count of which line he was on, so he missed a lot of questions. This was a top-scoring student who consistently answered 19 out of 20 questions correctly in practice, but he bombed the exam because he wasn’t used to the bubble sheet. This didn’t have to happen. Practice Finding Your Areas of Focus Do you struggle more with reading Science or Social Studies passages? Do you handle triangles better than you do exponents? Do you lose steam (causing your performance to drop) by the third hour? Do you run out of time? With these practice SATs, you can get a sense of how you work and where you need to focus, and then you can close those gaps. You cannot fix your gaps unless you find them first. There are no truer words. Review the Practice SAT Answers and Explanations After taking a four- or five-hour practice SAT, the last thing you probably want to do is spend time reviewing answers and explanations, so take a well-deserved break and save the answers and explanations for later. But be sure to review them. After you’re rested, take the following steps to review: Identify which questions you answered incorrectly. Read the answer explanations and review any relevant material so you’re prepared for a similar question next time. Fully close that gap by practicing similar questions from 1,001 SAT Practice Questions For Dummies (also published by Wiley). Here’s another thing you can do. While you’re taking the exam, mark any questions you’re not sure of, and read the explanations for those answers after the practice. This way, even if you guessed correctly, you’ll review that question along with the ones that you missed. Review the Practice SAT with Other Students After taking a practice SAT along with your friends who are also taking the practice SAT, or even if your friends took the practice SAT separately, review your practice exam along with them. For each question that you miss, your friend can explain it to you; or if your friend also missed it, you can seek the answer together. Your friend will also have missed questions that you got right, so you can explain those to them! You boost their scores while they boost yours.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 05-13-2022

Yes, this is an SAT cheat sheet . . . but it’s not about cheating. It’s more of a shortcut sheet, giving you the basics of the exam and some advice for improving your score. You'll also find time management tips and pointers for doing well on the reading, writing, math, and essay sections of the SAT.

Cheat Sheet / Updated 02-25-2022

Yes, this is an SAT cheat sheet . . . but it’s not about cheating. This is more of a shortcut sheet, giving you the basics of the exam and some advice for improving your score. You'll find time management tips and pointers for doing well on the Reading, Writing, Math, and Essay sections of the SAT.

Article / Updated 10-27-2021

There are two math tests on the SAT, back to back. The first math test features 20 questions for 25 minutes, with no calculator allowed. The second math test has 38 questions for 55 minutes, and you are allowed to use a calculator. Other than that, the two tests are basically the same. One thing to note is that the questions tend to start out at a low level of difficulty, which increases as you progress through the test. Difficulty is relative. A question that’s easy for you may be challenging for your friend, and vice versa. It doesn’t matter anyway, because if you know how to approach the question, it’s easy no matter what. The SAT determines difficulty by the number of students who missed the question during a trial, not by the question itself. So, a “difficult” question to the SAT is simply one where more students didn’t know how to approach it. If you know how to approach the question, the question is easy. Furthermore, if you know how to approach an SAT math question, then it takes less than a minute to answer. This means that if you know what to do, you can answer all of the questions in the SAT math tests easily and without rushing. And this leads to the first two bits of wisdom: Make each question easy by knowing what you’re doing. There aren’t that many topics on SAT Math. There are a few, and they’re all topics that most students see in high school. There are plenty of math topics that you don’t see, such as matrices, which only appear on the ACT. Don’t rush, because you’ll make all kinds of mistakes. Instead, to speed up your progress through the test, make sure you don’t get stuck. The way you don’t get stuck is by knowing what you’re doing. Then you’ll answer all the questions easily with time to spare. Here are more bits of wisdom (also known as Math Test Strategies) along those same lines: Don’t take more than a minute on any one question. If you don’t know what to do and you get stuck, that’s okay. Take a guess and move on: Take a guess in your answer sheet. Circle the question in your booklet. Fold the corner of the page in your booklet. Move on to the next question. Come back to this question at the end of the section. If you find yourself working a lot of math, you missed what the question is asking. An SAT Math question is more like a puzzle than a math problem. It never takes a lot of math, but it may take a strategic approach. If you understand the question and set it up correctly, all the fractions cancel and everything lands nicely and neatly. If you don’t understand what it’s asking, you start working a lot of math, so step back and follow the preceding strategy: Take a guess, move on, and come back to this question at the end of the section. You’ll probably spot how to work the question on this second look. Treat each question like it’s worth the same number of points. A question that goes fast is worth the same points as one that takes forever. So, work the fast questions first! Then go back to the time-consumers. Use the test booklet as your scratch paper. Write your calculations in the extra blank space, but take time to bubble in your answers. Even though the proctor collects the test booklet, your notes and figuring don’t affect your score. If you’re almost out of time, bubble 'til the end. Really, this shouldn’t happen. Worst case, take the plunge and guess through the end of the test. A wrong answer is no worse than an unanswered one, so you may as well take a shot at getting it right. Bubble your answer after each question. Don’t wait until the end and then go back and bubble them all. What could possibly go wrong? Formulas on the SAT math tests The first page of each math test has a set of formulas to help you solve the problems. By the time you’re on the second page of the test, you’ll probably forget it’s there — almost everyone does — but these formulas, shown, are still good to know. Just gridding Of the 58 math test questions, most are good ol' multiple choice, but 13 (five in the first math test and eight in the second) ask you to provide your own answers and bubble them into a grid. These questions are known as grid-ins. This figure shows a sample blank grid-in. The grid-in problems are normal math questions but with certain rules: Write your answer and then darken the ovals. The little boxes to write your answer are just there to help you grid the answer properly. You have to darken the circles for the scanner to read it. You can’t grid in negative numbers. No answer is negative, so each answer must be positive or zero. Don’t grid in a mixed number. If you come up with 5-1/2 as your answer, don’t grid in 51/2, because the scanner will read “51 over 2,” not “five and one-half.” Instead, convert your answer to an improper fraction. Grid in 11/2 (11 over 2), as shown, or grid in a decimal: 5.5. You can start from the left, right, or middle. Just be sure that you have enough boxes for the whole answer. If there is more than one correct answer, pick one and go with it. If it turns out that the answer can be either 4 or 5, just pick one and grid it in. Don’t worry about the other answer: The system will accept either one. That also goes for a range: If your answer is between 3 and 7, then any number between 3 and 7 is considered correct. Check whether the answer needs to be rounded. If you find that the answer is between 6 and 12, check and see whether the answer must be an integer. A lot of times when the answer is a decimal, the question specifies that it should be rounded to a certain number of decimal places. For example, if you correctly compute an answer of 1.75, and the question specifies that the answer needs to be rounded to one decimal place, then a gridded answer of 1.75 is considered incorrect, while the rounded answer of 1.8 is considered correct. Don’t place zeroes before a decimal point. If your answer is .5, darken the oval for the decimal point and the five, as in .5, not 00.5. If your answer is a repeating decimal, fill in all the boxes, rounding off the last number only. In other words, darken the ovals for .333 or .667 ( 1/3 and 2/3 expressed as decimals), not .3 or .67 (See C in the figure). Note that you don’t have to round the last number: If the answer is 2/3, you can grid that, or .666 or .667: any of those three is correct. Probably just grid the fraction. Don’t worry if you get more than one possible answer. Some grid-in questions have several possible right answers. (Usually those problems read something like, “what is one possible value of . . .”) Just pick one answer and you’re set. Get familiar with the math tests Worried? Don’t be. The most important thing to know — that phrase is used a lot, but it’s always true — is that certain math topics are on the SAT, and certain math topics aren’t. If you know what these topics are, and the way that the SAT asks about them, then each answer in the math tests is within your reach. These topics are listed here. The SAT throws the occasional curveball question in its math tests. There may be some unusual topic just on the edge or outside the scope of SAT Math. These are few and far between, but if you encounter one, you know what to do: Circle it, take a guess, and come back to it later. If you know how to answer most of the math questions, you can answer them quickly and have time left over to focus on the harder questions. That means you. What are those math topics? Glad you asked. Numbers and operations: These are about a quarter of the math test questions. Basically, anything that doesn’t involve an x or a drawing falls into this category, which includes whole number operations, fractions, ratios, exponents, and radicals. Of these, ratios and exponents are typically the most commonly occurring. Algebra and functions: These are just under half of the math test questions and include anything with an x or any other letter that represents a number. The most commonly occurring algebra questions include linear equations, systems of equations (which are basically two linear equations), and parabolas. Geometry and trigonometry: These are about a quarter of the math test questions and include the typical circles and trapezoids along with 3-D shapes, such as cubes and cylinders. There’s some subtracting the areas or volumes of shapes, and just a little trig. The most common questions in this group involve triangles and parts of circles (such as half of a wheel) along with trig. Statistics and probability: These are just a few of the math test questions and involve averages and graphs, including scatterplots. The most common questions in this group are definitely the graphs. So, there you are. You now know the secrets of the SAT math tests. Nice! Note that whether a group of questions is about a quarter or half of the Math Test questions, or whether certain topics are more common than others, varies from exam to exam. The preceding assessments, along with the estimated priority of each math topic, are based on the review of countless SATs with students. Each exam is different, and yours may not have a quarter of this question type or half of that one. But it’ll be close. Also, unlike the Reading Test and Writing and Language Test, where you learn strategies to take on 11 questions at a time, the math test strategies focus on one question at a time.

Article / Updated 03-26-2021

Everyone does these. Everyone except you, that is! Most test-takers make these mistakes on the SAT, look back on them, think about them, learn, try again, and finally get things right. That’s them. You, however, will know in advance what not to do. You Won’t Forget Your Wristwatch Who wears a watch these days? Well, you do if you want that scholarship. You have to manage your time. You need to know when you’re halfway through, have 10 minutes to go, or at what point you are in each test. And don’t forget about your breaks! You can’t be late coming back to your seat. Students who practice with a wristwatch tell me that they feel so much more in control of the experience. There’s no panic that the time will suddenly run out, and that’s just in practice! Try it on the real thing. Note that your wristwatch has to be simple. It can’t have smart functionality, which means it can’t read your biorhythms, and it especially can’t connect to your phone. Also: If your watch beeps during the exam, the proctors will take it. So, if you don’t have anything that simple, go online or to the store and buy one! The cheaper the better. You Won’t Bubble Everything at the End Too many students are in the habit of circling the correct answers in the exam booklet and then quickly bubbling all 52 or so answers at the end of the hour. What could possibly go wrong? I had one student tell me that on his actual exam, when he reached Question 52 on the booklet, he was only on number 51 on the answer sheet! Oops. Then the time ran out. You, however, won’t miss half the questions — and blow 300 points — from a silly mistake like this. Get used to bubbling as you go. Make this a part of your practice! You Won’t Let Your Calculator Batteries Die If your calculator plugs in to charge, be sure it’s plugged in the night before, and don’t forget to pack it. If your calculator swaps batteries, put fresh ones in the night before and test them out. Even new batteries can be duds. You Won’t Run Out of Steam The SAT tests your stamina as much as anything else. Most students can’t maintain these levels of concentration for four or five straight hours, so they burn out halfway through. Students have told me that by the third hour of a practice exam, they’re just bubbling C, C, C. Obviously, this isn’t an effective strategy — but at least it’s on a practice test. Like preparing for a marathon, preparing for the long SAT is a slow process to build yourself up. Practice for a few hours at a time and stop when you get tired. Do this a few times, and eventually you’ll go the full distance without fail. You Won’t Forget Snacks and Water Pack some water bottles and snacks to keep in a locker for your breaks. Water is best — not soda or juice — and the snacks shouldn’t be too sugary. Nutrition bars or sandwiches are good, as long as they don’t have to go in the fridge. Your breaks are short, and you won’t have time to buy something or wait in line for drinking fountain water. You Won’t Work the Reading Test Straight On The Reading Test, in particular, is arranged in the worst way for you to do well. It starts with the Literature passage, which takes the most time, and most passages have the main idea and inference questions early, with the line-number and detail questions last. If you work the Reading Test straight on, you run out of time about halfway through — and you wear yourself out! Don’t fall for this trap. Instead, take control. Work the passages and questions in an order that lets you get the most questions right! Save the Literature passage for last, even though the SAT hands it to you first. For each passage, go straight to the line-number and detail questions (where the line number is in the question, not in the answer choices — those are different). Then, read the passage and answer the inference and main idea questions. Finally, go back to the Literature passage, where you may get stuck, but by then it doesn’t matter because you’ve already finished the other passages. Be sure to practice this out-of-order strategy ahead of time so it’s smooth on test day. You Won’t Rush through the Questions Some students think that they need to rush through the questions to make the time limit. This is true, if you want to get them all wrong by missing key details and making careless mistakes. I’d rather you get half the questions right and run out of time for the other half than miss them all by rushing through them. But that won’t happen anyway: The SAT gives you enough time to answer all of the questions correctly and calmly — if you don’t get stuck. Remember the Other Golden Rule: The secret to working fast and getting the answers right isn’t rushing — it’s knowing what you’re doing. The way you know what you’re doing is by learning what’s on the exam and practicing it. You Won’t Get Stuck on a Question You get roughly one minute per multiple-choice question. Imagine this: You encounter a tricky question that takes you five minutes, but you get it right! Yes! Then you run out of time before getting to the last four questions. So, who won: you or that tricky question? Probably that question. Don’t let this happen. Instead, after about a minute, move on. Bubble a guess on your answer sheet, circle the question in your test booklet, fold the corner of the booklet page, and move on. You can come back to it later, or if you don’t get the chance to, at least you took a guess. This way you don’t miss out on questions at the end. You Definitely Won’t Choke on the Essay Choking, by definition (on the SAT), means getting stuck on something and becoming so flustered that you can’t focus. This can happen at any point on the test, but because you know better than to get stuck on a question, you’re unlikely to choke on one. The essay, however, is another story. On the SAT, you have to write an introspective essay within 50 minutes, after a four-hour cognitive marathon. What’s worse, you know that schools can see your essay, so no pressure there! Like any skill, writing the essay takes practice, and you don’t want to be at the start of the learning curve on test day. This way, writer’s block — and choking — is something that happens to other students, but not you. You Won’t Change Your Morning Routine The SAT is stressful enough. The last thing you need is to add more anxiety to the whole nerve-racking experience by changing your morning routine. If you normally have one glass of juice, should you have an extra glass for more vitamins or only half a glass so you don’t have to get up? Should you have eggs for more protein or just toast to avoid the food crash? Here’s a suggestion. Do what you normally do. It works every other day, and it’ll work today. Don’t change your routine. If you’re tempted to try an energy drink or something unusual for an enhanced test-taking experience, try it first on a practice test! Make sure this new mix doesn’t upset your stomach or give you a headache. You don’t need that distraction.

Article / Updated 03-26-2021

The SAT Reading Test isn’t like what you’re used to. These are college-level journal articles on literature, science, and social studies, and you’re asked to identify such mind-bending concepts as the purpose of a phrase or what’s implied by a paragraph. The SAT starts with this test, so you’re also doing this at 8 a.m. on a Saturday. The SAT Reading Test consists of five short passages, which you read and wrangle for 65 minutes. Here’s what to expect on this test: Four one-part passages: You see four passages, each 500 to 750 words long, and each with 10 to 11 multiple-choice questions. One two-part passage: You see one passage that is split in two parts, also with 10 or 11 multiple-choice questions. These two half-passages typically offer two points of view on the same topic. Content: You get one passage drawn from a work of literature, two passages from science, and one single plus one two-part passage from social studies. Purpose: Passages may present arguments or theories, relate a series of events, describe situations or places, or reveal characters and attitudes. Graphics: Some passages, typically science but sometimes social studies, are accompanied by charts, graphs, or diagrams similar to those that appear in textbooks. Manage your time with key strategies As you cut through the SAT Reading, use these simple, tried-and-true strategies to get the most questions right before running out of time on this section. Work the literature passage last. The literature passage is always the first in the group, but work this passage last. The passage itself may be straightforward, but the questions tend to go deep into things like the motivations of characters and the symbolism of situations — things that take time to read and absorb. Work this time-heavy literature passage after the other, faster passages. Start with the blurb at the beginning of each passage. These few lines tell you from a high level what’s happening in the passage, whether it’s an excerpt from Abraham Lincoln or a study of migrating geese. This vital context provides simple underlying knowledge to help answer the questions. You will read the whole passage, but not right away. Start with the line-number questions. These are the questions that send you to a certain line or lines in the passage. Be sure to read a few lines above and below (within the paragraph), but these are the easiest to answer because you usually don’t need to understand the whole passage. We’re not talking about questions where you select a line (via line numbers) to support the previous answer. Next, work the detail questions. These questions challenge you to remember certain details about the passage. Don’t worry about that. Instead, skim the passage for keywords from the question. For example, if the passage is about rearing dogs and the question is about leash training, skim the passage for the keywords “leash training,” and you’ll usually find that only a small part of the passage — like a paragraph — covers that. Then just read that paragraph and answer the question! End with the inference and main-idea questions. The main-idea question is easy to spot because it asks about the passage as a whole, and the inference question typically asks what could have happened or what’s implied. These demand a full understanding of the entire passage. You get an understanding of the full passage by working the line-number and detail questions first. Now read the whole passage. It goes much faster and easier because you already understand parts of it. Of course, inference and main-idea questions may be early among the questions — but that’s okay: You skip them for now, go to the line-number and detail questions, and then come back to the main-idea questions. Answer the questions in the order that works for you. If you want to try reading the whole passage before taking on the questions, get a timer and try this out on a practice test. If the passage doesn’t make sense to you, you run the risk of getting stuck trying to decipher it. At 65 minutes for the Reading Test, you have about 13 minutes for each passage and its questions. Reading one of these passages to fully understand it can take you upward of 10 minutes! Then you only have a few minutes left for the 10 or 11 questions that follow. Not only do you run out of time, you wear yourself out. Get each question right, quickly, with more key strategies It’s all about the strategies, right? With 65 minutes to answer 52 questions, you have slightly over a minute per question, and the topic is not always easy to understand. That’s okay. Use these proven question strategies combined with the preceding, tried-and-true time-management strategies to answer each question correctly: Cover the answer choices. Use your answer sheet to cover the answer choices. Don’t cheat. Even though the right answer is there, three other trap answers are also there. Dodge these traps and focus on the question. Answer the question yourself. Read the question, go to the relevant part of the passage (be it line number, keyword, or the whole thing for inference/main idea), and answer the question in your own words. Cross off the wrong answers. Your answer won’t match the right answer. That’s okay: It doesn’t have to. What will happen is that the other answer choices will be so far out in left field that they couldn’t possibly be correct. Here’s what you do: a. Move your answer sheet down just a little to expose Choice (A). Your answer sheet is covering the answers, remember? Now move it down a little to peek at the first answer. Based on your own answer, could this be right? The answer is hardly ever yes. More often it’s either not a chance or I’m not sure. If it’s not a chance, cross it off. If it’s I’m not sure, put a dot next to it. Don’t spend time on it. Either cross it off or dot it, and move on. b. Move your answer sheet down a little more to expose Choice (B). Here’s the thing. Sometimes an answer is so clearly, impossibly wrong that you can cross it off as soon as you read it. If you’re not sure, put a dot so you can go back to it. Either way, move quickly to cross off or dot each answer choice. c. Now check Choices (C) and (D). One at a time, either cross off or put a dot next to each answer. Typically, you’ll have three crossed off and one dotted, so go with the dot and get to the next question. If you have two answer choices dotted, check them to see which is more likely. If you can’t tell, that’s okay: take a guess, circle the question in the test booklet, and come back to it later with the remaining time. When does this strategy fail? When you go straight for the answer choices without thinking of your own answer first. What happens then is that you get caught in the trap of wrong answers, where you read each answer and think, “Maybe that’s it,” and spend all this time going back and forth to the passage. Don’t do that. Also, don’t doubt your own answer when you read the answer choices. Sure, the correct answer knows the depth and detail better than you — but so do the three wrong answers! Trust yourself to answer the question well enough! No matter how far off your answer is, it’ll be close enough to cross off three wrong answers. No one gets a perfect score on the SAT Reading Test, so don’t kill yourself trying to. It’s okay to miss a question here and there — but it’s not okay to spend five minutes on one question.

Article / Updated 03-26-2021

Whether you practice Pulitzer-level writing or express yourself with emojis, you have to take on the SAT Writing and Language Test. This test is in two parts. The first part is a set of multiple-choice questions about grammar, style, logic, and structure, all based on passages that are well written but leave room for improvement. The second part is an optional essay. Get to know the Writing and Language Test The SAT Writing and Language Test consists of four passages (like essays) each mixed with 11 multiple-choice questions. The test-makers want to know how you’d revise the passage if you were the author. Here are the details: You have 35 minutes to take on four passages. This means you get just about 9 minutes per passage — but more on that later. The topics range from science to history/social studies and some fiction. Unlike the SAT Reading Test, there’s no advantage to approaching the fiction passage last or approaching the questions out of order. Of the 44 questions in this test, about 20 cover Standard English conventions of grammar and punctuation, and about 24 address style, or “expression of ideas.” This last category is broad and may include proper word choice (selecting the right word for the context), organization of ideas, supporting logic, and effective use of evidence. Fortunately, the topics appearing in this test are limited to a certain scope: There are certain grammar elements, certain punctuation, and certain style questions that the SAT asks again and again. You don’t have to master everything about English! Just a few parts. Manage your time with simple strategies As you take on the SAT Writing Test, use the following basic, tried-and-true strategies to get the most questions right with the time that you have. An easy question is worth just as much as a hard question One question that takes five seconds is worth as much as another that takes three minutes. What if you work the three-minute question, answer it correctly, and then miss out on the last few questions because you ran out of time? Seems like the three-minute question still won. Don’t let this happen. An in-depth style question will take far longer than a simple grammar question. When you get one of these bonkers that takes a while, here’s what you do: Guess an answer. The idea is that you’ll come back to this question, but just in case you don’t, you have a chance to get it right. (A wrong answer isn’t worse than an unanswered question, so you may as well throw a mental dart.) Circle the question in your test booklet. This way, when you go back, you can find the question quickly. You’ll have a few to run back to. Fold the corner of the page in the test booklet. The Reading Test runs 18 pages, so this action speeds up finding the questions at the end. Use the 9-minute rule With 35 minutes for four passages, you get just under 9 minutes per passage. Managing your time is key to taking control of this section. Write down the start time of the passage. The test booklet is your scratch paper, so write down the time you start this test. You did put on a wristwatch, didn’t you? If you didn’t, you might be lucky and have a clock in front of the room. If the clock is on the side or the back of the room, don’t look at it! The proctor will think you’re cheating. And wear a dang watch. Write down the halfway point and end point. This is simple. Just add 18 and 35 to the start time. If you started the section at 9:00 a.m., the halfway point is 9:18, and the end point is 9:35. Check your time at the end of the second passage (Question 22). If you’re ahead of the halfway point, you can go back and answer the circled questions from strategy 1. If you’re running behind, forget them and go on to the next passage. Try the 9-minute rule on a practice. Get a sense of your pace and whether to skip-and-guess or stop-and-work the sticky questions before the actual exam. Your pace on exam day may be different, but you’ll still have a sense of how you work, which means you can take control of your approach.

Article / Updated 01-29-2017

The SAT Writing and Language section contains several questions related to parallel structure—that is, whether the parts of a sentence doing a particular job are grammatically consistent. For example, a subject and verb must agree by both being single or plural, and verb tense must also be consistent. In the following practice questions, you have to decide whether the verbs are agreeing in number with the nouns they describe. Practice questions Question 1 is based on the following information. The following passage is an excerpt from A Practical Guide to Scientific Data Analysis, by David J. Livingstone (Wiley-Blackwell). Perhaps one of the most familiar concepts in statistics (1) are the frequency distributions. A plot of a frequency distribution is shown in Figure 2.1, where the ordinate (y-axis) represents the number of occurrences of a particular value of a variable given by the scales of the abscissa (x-axis). Regarding the underlined passage A. NO CHANGE B. are frequency distributions C. is the frequency distribution D. DELETE the underlined portion Question 2 is based on the following information. The following passage is an excerpt from Biology For Dummies, by Rene Fester Kratz, PhD, and Donna Rae Siegfried (Wiley). In the inner membranes of the mitochondria in your cells, hundreds of little cellular machines are busily working to transfer energy from food molecules to ATP. The cellular machines are called electron transport chains, and they're made of a team of proteins that (2) is seated in the membranes transferring energy and electrons throughout the machines. Regarding the underlined passage A. NO CHANGE B. sits C. has been seated D. are seated Answers and explanations The correct answer is Choice (C). "One . . . is" is correct. The correct answer is Choice (B). "A team . . . sits" is correct and more concise than "A team . . . that is seated."