General tips

• Read the question carefully
• Underline critical info in the question
• Take free practice questions and full tests at https://www.khanacademy.org/mission/sat
• If you really don’t know how to answer a question, just guess it! Remember, there’s no penalty for guessing on the SAT.

Multiple choice (and how to take advantage of it!)

<aside> ✅ Answers are usually (but not always, so pay attention) structured like this:

• two don’t make much sense;
• one might seem correct but has a slightly wrong detail;
• one is correct.

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So, how do we take advantage of this?

1. Identify the two definitely wrong answers;
2. See what the differences between the other two are;
3. Choose the most appropriate answer based on the text!

An example: we’re given an equation for a line graph, like $y=-2x+5$, and we’re asked to choose which one is the correct graph. How do we approach this?

1. Two graphs might show very wrong features, like having a positive slope instead of a negative one (our slope in this case is -2). Let’s cross them out, they can’t be our solution!
2. The other two solutions might differ by a very small detail: one might have a y-intercept of 5, and the other one might have a y-intercept of 4.
3. Which one do we choose? Let’s remember that the y-intercept of our equation is +5, so our graph will be the one with a y-intercept of 5!

Timing

<aside> ⏰ You will have 25 minutes for 20 questions without calculator and 55 minutes for 38 questions with a calculator.

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The optimal time for solving a SAT Math problem is 1 minute: this will give you some extra time for checking your work at the end of the section. If you can’t stay within one minute at the start of your SAT preparation, don’t worry! Work your way down to less than a minute with timed practices on Khan Academy or with timed full tests.

Speed only comes with practice!