PWN the SAT Q&A

I used everything that came my way. If you want to be perfect, you need to be nimble. There are a few where-the-hell-did-that-come-from questions on every test, and it’s likely that no matter how much you study you’ll get caught off guard once in a while, but if you have the confidence that comes from getting everything right no matter where it’s from, you’ve got a slightly better shot. 

You might want to read this post.

Oh, you mean this old thing? I wish I had a concise answer for you, but there are a LOT of things I did. Basically, I did everything that I tell others to do. 

Probably the most helpful thing for me was reviewing my every mistake until I was able to explain it to others. I had to do that because it was my job to, but I really think that was what put me over the edge from the skill angle and from the confidence angle.

You can use them. Some people prefer mechanical pencils for the essay because they keep good points, although on rare occasions mechanical pencils have been known to rip paper. I prefer regular wooden pencils for bubbling. No reason you can’t bring both!

Well, the only scores that matter are the ones you’re getting on the real tests from The College Board. I am not opposed to using non-CB materials (that’s why I write some of my own) but I think it’s silly of the big companies to try to give accurate scores. If you’re getting 650 on Blue Book tests, and you’re happy with that, then just keep doing what you’re doing. 

If you’re not happy with that, then you need to start identifying the areas in which you’re still weak, and starting the arduous process of turning those into strengths. You do this by reviewing your mistakes until you feel like you could explain each question you got wrong to an alien from space who’d never heard of triangles (maybe that’s a little extreme but you get the point). 

I’ve designed some free drills to help you identify weaknesses. They’re harder than Blue Book sections, so don’t try to do them in 25 mins and don’t expect to get a score afterwards. Just pay attention to the ones you missed…those are meant to show you techniques you might want to shore up.

• Math - Diagnostic Drill #1
• Math - Diagnostic Drill #2
• Math - Diagnostic Drill #3

I know some tutors advocate shortcuts like answering the questions without reading the passage. I honestly think that’s more about them looking fancy because they can do it than it is about helping you score better.

Definitely read the whole passage first, then do the questions. Don’t worry, on your first time through, if a particular phrase didn’t make complete sense to you. But make sure you understand the tone of the passage, and the reason the author might have bothered to sit down and write it.

When a question points you back to a line reference, GO BACK AND READ THE PERTINENT STUFF AGAIN. That may mean you reread a few sentences before and a few after. Remember the broader context in which those lines came (which is why it’s important to have read the whole passage first).

Each wrong answer is wrong for a reason (usually it contradicts the passage, or contains info that wasn’t mentioned in the passage). And each correct answer is really right on. You won’t always have time to find indisputable proof, but it’s usually there—often correct answers are direct paraphrases of something you can find in the passage.

Sometimes you’ll find it easier to eliminate wrong answers than choose the right answer, and sometimes the right answer will jump right off the page at you. Be flexible in your approach. The best test takers fly between these two techniques seamlessly and without thinking about it.

Both of these are OK. I imagine you grouped them together because they both have had ___ in them. Use that verb form when you want to talk about something that happened FURTHER in the past than something else. 

In the first sentence, first the audience left, then the speaker arrived. In the second sentence, Boris Becker sensed something, then he won Wimbledon. If you’re going to include two past events in one sentence, and they didn’t happen at the same time, had ___ is one way to do it.

I had already eaten when my friend asked if I wanted to get Chinese food.

Since the tornado had devastated the city, it almost didn’t matter when the earthquake struck 2 days later.

Annie had wondered for days about the smell in her apartment before she found the source.

[were] is incorrect here…the subject is line, so the verb should be was.

This is one of the SAT’s favorite tricks: to place plural nouns in a prepositional phrase after a singular subject. The best way to avoid getting tricked: look out for the word of. What comes after it is often meant to fool you into thinking a subject is plural. 

Well, the collection of what I’ve written about the reading section can be found here. It’s not as much as I’ve written about the other sections. Candidly, that’s because it’s really hard to come up with practice material for reading. You can’t just steal a passage from someone’s book. CB is a huge organization so they can afford to pay copyright holders for the rights to the material they quote. I can’t, and neither can most prep people. :(

Some quick tips: 

• Most incorrect answers are incorrect because they contain information NOT MENTIONED in the passage, or CONTRADICTED in the passage. Sometimes it’s easier to eliminate wrong answers than it is to find the right one.
• Passages do follow some patterns. There’s always a science passage, for example. And a narrative passage. Usually one about a historical social issue, like women’s rights or civil rights. Often one about a foreign culture. As you take more and more practice tests, these will start to feel less convoluted.
• When you’re reviewing a test after you’ve taken it, make sure you can not only find the part of the passage that says why the right answer is right (often it’s a very close paraphrase of the correct choice somewhere in the passage), but explain why each wrong answer is wrong. Imagine that you have to review the test with someone else, and YOU are responsible for explaining to her why each wrong answer is wrong. Engaging with the test at that deep level will help you to understand the test writers’ reasoning a bit more.

I wish there were more snappy tricks to reading like there are for the other two subjects, but the tricks are more subtle in CR. They’re in there, but they’ll only become apparent to you after a good deal of deep, dedicated practice. 

Your score report tells you a percentile rank, which lets you know precisely where you stand with respect to your peers. You shouldn’t need me to tell you that you tested well. 

Think more carefully about the way you word things. Your use of “better than decent” is at best meaningless and at worst, a little insulting.

Look up the average scores for people who are accepted to the particular schools you’re interested in, and compare them to yours. If they’re lower than 2230 (likely), you should worry about making yourself an attractive candidate in other ways.