Top Ten Tips for SAT Preparation

SAT Verbal, SAT Math – sound terrifying? Well! Not exactly, when you have these prime SAT tips to guide you to do your exam exquisitely well.

 

1. Solve the Easy Questions First

Which is easier to eat, a banana or a jackfruit? Which topic did you like the most in Math? Which topic is less terrifying in English? We feel more comfortable doing the easy things first. Solve first the questions that are easy for you, and try the harder questions later. Do you know that all the questions are scored equally? There is no extra point for answering a hard question correctly.

 

2. Decide How Many Questions to Solve

The number and type of questions you attempt do not decide your score; the number of questions you get right does. Unless your target score is 750+, the best way to improve your score is to set a target for a number of questions to attempt on the test. Unless your target score is 750+, allow yourself more time per question and achieve better accuracy by solving fewer questions; of course, leave no question unanswered.

 

3. A, B, C, or D? Which is Your Favorite?

Since there is no negative marking, you must answer every question. You will work through the targeted number of questions properly. For questions you are not able to solve and for those you have no time to solve, bubble A, B, C, or D, whichever is your favorite!

 

4. Eliminate the Wrong Answers

In multiple-choice questions, out of the four answer choices given, one is right and all the other three are wrong. Often, it’s easy to identify some of the wrong answers, and that’s a good way to avoid trap answers. Whenever you realize an answer choice cannot be the right answer, eliminate it before proceeding further. This way, you are closer to the right answer.

 

5. Read Questions Completely

Most times, in a question, the SAT asks for something unexpected and, of course, has deceptive answer choices that are especially tempting if we misread or misinterpret the question. Sometimes, we start working in a direction that may not even be required to get to the right answer. Read the question completely and underline important words to avoid squandering valuable time.

 

6. Underline the Key Parts of the Questions and the Text

Underline what you need to find and also underline the key points in the questions and the texts. Otherwise, you may fall into the trap, of missing important parts of the question or the text.

 

7. Cut It Into Pieces

How do we prepare for a project? Don’t we chop the topic into smaller pieces and find out where to start? In the same way, we have to break bulky questions into smaller portions and decide where to start.

 

8. Use Your Calculator Shrewdly

You will not have time to play with or explore your new scientific or graphic calculator during the SAT. So make sure you become familiar with it before the exam. Also, you may be able to do many questions faster by calculating manually. Use the calculator only when it is required and you know that it will speed up your work.

 

9. Consider When to Calculate and When to Estimate

The use of approximation and estimation can save considerable time during exams. This way, you may be able to eliminate a few answer choices that are too big or too small or that cannot possibly be the right answer. Sometimes you can get to the right answer even without doing any actual calculations.

 

10. Solve and Bubble in Tandem

Do not wait for the last minute to shade the right answers. No extra time is given for bubbling the answers. Just imagine! suppose you solve the questions but run out of time to bubble the answers – can anything be worse? So keep bubbling the answers at the end of every page of the question paper!