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SAT studying myths

These are the most common SAT studying myths:

MYTH #1: Taking timed practice tests is the best way to improve your score

Most study guides are written based on this myth. They boast about how many full-length practice tests they include. The bad news is simply taking these tests over and over doesn’t improve your score. Considering these “guides” don’t even provide solutions to the problems, how are you supposed to learn what you don’t know?

Think about a professional sport for a second. Football, track & field, marathon running, hockey, you name it. All of the athletes that compete in these sports surely play scrimmages and actual games, or run races under timed conditions, but they spend most of their time conditioning, doing drills, and reviewing their performance with a critical eye. SAT training should be no different.

Taking timed practice tests is a great thing to do. It familiarizes you with what’s on the test as well as how you need to pace yourself to maximize your score. However, reviewing those tests is more important than simply taking them. After grading your practice test you should flag each question you missed or were unsure about and decide why you didn’t get it right. It should fall into one of three categories:

1. Careless mistake or ran out of time
2. Didn’t know concept
3. Didn’t recognize approach to solve problem (was stumped)

If you have more than a couple careless mistakes per test you need to figure out why you’re making them. Saying, “stupid mistake, won’t do that next time” is not specific enough. Were you going too fast? Be sure to develop a pacing plan.

Did you do too much work in your head?  Did you make a mistake setting up an equation or in a calculation?

If you didn’t know the concept required for the problem, go learn it! Every skill required for the SAT is covered in The Official SAT Study Guide. More important than reading about the concept, you need to master it, and then practice it on real SAT questions. You should only do problems from the College Board’s The Official SAT Study Guide to do exactly that.

If you got stuck and didn’t recognize an approach to solve a problem, learn more SAT Math Strategies.  As with reviewing math concepts, it’s most important to apply and practice what you’ve learned — don’t just read about it or watch videos!

Remember, practice problems should only come from The Official SAT Study Guide. Using made up problems from test prep companies are skewed toward their “strategies.”

For every hour you spend taking a timed test, you should spend two to four hours learning, practicing then applying what came up in that test!

MYTH #2: You shouldn’t memorize math formulas as they’re provided on the test

You should memorize formulas while preparing for the SAT math section for three reasons:

1. You’re wasting valuable time if you need to flip back to that page to hunt for a formula.
2. If you don’t have them memorized you might turn back to that page looking for a formula that isn’t there.
3. There are formulas you need to memorize that are NOT provided on the test.

MYTH #3: The New SAT covers complicated math concepts

While some Algebra II topics are covered on the SAT, nearly all of the material required for SAT problems is taught by freshman year. Of course they don’t hand it to you like your 8th grade teacher did, but the concepts are basic. Your job is to cut through their language to find the basic concepts.

Not only is most of the math for the SAT first year algebra and geometry, but the test only covers a fraction of what you did in school. For this reason, DO NOT feel the need to review any high school math text books. 95% of your time would be wasted! The only math material you should spend time on should be from problems you missed from The Official SAT Study Guide.

SAT test-taking myths

MYTH #1: Speed is more important than accuracy on the SAT

This just might be the biggest SAT myth out there! Your prep for the SAT exam would be incomplete without an understanding of this tactic. Your score is determined by how many questions you answer correctly and incorrectly.

Speed just might be more important than accuracy in most tests in school because they award partial credit and more points for difficult problems. The SAT does neither! So, in school, if you don’t answer those difficult questions at the end, you’re missing out on a lot of points! But the SAT is not school!

The SAT simply gives you one point for each correct answer and takes away ¼ of a point for each incorrect one. If you rush through problems at the expense of accuracy, not only do you get docked the ¼ point for getting it wrong, but you miss the whole point that you would have received if you got it right!

Your goal should be to get 75% to 90% of the questions you answer correct. If you’re a rare, rare breed and are getting 100% of the questions you attempt correct, sure, you can increase your score by speeding up. I would argue if someone is getting 100% of attempted SAT questions correct, they wouldn’t be reading this!

If your accuracy is less than 90% on attempted questions (which I bet it is!), slow down and get more right. Accuracy is more important than speed.

MYTH #2: You should go with your first instinct when not sure of an answer

Your first instincts will get you into trouble on two thirds of the test! The only place you should not at least question your hunch is the easy portion. Your first instincts will sometimes be wrong on the medium portion, and will often lead you to incorrect answers in the hard portion of each section.

MYTH #3: If an SAT question asks for the least (or greatest) number to meet some condition, rule out the least (or greatest) number in the answer choices

Princeton Review actually teaches this “strategy.” Their logic is that it’s too obvious of an answer to be correct. To prove it’s absolute garbage, turn to pg. 851 (pg. 737 in the first edition) in The Official SAT Study Guide 2nd edition. Problem 15 asks for the shortest distance from the center of a cube to the base, if the volume is 8. If the volume is 8, each side is 2. So our answer is 1. 1 happens to be the least number listed. Princeton Review would have you rule out this correct answer!

Needless to say, Princeton Review’s practice tests have manufactured problems that are consistent with their “strategy.” This is exactly why you should only trust SAT problems from The Official SAT Study Guide.

MYTH #4: You should guess if you can rule out one or more answers on multiple-choice questions

The above statement is an oversimplification. Again, Princeton Review and Kaplan teach this garbage. Don’t believe me – try it out yourself. Next time you take a practice test (only from the The Official SAT Study Guide), mark the questions where you guessed. Score your test with and without those guesses. See for yourself if guessing improves your score.

MYTH #5: All answer choices appear equally on the test. Therefore, if your answer sheet doesn’t show a lot of (B) choices you should choose (B) when in doubt.

This is total bologna (buh-LOH-nee). Don’t even go there. That’s like saying the next coin toss is more likely to be heads because the last few were tails. Try it! I’ll pay for your trip to Vegas if you can predict things like that.

MYTH #6: You should not leave any grid-in questions blank because there’s no guessing penalty on that question type

While it’s true the SAT scoring system does not subtract points for wrong answers on grid-ins, the penalty is lost time. In addition to reading through the question, coming up with a solution, writing down the answer, you must bubble in each digit and decimal point. If you’ve worked through a problem and have an answer you’re unsure of, sure, take the time to transfer it to your answer sheet. If there are just a couple minutes left and there are several questions you have not looked at, better to focus on one than take the time to fill in random guesses for all of them. Accuracy is more important than speed on multiple-choice as well as grid-in questions.

MYTH #7: A calculator is required for the “hard” SAT math problems

“Hard” SAT problems simply mean a lot of people missed them on past tests. If a problem required a calculator to solve it, I would bet most students would get it right! Students are amazing with calculators these days! No SAT question requires a calculator. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t bring and use one. It just means if you’re doing a lot of calculator crunching, you’re probably missing some shortcuts.