Essential Strategies:
- On the reading tests, be sure to read all questions first before reading the passages. Find keywords and phrases in the questions. Be sure that you know what the questions require.
- Annotate/ highlight reading passages.
- Be sure your answers fit in the appropriate spaces provided.
- On the writing questions, read the prompt carefully and do some pre-writing to get organized. Try to start and finish the essay with high interest statements that will appeal to the reader.
Pacing Tips:
- The total test time for the SAT is 3 hours and 45 minutes. You should get three five-minute breaks during the test, so the total elapsed time for the SAT is about 4 hours. The breakdown of the test is: 70 minutes for critical reading, 60 minutes for writing (including the essay), and 70 minutes for math.
- Don’t panic. You will have ENOUGH time.
- Try not to spend too much time on any one question. Do your best and then move on.
- Answer the easiest questions first, flag items that you skip and but be sure to go back to any questions flagged.
- If you finish early, be sure to go back and check your answers and to reread your essay responses for accuracy.
Guessing Strategies:
- Understand how to answer multiple choice questions by using some simple rules.
- Try to answer every question. Make the most intelligent guesses you can.
- DO NOT guess blindly, but if you have time to think about the best answer choice, make it!
- After you have been through all of the questions once, go back and find questions you have some knowledge about and eliminate choices that you know are incorrect.
- If you can eliminate two wrong answers, your chance of choosing the right answer is obviously greater.
On Changing Answers:
- DO NOT change your initial answers unless you have a good reason to do so.
- Research indicates that 3 out of 4 times a first choice is probably correct