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SAT Tips and Strategies

Strategies for each section of the SAT I exam

SATs - Sentence Completions

• Pay attention to Trigger words and underline them:
• Because

• Although

• In Spite of

• However

• Therefore

• For

• Hence

• As a result of

• Accordingly

• Nevertheless

• If...then

• So...that

• Due to

• So that

• Even though

• Despite

• Besides
• Read each question once and then read it again, trying to put in your own words in the blank(s)words

• Look for Trigger Clue Words

• When you don't know the vocabulary words, do a happy/sad test to see how the word sounds to you- negative or positive

• Read the list of answer choices

• Mark off words that are obviously not the correct answer

• Look for two answer choices where the words are synonyms, and then look at their companion words. Only one will fit the question

The celebrity was the ____________ of _________________elegance because she wore a different outfit for every occasion, and never appeared in the same outfit twice.

• epitome, sartorial

• paragon, tawdry

• purveyer, gastronomic

• zenith, grandiose

• dichotomy, extravagant

On to more SAT tips and strategies:

SATs - Reading Comprehension

• Don't read the passage:

• Read the italicized remarks at the top of the passage

• Read the first few sentences of the first paragraph.

• Skim over the remainder of the passage, reading the first sentence of each paragraph.

• Read the last two sentences of the passage.

• Read each question thoroughly, underline important, qualifying words.

• Avoid extreme answers such as: always, never and eliminate any answers that would be offensive to any group of people.

• Eliminate wrong answers

• Be able to identify the five kinds of answers provided on the test:
  • Extra Information

  • Off-topic answers

  • Contradicts the author

  • Not relevant to the passage

  • The right answer
• Answer the "citation" and "word meaning" questions first.
  • If the citation is for "lines 16 to 23, read from about line 12 to line 27.

  • For "word meaning" questions, be sure to read the designated section, frequently the answer will be the second meaning of the word.
• Answer the General Passage questions after you have answered all the citation and word use questions.

• For two passage questions:

  a. Do all of Passage I questions, ending with the General Passage Questions, then do all the Passage II questions in the same order as the Passage I questions.

  b. Last, do the questions that refer to BOTH passages.

SAT tips and strategies for what some call the toughest part of the test:

SATs - Multiple Choice Writing

For those of you preparing for the ACT, this portion of the SAT I is very similar to the corresponsing section of the ACT. Hence, we could call it ACTs, SATs-tips and strategies

It was formerly one of the SATs II Exams, which was incorporated last year into the SAT I test.

This exam tests your ability to identify sentence errors, and to correct sentence errors and paragraph errors.

Below is a list of common errors to watch for:

• Subject- verb agreement

• Tense agreement of verbs with the other verbs in the sentence

• Pronoun agreement with the noun it replaces

• Correct use of adverbs: they modify verbs. For instance, "good" is not an adverb, and saying "You did good." is incorrect.

• Remember that just because a sentence seems awkward, does not mean it is grammatically incorrect.

SAT I Essay

• The essay is graded holistically; the readers look at the overall piece of writing.

• Respond to the prompt, don't stray from the topic, and write an organized essay with an introduction, (hopefully) three example paragraphs, and a conclusion.

• You can make up your examples.

• Write legibly. Let me mention that again: write legibly.

• Will they mark you down for misspelled words? Not if you have a few errors here and there.

• Remember, longer is better on the essay. The readers will accept some misspelled words, a few cross-outs, but if you study the graded essays in the CollegeBoard essay samples, longer is better: Five paragraphs, three examples, and introduction and a conclusion that takes your examples back to your thesis sentence.

Don't forget SAT tips and strategies when practicing for the essay: Building the Essay

SATs - Math

Don't think of it as a math test, think of it as a test of logic and strategy.

Questions like these don't appear in your math book, they are uniques to the SATs.

The harder they are, BTW, the more you can be sure there is a trick in there somewhere.

In the math section, the questions appear in three levels of difficulty, in order. At about question 8-10, the questions move easy to moderately difficult, and at about number 15, the questions become hard.

• Make up numbers and plug them into the variables to solve the problem. ( I never use the numbers -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, when plugging in, unless the question defines a range such as -2< X < 2, because numbers have odd and confusing properties.)

• Plug in the answers.

• Use your common sense and try to estimate the answer before you start the problem.

• Notice that 99.9% of the time, answers are arranged from largest to smallest. Check this carefully, especially with negative numbers as your answer choices.

• Study the answers in your test problems-they may be one half the correct answer, twice the correct answer, and perhaps the answer you would get by only doing two steps of a three step problem.

• Medium to hard questions frequently have three steps to them.

• Practice doing the problems for several weeks ahead of time.

• Remember this is not a math test, it is a test of logic and strategy.

• Take time to set up the problem and analyze it.

• Be sure to read the entire question, underline key words.

• Leave problems you can't do, or don't understand. Go on and work on the ones you can get right.

• Learn math vocabulary words such as "mean" "median" and "mode."

• Pace yourself, and notice where you are in the test: Generally speaking, the first one-third of the test contains easy questions, the middle third questions are of medium difficulty, and the last questions are "hard."

• Medium to hard questions frequently have three steps to them.

• Remind yourself, that except for the Student Response Questions, the correct answer is one of the five in the list in front of you. It is right there, and all you have to do is find it!

Continue on with SAT tips and strategies:

The Day Before the Test