A Guide to Conquering the SAT: Resources and Helpful Tips

By: Jenny Zhi

I would say, “it’s almost testing season!”, but the truth is, it’s always testing season. So I guess I’ll say (with no less exuberance) “it’s still testing season!” instead.

For those of you who are preparing for the current SAT*, here’s a quick guide to studying to ensure that you get the highest score you could possibly get!

A few things to note

1: I mention the blue book a lot throughout this post. This is the widely accepted name for Collegeboard’s Official SAT Study Guide. Since it’s straight from Collegeboard, the creator of the SAT (ethos right there, amirite?), its tests are the best to practice with. If you buy the book, there’s also a code with which you can access the Book Owner’s Area, which includes answer explanations for each of the practice tests. It tells you why the wrong answers are wrong, which is super helpful, so make use of it.

2: A lot of the books I mention are widely circulated, and you could probably find most of them at your local library. You don’t necessarily have to purchase all of the books, as that money adds up.

Math

The concepts in the math section of the SAT are not very advanced, and the questions are always extremely straightforward. This is great, as it makes studying for the math section super easy, so we’re going to get math quickly out of the way first. 

All you need to do is grab Barron’s SAT book and work your way through the entire math chapter. Do all the exercises that come after each section, and be sure to figure out exactly how to do any of the ones you weren’t sure of or didn’t know how to do. You should be solid with all of these concepts by the end of the math chapter.

However, since the math questions on the SAT are so straightforward, it’s easy to make silly mistakes. To avoid that, you have to be extra, extra, extra careful and focused. I usually follow this process:

1. Read the question
2. Read the question again
3. Make a note of what you need to solve for (it could just be asking for x, but it could also be asking for 2x)
4. Solve
5. Make sure that your solution answers what the question is asking for.
6. Rinse and repeat for all math problems
7. Always go back and double (heck, even triple!) check your answers if you have extra time at the end of a math section

For any extra practice, find math practice problems in the blue book (they’re sprinkled throughout the math chapter) and do them.

Writing (multiple choice)

The multiple choice section of the SAT is very much like the math section – as long as you know the grammar rules, you’ll do well. And the best book for learning the SAT grammar rules is Erica Meltzer’s Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar. Just as with math, go through the lessons and exercises in this book, and make sure you understand everything you don’t get in the practice problems. 

In the writing problems, it’s easy to start picking answers based on what just “feels right.” The problem with that is, what we perceive as correct grammar is often based on colloquial grammar – which, more often than not, is definitely not correct. There are a number of things you could do to counter this instinct:

• If you think you’ve found a problem, see if you can put a name to it (lack of parallelism, dangling modifier, etc). If you can, you’re probably right that it’s wrong. If not, it could just be instinct, and you should look at the other answer choices.
• Fix the problem. If you’re not quite sure what you need to do to fix it, take a look at the other answer choices.

Also, remember that there are no grammar mistakes with around 15% of the questions. Of course, that number can vary dramatically due to such a small number of questions, but do not choose an answer just because you think there should be something wrong with it.

As with the math section, you can find writing practice problems in the blue book.

Critical Reading

Critical reading, in my opinion, is the most difficult to study for, because it’s not as straightforward as the other sections. There are two types of questions in critical reading sections: sentence completion and passage-based.

Sentence Completion

The key for sentence completion questions is knowing vocab. If you don’t know your vocab, you’re out of luck, but if you do, this could potentially be extremely easy.

Now, in the online community, Direct Hits 1 and 2 are undisputedly the best vocab books available, with a little less than 500 vocab words in both books combined (Larry Krieger tells you its 400, but there’s sometimes more than one word in one entry). If you know all of these words down pat, you’re basically gold for the sentence completions. It won’t hit every word you could potentially come across, but these two books definitely have the greatest result for the amount of effort put in. What’s the use of memorizing another two thousand words if it’ll only maybe possibly gain you one more right answer?

This is probably common sense, but don’t try to cram all 500 words into your brain in one sitting. If you want to allow the words to enter into your long-term memory (and believe me, you do), you need to space it out and allow yourself to thoroughly learn the words. I recommend studying a set of these words every day, and aim to finish them all around two weeks before test day, and just continue reviewing all of them afterwards. That way, you can ensure that you’ll have all the words down pat come test day.

If you want to study vocab using flashcards, there are a few options for you.

• Anki, in my opinion, is the ultimate flashcard program. It’s built on something called spaced repetition system, which is too much to get into for the purpose of this post, but, believe me, it’s great. I’ve used it for studying a great number of things, and it definitely didn’t fail me in SAT vocab studying, either. It is a bit of a hassle to set up, but if you’re aiming for these words to stay in your long-term memory, Anki is the way to go.
• Quizlet is the way to go for those who like convenience and simplicity. It’s not as hardcore as Anki, but it fulfills its purpose well. Once you have your flashcards (whether you typed them in yourself or used one of the sets already made by someone in the Quizlet community), use the Learn option. Select “See Terms first” if it’s not already. If the definition you gave was correct but not in the exact wording, Quizlet has this handy little feature called “Override: I was right.” Here is a set I made with some of the Direct Hits words. It’s not the full collection, as I only put in words that I was not familiar with already, but it has a large proportion of the words.
• Physical flashcards work well, too, if you’re the more traditional kind. As you’re studying, just make sure to differentiate between the words you know well already and those you’re still iffy about. Focus more on the latter group.

Passage-based Reading

Now these are what stumped me for a long, long time. It seems as though the answer’s never there, and what the book claims to be the correct answer, you can’t figure out why. What you have to remember, though, is that the correct answer is always supported by the text. Remember that. The correct answer is always supported by the text.

What that means is, if you’re stumped on a passage-based reading question, go back into the text and try to find evidence supporting each of the answer choices. Be careful here, though. Sometimes the wording of a portion of the text matches exactly with one of the answer choices, but it’s actually saying the opposite. And sometimes a part of an answer choice is supported by the text, but there’s some extraneous information that isn’t.

That said, this is my process for tackling the passage-based reading problems:

1. Go through all the questions and mark all the line references in the passage. I use brackets for longer parts and circles for shorter phrases or words. Circle the questions that ask something about the passage as a whole.
2. Start reading the passage. You really have to focus and absorb everything that the passage says. No matter how boring it is, you have to pretend that you really enjoy reading it. I usually follow along with my pencil as well to focus even more. You don’t have to read too fast, but don’t dwell over anything for too long, either.
3. When you get to one of your annotations, read past it a few lines, then go to the question it refers to, and it should be easier to answer it then. Remember what I said above about the correct answer always being supported by the text? Yeah, that applies here.
4. Continue this for the entire passage
5. Before you go onto the next passage, make sure that you go back and answer all the questions about the passage as a whole. You don’t want to miss a question and mess up your bubbling… that would be a nightmare.

And, as with math and writing, go to the blue book for practice questions.

Writing (essay)

It’s no surprise that the essay is always dreaded by many test-takers. I mean, writing a good essay that fills up two pages in 25 minutes – that’s stressful. But you don’t have to score a perfect 12 on the essay to get an 800 – you could actually score as low as a 9 and still get a perfect 800 in writing, as long as you do well on the multiple-choice portion – and you should, if you know your grammar rules down pat. 

Now, that said, it’s not hard to score well on the essay. You just have to treat it as objectively as you do the other sections. That means no need for frills, fancy figurative language, or deep analyzing. What the SAT essay graders look for is length and evidence, and to achieve just that, follow this:

1. Read How to Write a 12 Essay in Just 10 Days.  
2. Choose around 10-15 examples you could use to support anything that could possibly show up on test day. It would be best to use examples that you have some knowledge about, such as an event from a history course that you’ve taken, or a novel that you’ve read for English. Examples: The Manhattan Project, Huckleberry Finn, etc.
3. Take some time to research each of your examples, so you know them well.
4. Look through this list of previous essay prompts, and practice choosing three examples from your ten that you’ve researched, and from those examples, choose a side. Always choose the side that you can support with evidence, even if you don’t entirely agree with it.  
5. Practice writing a few essays with the prompts from the link above, using the format given in How to Write a 12 Essay in Just 10 Days, but try it in 18 minutes. The 25 minutes will feel shorter on test day, so you’ll want to have practice with a shorter amount of time.

Sometimes, for a few prompts, you may really be at a loss for examples. In some cases, if they’re solid enough, two examples would suffice, but it really is more desirable if you have three. If you really can’t think of any other examples, feel free to make something up. Make sure it’s plausible, but the essay readers really won’t have enough time to recall or research the examples you use, so it would be fine if you made something up to support your claim.

Also, always try to write a full two pages. You may have heard that longer essays receive higher scores – it’s true.

So, turns out the essay portion of the SAT is really straightforward, as well.

General Tips

The above should prepare you for the specific sections on the SAT, but here are some general tips to ensure that you get the best score you could possibly get!

• Stick to practice tests in the blue book or from the Collegeboard. Collegeboard makes the tests, so only its tests are accurate to the real thing. You don’t want to get used to the nuances of a different test and do poorly on test day.
• When you practice, try finishing in around 70-75% of the time allotted. This will prepare you for test day.
• The night before, check that you have everything needed for test day to eliminate last minute scrambling the day of.
• Make sure you get enough sleep! You don’t want to experience the sleepiness that sometimes occurs during school while you’re taking the SAT.
• Make sure you know how to get to your testing center, and get there early, so you don’t get stressed out before the test even starts.
• Dress comfortably, and in layers. Test day’s not the day to wear that really pretty, yet super thin top, or the day to wear jeans that are too tight for you. You’re going to want to be comfortable. Also, you don’t want to be too cold, or too hot, so make sure you can add or remove layers as needed to adapt to the temperature.
• Try to minimize time used for bubbling. Don’t bubble as you answer each question; rather, as you finish a spread in your test booklet, go in and make quick marks in your answer booklet before turning the page. While it may seem insignificant, the time used to flip pages back and forth adds up. After you finish the entire section, go to your answer booklet and fill in the all the bubbles in which you made marks. However, if you are running out of time, bubble as you go.
• You’ve probably already heard the whole spiel about guessing if you can eliminate answer choices. If you’ve studied, you can probably eliminate a few, so I would say, always guess.
• Do not lose focus on test day!

*Note on the redesigned SAT

While this guide was written with the current SAT in mind, I am aware that January 2016 will be the last time it will be administered. That said, the redesigned SAT just tests the same concepts in a different format. The essay is different, and there are a few more math concepts tested, but other than those and form, what you will need to know stays largely the same. So you could study for the January SAT with this guide and still be very prepared for the redesigned SAT in March 2016.

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So with this trusty guide under your belt, march forth and entire the never-ending cycle that is testing season! All jokes aside, once you get the hang of how the SAT works, it’s really not so bad.

Good luck!