Meet Your SAT Avatar

Or, How to Avoid the Average SAT Mistakes to Score High

Listen up — This might be the most important lesson you learn to prepare for the SAT. If you’ve taken a practice SAT, you noticed that the questions progress in difficulty, from easy, to pretty hard, to super hard. That’s no accident.

The ETS, aka the people who write the questions, have been very deliberate about ordering the SAT to get harder as it goes. Their tricky methods work. Every year, the ETS manages to trip-up the average, gullible, overconfident high school student. The average SAT student get about half the answers right, and earn an ordinary score. But that just lets the extraordinary students — the ones they couldn’t fool — stand out.

Lucky for you, all it takes is a little knowledge, strategy, and practice to become extraordinary and beat the test maker’s at their own game. You just have to learn how to NOT be average. For your first lesson, let’s take a closer look at the order of difficulty levels in the SAT.

Figuring out the average SAT student

From You Could Do this in Your Sleep, to No Chance in Hell: The Various Difficulty Levels of SAT questions

Easy for the average SAT student
What happens in the mind of an unsuspecting teen when at first the test is a piece of cake? He thinks, Hey, this isn’t so bad! I don’t know what I was so afraid of. The easy questions lure you in and make you feel secure so you let your guard down. Almost every student picks the right answers here because the test makers want them to. ETS purposely makes the right answers obvious, for now.

Medium for the average SAT student
Pretty soon, the questions get harder. They won’t tell you when it’s happening, but you’ll transition from easy to medium difficulty. The answers are much less obvious, and only half the students choose correctly. The wording of questions becomes more complex, and solutions may require several steps. Here, the unsuspecting teen can fall into two traps: 1) He continues to think the questions are easy and picks what seem like the obvious answers, or 2) He gets overwhelmed and wastes time working out the answer to every single question. He clearly didn’t learn the right strategies.

Hard
It gets worse. They whack you with the hardest section of the SAT when you’re running out of time and sweating in your chair. These questions use nuanced wording and elaborate scenarios, and the answers are never obvious. Very few students get them right; most squander their last minutes trying to solve a problem they’d need an hour to figure out.

Doesn’t seem fair, does it? That’s because it’s not. But don’t despair! That unsuspecting teen we just talked about? He’s about to become your best friend.

Meet Your Avatar: Average Andy
Think of him as someone who can go into the SAT minefield ahead of you and show you where NOT to step. Andy is predictable because he is average; We can project his thoughts and actions onto each section of the test, then use his mistakes as a roadmap to success. It might sound confusing now, but it’s simple to master. Let’s get inside Average Andy’s head…

Average Andy is no genius. He’s no idiot, either. He’s just average, and he always listens to his gut. Easy, medium, or hard, Andy chooses the answer that feels right. He behaves exactly the way the test makers want him to, and gets a dead average SAT score.

Average Andy always looks for the obvious answer. He reads the questions quickly and tries to answer them all, rushing through the easy questions so he spend lots of time on the hard ones. He gets most of the easy, half of the medium, and none of the hard questions correct. Ah, good ol’ predictable Andy.

WWAAD? (What Would Average Andy Do?)
Are you beginning to see why Average Andy is your ultimate study buddy?

Let’s start with what’s he doing right: On easy questions, Andy goes with his gut. He picks the right answers because they jump out at him. Do like Andy and pick the obvious answers at first. Trust your gut; you got this. Save your energy for the more complicated questions. That’s NOT the same thing as rushing, but we’ll get to that later.

Where does Average Andy go wrong? He keeps going with his gut, and his gut leads him astray. Mid-way through the SAT, Andy is only getting about half the answers right, which clues you in to your next strategy: On medium-difficulty questions, be wary of your gut. Double-check your first impulse. Look for the obviously wrong answers and eliminate them, then pick from what’s left. The SAT is a game of odds, and you’ll up yours with a little skepticism and a lot of elimination. It helps if you have seen these questions before. You will not go into the test blind. You will have seen a video course or read a book.

How about the hard questions? If Andy is still following his gut (Why, Andy? Why?!) and picking zero right answers, do the opposite. Find the answer that feels right and get rid of it; it’s sure to be a trap. For most of the difficult questions, you won’t work out the right answer. That’s okay, they’re meant to be that hard. Eliminate the obvious choice, guess, and move on.

I’ll say it again: On hard questions, eliminate the obvious choice, guess, and move on. (Note: If you are >650, then ignore that last sentence. Only skip hard questions if you are < 650. Seriously.) Slow Down to Up Your Score
Aside from showing you when to trust your gut and when to ignore it, Andy reveals another very important test-taking strategy: Time Management. Average Andy makes the mistake of spending too much time on problems he has no hope of solving. You’ll dramatically improve your scores simply by identifying which questions you have a good chance of figuring out, and which will only lead you in circles. Guess more often, and devote your time to questions you actually have a shot at. It sounds counterintuitive, but slow down.

Now that you know about the various difficulty levels on the SAT, and you know what your buddy Andy would do on any given question, you also know how to make the best use of your time. Don’t get fooled into thinking tougher questions are worth more: whatever the difficulty, every correct answer is worth one point. Take time early on to ensure you rack up all the points you can in the easy and medium sections. When it comes to the hard stuff, guess smart and ration your time.

Cheat Sheet

That was a lot to take in, I know. That’s why I’m leaving you with this handy chart for quick reference as you practice. Use it to see what Average Andy would do and what you should do throughout the SAT.

And I won’t say good luck, ‘cause you don’t need it.

Nerves are a pain when taking tests.

The SAT, the TOEFL, the AP exam, and the IB exam are all absolutely stressful experiences. I get that. We all get that; anyone who teaches tests for a living knows that nerves can be as damaging to a test taker as lack of sleep and no preparation. But, luckily, there might be a cure for your SAT stress.

Ending SAT Stress

There is a simple rule for ending SAT test day nervousness. It’s not rocket science, nor is it magic. It’s just experience. Hardened pro athletes don’t get nervous during the finals. Well-trained soliders don’t mess up during a conflict. And a SAT test taker who has seen it all will not lose her head when a past perfect sentence correction question has a 2/3 preposition split.

The key to ending SAT test day nerves is to both be prepared for the test and have experience taking the test.

You know you will probably take the test more than one time. I think you should plan on that and split your SAT prep into two phases:

1. Before First Test: In this phase, you gain as much strategy as possible. You learn how to pace yourself & how to do tricks like the (Rate T) or the (Average Pie) or the (Extreme Answers on RC). You won’t do great on this exam, but that’s because no amount of practicing will prepare you for the real thing. But you’ll go in and you’ll do your best and you’ll let yourself get as nervous as you want to get. Because you are taking another exam. Seriously there can be as much or as little SAT stress as you’d like, because you are taking the test again.
2. After First Test: Request the test. Spend your time gaining as much knowledge as possible. This time you know what to expect & you remember the question-types you struggled with. This time, you can spend your time gaining knowledge safe in the comfortable fact that you will not have to take the test for the first time ever again. If you need a tutor, hire a tutor. If you need video lessons, download video lessons. Just learn from your experience.
3. Second Test: You are a hardened veteran. You know what the proctor will do, you know how to deal with 45-45-90 right triangles, and you know all the nasty little re-phrases the reading comp will do.

The SAT can be a pain, but if you start early, prep smart, and work hard, you will do well.

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

To do well on the SAT, you must set up an SAT study plan & you must follow that study plan. Over the last few years I have encountered dozens of students trying to prep for the SAT at very different stages. Some brilliant kids start in middle school, others won’t think about the SAT until the night before. Regardless of your situation, you need a plan of action if you hope to do well.

I will look at 3-month, 1-month, & 1-week SAT study plans in this article. If you have a unique situation (6 months, 1 year, 4 years!), simply leave a comment below and I’ll address your situation for you.

SAT Study Plan Goals

Each study plan will work through a different set of goals. Not all plans are created equal, and a student with 1 week to prep for the SAT will have markedly different goals than someone who has alloted 3 months to study.

Throughout each SAT study plan, we have overall goals & weekly goals. This is intended to guide our daily work so that it has a tangible outcome.

You will take up to 6 tests.

SAT Textbook Requirements

You *must* purchase the Official Guide to the SAT. All of your practice tests & most of your practice problems will come from the Official Guide. Without this book your study is pretty much worthless.

The Official Guide is the only required book, though you should purchase the following books/courses as well.

(1) Pwn the SAT Math: if you are struggling with math, this is the only guide you’ll need. I will refer to math topics throughout the SAT study plan; when I do, you can refer to the sections in Mike’s index.

(2) Ultimate SAT Grammar: SAT writing is a very exciting section, because with some smart prep you can get close to a perfect score.

(3) Direct Hits Vocabulary: reading comprehension is difficult to train for, so you are going to want to get as many points from the vocabulary as possible. This is a great vocabulary book.

(4) Online SAT Class: Reading books is sometimes lame. I put together a series of knowledge and strategy videos for students who need to master the SAT. This is a 30+ hour video course that covers all the math, reading, and writing you’ll need. (Full Disclosure: This is my course, so if you purchase it, you are purchasing it from me. If you do… thank you and don’t forget to tell your friends.)

Those three books take care of the SAT nuances. If you want a 1-size-fits-all textbook, you should go for Barron’s SAT book. It has the best “knowledge” section. I may be off base, but I believe Barron’s writes the best textbooks because they don’t have a tutorial business in the background. The books have to stand for themselves.

Knowledge Gaps

Throughout your prep you will find gaps in your knowledge. If you don’t know what to do with dangling modifiers, no amount of practice tests or backsolving techniques will help you. You simply must identify knowledge gaps & take steps to fill those in.

If you purchase the supplement books (the three OR the Barron’s), most knowledge gaps will be there. There are three other ways to fill in knowledge gaps, from free to cash-moneyed:

(1) Take your knowledge problems to your teachers at school — Chances are you will find a particular math or grammar concept tricky, or you might not be confident with your SAT essay without constant feedback. If you have cool teachers, taking a few problems to your high school math or English teacher might be enough to fill in knowledge gaps.

(2) Internet search — Many popular SAT blogs (Perfect Score, Direct Hits, Pwn the SAT, SAT Dude, and this blog) have SAT lessons. While we might not have organized our sites in the best way, with a little Google magic you should be able to find someone dealing with every SAT knowledge gaps online. This is how we ensure our SAT study plan is effective.

(3) Find a tutor — Tutors aren’t in this business to help you cheat; we are here to help you maximize your time spent studying. If you cannot figure something out, and you need answers quickly, consider hiring a tutor for a few sessions or for an entire course. Self study is so important for success not only on the SAT but also in university. With that said, you will want to use educated professionals throughout life to help fill in knowledge gaps.

SAT Study Plans

3-Month SAT Study Plan

The 3-month SAT study plan follows the path most taken by many test prep companies, students, and tutors. Spending 12 weeks on SAT prep gives you enough time to really understand the test while also not allowing it to consume your life.

When you start your study is not in the scope of this lesson, but I would recommend spring of your junior year and summer before your senior year.

3-Month Goal: To do as well on the SAT on the first time — to reach your target, whatever that happens to be.

Month 1 Goal: Understand the SAT & recognize all of my SAT strengths & weaknesses

Week 1 Goal: Understand the SAT

• Take 1 practice test from the Official Guide (make sure to mark all guesses)
• Check your practice test and mark your score range in an excel file
• Attempt to re-do and understand all questions that you guessed or got incorrect
• Learn the math strategies (plugging in & backsolving) and work through math drills [Barron’s or Pwn teach this]
• Review SAT math algebra

Week 2 Goal: Understand the SAT math

• Study SAT arithmetic [Barron’s or Pwn]
• Focus on rates, probabilities, mean, combinations, ratios, and proportions
• Study SAT algebra with special emphasis on plugging in [Barron’s or Pwn]
• Study SAT geometry [Barron’s or Pwn]
• Focus on 2D, 3D, coordinate geometry – specifically perimeter, area, volume, and diagonals

Week 3 Goal: Understand the SAT reading

• Create a vocabulary SAT study plan [Direct Hits or Barron’s]
• Build flash cards or whatever device you need to force yourself into a system of vocabulary development
• Do 3 reading comprehension sections and focus on paraphrasing all questions and all passages
• Learn the strategies for sentence completion [Barron’s or the internet]
• Practice paraphrasing (mapping) reading comprehension passages

Week 4 Goal: Understand the SAT writing (non-essay)

• Understand loosely the big 6 grammar errors (s-v agreement, pronouns, idioms, parallelism, modifiers, verb tense)
• Use the internet, Barron’s, or Erica’s book to learn those grammar errors
• Identify the error ID and sentence correction strategy (online, tutor, or a textbook)
• Take a practice test
• Make a list of every question type & question topic you got wrong [put in an excel sheet for month 2]

Month 2 Goal: Fill in knowledge gaps

Week 5 Goal: Perfect Essay

• Write 3 essays & seek feedback (college confidential, teachers, friends, or tutors)
• Read as many good & as many bad essays as possible (Barron’s, Official Guide, tutors)
• Perfect your introduction
• Come up with many good, relevant examples
• Practice writing links & transitions
• Master your conclusion
• Take 1 test & mark your progress

Week 6 Goal: Math Masterclass

• Go through every math topic you got wrong and find a way to fundamentally understand the math
• Spend this entire week LEARNING SAT math
• During every math drill [Official Guide], attempt to use the strategies, but don’t ever rely on them: fix your math

Week 7 Goal: Reading Masterclass

• Learn the reading comprehension question types
• Practice an entire reading comprehension section from Official Guide every day
• Do an aggressive elimination on each question (If you pick C, you need to write down WHY A, B, D, & E are incorrect. Do this for the entire reading section.)
• Take 1 test and mark your progress

Week 8 Goal: Writing Masterclass

• Figure out what grammar problems you have and fix them
• Use Official Guide or Barron’s to learn how to deal with the improving paragraph section
• Do whatever you need to do to ensure you never miss an improving paragraph question
• Do at least 1 writing section per day & use aggressive elimination techniques after each section

Month 3 Goal: Fine Tune & Pacing

Week 9 Goal: 10×10 Drills

• Open up a section and spend 10 minutes answering as many questions as possible
• Mark in an excel sheet what % of those questions you finished & what % you got correct
• Finish the questions you left or got wrong
• Continue with the section and do 10 questions in unlimited time
• On the excel sheet mark the % correct and the time it took
• Do these drill at least 5 times per day every day this week
• At the end of the week, review every question you got incorrect and write the “knowledge topic” on an excel sheet
• Put a star next to any topic that had more than 3 mistakes
• Take 1 test

Week 10 Goal: Fix those mistakes

• Spend this week doing 3 10×10 drills every day
• Spend the rest of each day learning the academic knowledge behind every star from the previous week
• Take 1 test

Week 11 Goal: Deal with very hard questions

• If you have achieved your goal, you can spend this week on hard questions to try & push your score higher.
• If you have NOT achieved your goal, spend this week on 10×10 drills & knowledge gap gains
• Take 1 test

Week 12 Goal: Calm down & take the test

• Do 2 sections per day (so you would do 1 test over the next 5 days)
• After each section spend as much time reviewing all knowledge behind all wrong answers
• Do not do anything on Friday
• Maybe hang out with your friends or spend some time chilling out. It’s been a long 3 months.
• Take the SAT; do a little dance.

1 Month SAT Study Plan

Goal: Fundamentally understand the SAT & have the strategies in place to do my best

Week 1: Strategies

• Learn the plugging in & backsolving strategies and practice them extensively
• Learn the sentence completion strategy & create a vocabulary study plan
• Learn the reading comprehension paraphrasing & aggressive elimination strategy
• Understand how the essay works & think through some localized examples
• Learn the error ID & sentence correction grammar backsolving strategies & practice
• Take 1 test

Week 2: Knowledge

• Day 1 –> Math (learn SAT arithmetic & algebra)
• Day 2 –> Reading (practice reading comprehension from Official Guide)
• Day 3 –> Writing (learn the big 6 grammar rules & how to spot and fix them)
• Day 4 –> Math (learn SAT geometry & data)
• Day 5 –> Reading (practice an entire reading & writing section)
• Day 6 –> Take a practice test

Week 3: Pacing

•  Day 1 –> 10×10 Drills (Math)
• Open up a section and spend 10 minutes answering as many questions as possible
• Mark in an excel sheet what % of those questions you finished & what % you got correct
• Finish the questions you left or got wrong
• Continue with the section and do 10 questions in unlimited time
• On the excel sheet mark the % correct and the time it took
• Do thise drill at least 5 times per day every day this week
• At the end of the week, review every question you got incorrect and write the “knowledge topic” on an excel sheet
• Put a star next to any topic that had more than 3 mistakes
• Day 2 –> 10×10 Drills (Reading)
• Day 3 –> 10×10 Drills (Writing)
• Day 4 –> Fundamentally understand improving paragraphs
• Day 5 –> 10×10 (math, reading, writing)
• Day 6 –> Take a practice test

Week 4: Loose Ends

• Day 1 –> Use any text, tutor, or website to learn all the mistakes from your starred 10×10 knowledge topic (math)
• Day 2 –> Use any text, tutor, or website to learn all the mistakes from your starred 10×10 knowledge topic (reading)
• Day 3 –> Use any text, tutor, or website to learn all the mistakes from your starred 10×10 knowledge topic (writing)
• Day 4 –> If you have time, do a few practice sections
• Day 5 –> Do nothing. Maybe have some healthy food or run around the park.

1 Week SAT Study Plan

Goal: Don’t go into the SAT test blind

• Day 1: Take a practice test
• Day 2: Learn the SAT math plugging in & backsolving strategies
• Day 3: Review the big 6 grammar topics & learn the error ID & sentence correction strategies
• Day 4: Learn the sentence completion vocabulary strategy & try to paraphrase and understand necessarily wrong reading comprehension answers
• Day 5: Relax… you understand how the SAT works and have some strategies floating in your head

Morning of the test

Don’t forget to take a minute after waking up to do a few easy math or reading or writing questions. This will shake the muck out of your head and get you into the testing mindset.

Did I miss anything? Does anything not make much sense? Let me know in the comments.

In this 12 minute post, I explain exactly why you should start searching for wrong answers and then I give 3 examples (1 math, 1 reading & 1 writing) where I focus on crossing out wrong answers. I do this because I want to be left with the right answer. That is the simple outcome of SAT process of elimination.

That makes sense, doesn’t it? If you are left with the right answer, and if you know exactly why the wrong answers are wrong, then you MUST have gotten the question correct. Enjoy the video & my discussion below. Leave a comment if you have questions, comments, or screams of angst.

Why wrong answers are key for process of elimination

The SAT is definitely a difficult test for thousands of students. If you keep reading questions, picking answers, and hoping for the best, maybe you lack knowledge, maybe you lack strategy, and maybe you are asleep while taking the test. But I would wager many American dollars that you are just focusing on the wrong thing during prep.

When you practice, are you focusing on right answers? Of course you are!Everyone does. But, have you ever heard of a student getting the same questions on a real test that she had on a practice test? Very unlikely!

While there are a few outlier, and a few awesome test prep teachers, you are not likely to encounter the same question.

Each question has 5 potential correct answers. If you do your math, read your paragraph, and master your grammar, you may be able to see exactly why this particular question is right. But that is leaving so much learning and potential on the SAT table.

If, instead of focusing on getting the question correct, you focused on understanding why wrong answers were wrong, you would give yourself the training and the strategy to utterly destroy your SAT.

While few questions are repeated on the SAT, there are so many wrong answer trends that you would be foolish to ignore them. Focusing on wrong answers lets you find the wrong answer trends that will absolutely show up on your real SAT. You can see the common strategies test writers use to anchor certain answers in students.

Understanding why an answer is wrong is the key to doing well on the SAT. Guaranteed.

How to find wrong answers

When you are doing practice drills from the Official Guide, follow my step-by-step homework requirement:

1. Answer every question in a SAT section as quickly as possible – this is a timed test after all
2. Before you check your answers, review each answer choice to make sure you are happy with your selection
3. Go through every answer and write exactly why the wrong answers are wrong (If you picked C, figure out why A must be wrong)
4. Check your answers
5. Rinse-wash-repeat

You can absolutely train yourself to find wrong answers. If you do, I promise you will start to recognize SAT patterns very quickly and be well on your way to an excellent SAT score.

Let me know if you’ve ever had problems finding WHY an answer is wrong.

The criteria I used was not exhaustive, but they were very important. Every blog must have a single author, focus on SAT more than other subjects, update regularly, and pass the ‘cool’ test. The cool test just means that I like these people & plan to make them my friend! I have the pleasure of knowing several of these folks personally — through the internet or in person — and I can vouch for most of them. If you are starting your SAT prep now, bookmark each of these SAT blogs now.

But don’t forget, I also write a pretty amazing SAT blog. So… don’t stray for too long.

Amazing SAT Blogs

1- PWN the SAT

Mike pwned the SAT with a 2400 score, and now he’s dedicated to helping you do the same. He tutors New York’s best and brightest, but he also doles out wisdom for free to the internet masses (i.e. you).  He offers sample questions, shares his personal techniques, and outlines study guides for each subject. He literally wrote the book on pwning the math section, so be sure to check out his guide if that’s your weak spot.

2 – Perfect Score Project

Mom knows best at this part resource center, part study guide, part personal odyssey blog. Debbie decided to tackle the SAT alongside her teenage son. After taking the test seven times in one year, she morphed into an SAT guru to whom students and parents now flock. Her blog will tell you what works and what wastes your time when it comes to test prep. The site is continuously updated with highlights, tips, resources, and books to keep you busy.

3 – Testing is Easy

Testing is easy? Before you say, “Yeah right,” and skip ahead, this guy gives three reasons he can be a trusted source on testing: He’s a linguist, he fences, and he has ten years of test prep experience. Still scratching your head? Linguists are good at analyzing questions and finding rules and patterns; fencers are great strategists who learn to think like their opponents; and ten years of test prep is a long time to accumulate feedback and fine-tune methods. Read his site to understand how tests are designed, and learn unique test-taking tactics.

4 – The Critical Reader

Erica Meltzer is the de facto SAT grammar guru online. Her book, The Ultimate Guide to SAT Grammar, is one of the best SAT books online. She has one of the most comprehensive reading guides online & is constantly updating her website with strategies, tactics, lessons, drills, and incite. This is the number 1 resource I refer all of my private SAT students to whenever we struggle with SAT writing.

5 – Wilson Daily Prep

Laura Wilson is a veteran teacher and self-styled SAT/ACT “coach.” Her method eschews ineffective cramming for daily, targeted prep work and consistent practice. You can pay for a personal coach and instant online feedback, or you can follow the blog for reading strategies, answers to students’ commonly asked questions, advice on college applications, and more.

6 – SAT Dude

Dr. John Siegelman has a test prep expert. Even though he has run Scorebusters for over 20 years, he still finds time to blog on SATDude. His advice helps thousands of parents & students navigate the SAT throughout the world. His incites and the people who guest post for him are absolute experts in test prep & admissions consulting.

7 – Bell Curves

This blog keeps you ahead of the curve with comprehensive college admissions advice, word challenges to boost vocab, SAT essay tips, first-hand testing experiences, and resources hand-picked by experts. Their focus is on “knowledge, recognition, and execution” rather than guessing strategies, so they won’t offer any shortcuts. They will, however, offer a solid game-plan for SAT success. Check out “You Be the (Essay) Judge” for a lesson using one student’s actual SAT essay.

8 – Red Horse Tutoring

Stacy explains the SAT strategies and test in a very easy way. Her honesty, transparency, and skill is evident in everything she writes. She is also a private SAT tutor, She has figured out how to help students earn great grades in only ~7 hours of study time. That’s amazing. One of my favorite posts is her infographic on the SAT writing breakdown.

9 – Direct Hits Publishing

Claire and co. have pretty much written the best vocabulary primer available. She fundamentally understands the vocabulary acquisition process and explains it through stories, adventures, and history. Reading her blog is like a masterclass in vocab. She even does SAT vocabulary research so I don’t have to. How cool is that? If you are trying to increase your vocabulary, Direct Hits must be part of your process.

10 – The College Solution

Lynn O’Shaughnessy is a “college expert”: she speaks about, writes about, and works for colleges. Her blog is about helping students of all score and income levels make their way into a good college. There is an entire section dedicated to the SAT/ACT with free study resources, guidance for below-average test-takers (no one’s perfect!), and reviews of other test prep programs, saving you lots of grief and money on your testing journey.

*Bonus* Me!

I had to make myself a bonus! I love writing about the SAT, about uni admissions, about non-native English speaking, and about academic hacks. I hope you do too.

Who have I left out? Where do you get your SAT information?

Does This Sound Familiar?

You are pretty good about getting it down to two answer choices, but you ALWAYS seem to pick the wrong answer. You think you have the right answer, but you still get the question wrong. You work really hard, do your math, or reading, or grammar, and get a solution that is in the answer choices, only to find out you are wrong. It’s so freakin’ annoying!

I like to teach aggressive elimination in my SAT classes and pretty much without fail will have students telling me that they always get it down to two and always pick the wrong answer.

Other times, students get the right answer for the wrong question. For example, if you see a problem like this:

If the three interior angles of a triangle are x, 2x, and 3y, what is x in terms of y?

Before students even start to attempt this problem, they flip out, run away, or otherwise find an excuse to avoid dealing with it. Are you one of those people?

Do you see difficult questions and either immediately draw a triangle or immediately say, “Nope. Not a chance. Cannot and will not do this.”

If so, it’s because you are missing a key point. Let me explain.

You are Asking The Wrong Questions

I know you are smart. But sometimes, you are a little too smart. In that, I mean you do not always answer the correct questions. It’s because you refuse to use an aggressive elimination strategy.

How can that be?

Well, it’s pretty simple, really. The SAT answer choices are not random. That would be silly. Instead, each answer choice is the correct answer to the wrong question. And once you can start to focus on WHAT that wrong question is, you’ll be able to recognize wrong-question patterns throughout the test.

The SAT does not have to be hard, but it is tricky. And the trickiness almost exclusively comes from misunderstood questions.

The best way to overcome picking wrong answers, and thus, increasing your score, is to pursue aggressive elimination throughout the test.

Aggressive Elimination Takes The POE and Hulk-Smashes It!

Aggressive elimination is like the process of elimination techniques your text books talk abouts.

That means, in essence, that I want you to be even more aggressive about figuring out why you are eliminating answer choices. If you take the time to understand why a question is wrong, you’ll start to figure out SAT patterns. The solution to your “I always pick the wrong answer” problem is to understand what makes wrong answers wrong. That means, ultimately, that your new goal is to ignore right answers and instead focus on wrong answers.

That might sound counter-intuitive, but let me explain. You know that 80% of the answer choices on the SAT are wrong, right?

And you know that 20% of the answer choices on the SAT are right, right?

And you know that it’s easier to hit in the 80% than in the 20%, right?

So, You should focus your efforts on finding wrong answers. By shifting your focus to wrong answers, two things will happen:

1. 1) You will become focused on crossing answers out, thus increasing your % correct because you know for a fact that the answer is right, and
2. 2) You will start to recognize patterns in wrong answers, thus creating anchors in my massive brain that ensures right answers moving forward.

Those SAT tricksters cannot keep owning you.

Great, But How Do I Use Aggressive Elimination?

As is the case with most things in life, it’s more effective to show instead of tell, so please watch this short video breaking down the process.

Have you noticed any “wrong answer” patterns? Leave your observations in the comments so we can compile an exhaustive “pattern” list and help many students.

Online SAT Class Introduction

The SAT is a stressful test. You are under pressure to take this exam, score well, or else you won’t get into a “great” school. In this post, I want to introduce ourfree online SAT class, a really cool approach to teach SAT.

Online SAT Class is a new approach to tutoring and preparing for the SAT. It’s my belief that you need excellent lessons, practice questions, and specific questions answered. In the past, you needed to hire a tutor to answer your questions, give you questions, and provide lessons. If you couldn’t afford one, you could go to the store and buy an SAT book.

In recent years, excellent SAT blogs have started providing lessons (for free!) as well as practice problems. Private individual tutors have arrived and provided less expensive SAT prep if you had questions.

But, there has been a problem. Even with free lessons, getting your questions answered is expensive. And it has to be if you trade someones time; tutors are specialized and deserve to be paid for their time and knowledge. But it totally sucks that you have to foot that bill.

But what if we could get past that? What if we could introduce a way to get your questions answered without costing so much money? That’s possible with scale & with the internet. And that’s why I introduced online SAT class, a new approach to online SAT prep and study.

Online SAT Philosophy

Your peers compete, your parents stress out, and your teachers tell you exactly where they think you should go.

And to top it off, hundreds of “test prep gurus” and test prep companies tell you they have the magic bullet for SAT… if you only pay anywhere between 1,000 USD and 6,000 USD. Some private tutors will charge you well over 100 USD per hour for “the secret sauce”. (note: I am one of those tutors. If you can’t figure this out on your own, I’ll definitely point you in the right direction, but it will cost you. I have spent over a decade getting really good at the SAT. To take that knowledge from me will cost you. Unless, of course, you take that knowledge from my videos.)

Are they good teachers? For sure. Do the companies get results? Definitely. But what is the “secret sauce”?

Secret SAT Training Magic Pill

1. Assessment
2. Learn some strategies
3. Assessment
4. Fix your knowledge gaps
5. Assessment
6. Work on your individual weaknesses
7. Perfect your individual strengths
8. Assessment
9. Practice

All courses are built around assessment, review of assessment, strategies, tactics, knowledge, and some more practice.

Here is the not-so-dirty-secret:

All the strategies & tactics & knowledge are freely available online

Or, if you want a more direct approach: all the strategies & tactics & knowledge are cheaply available in a book.

So why do students pay so much money? I think there are a few reasons:

• They don’t have time and feel serious pressure of “future failure”
• They don’t know where to start
• They believe the marketing hype of the secret gate-keepers
• They need someone to aggregate all the knowledge and feed it to them in an easy way
• They have tons of questions and need an expert to work through those questions

Here is the thing… some of those reasons are perfectly legitimate. If you don’t know where to start, you’ll trust someone who has a proven track record of success. If you are busy and need someone to spoon feed the information, that is also a great reason to work with someone. And everyone has questions; asking your mom or dad or teacher at school doesn’t always cut it. You need a pro.

But thousands of dollars for something as innocuous as an SAT? Something that people hate?

There has to be a better way. And that’s the background information behind my “free online SAT class philosophy”.

Knowledge should be free. It’s a human right. Access to knowledge should be free. With the internet, access to knowledge IS free. (ish)

But sometimes people need a bit more… sometimes students want to ask questions, and that takes tutors’ time. Sometimes students need information to be categorized and organized and delivered in a smart way, and that takes publishers’ and authors’ time.

But it shouldn’t cost you thousands of dollars.

Authors spend hundreds of hours writing a book that they sell for 20 or 30 USD. Why would you pay 100 USD per hour for the same information you can get for 30 USD?

Because private tutors don’t require tons of time reading & do allow you to ask questions.

So why doesn’t someone create a course that (1) organizes and feeds the information to you in audio, video, and writing & (2) allows you to ask as many questions as possible?

I have. It’s online SAT class. And it’s not going to cost a thing.

Rad, right?

I want everyone to have the same access to SAT knowledge that I had. I want everyone to have very affordable access to a community of people who really want to help. I want to help you, I do. And I want you to be able to ask any SAT question and get a very smart answer in response.

That is Free online SAT Class. Expert SAT training + a vibrant community of SAT trainers.

What is so great about free online SAT class?

The SAT is the bane of so many students high school existence. I get it. I’ve been helping students for over 10 years get through the SAT and in that time I’ve realized what most students in the world need to score well.

Students need: confidence, strategy, knowledge, community, freedom of exploration, and time.

That’s it! If you practice, learn strategies, assess yourself, ask questions, explore your understanding, and give yourself enough time, there is no reason you won’t score well.

That is the principle behind free online SAT class. And that is the idea behind the benefits I’ve worked into the program. Each benefit I list below is what I believe is necessary for you to get what you really want.

What’s your game? Why is this free?

I know the SAT is stressful. But I want to introduce an easier way to succeed. Free Online SAT Class is that way. The course is free for several reasons, most of which involve me being awesome, but others are for financial reasons. I am like you — I need to eat, pay bills, and travel. I have but a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into this business. But I realised that most of my income comes from private tutorials. Even though I used to charge for Online SAT Class, the income never even came close to my private students.

So, I decided to increase my audience for private tutoring by giving SAT class away for free. In order to make up the difference, I have added affiliate links (all links to Amazon give me a tiny commission) and advertising on the videos and in the blog posts. These ads aren’t going to make tons of cash, but by giving away a free online SAT class, I hope to increase my audience, get some good will, and sell more tutoring.

Also, it’s unfair the you cannot get free access to excellent test prep. I can give you excellent lessons for free. It would be unethical to do anything else.

Does this make sense? What would you like to know about online SAT class?

I can relate to your fear, the SAT is an incredibly complicated and stressful test. It is also quite important. I’ve already given my take on the SAT – why it’s around, what you should do to prep, and what it actually is – but today, I’m going to give you some quick tips to really advance the way you think about the SAT.

I am NOT going to give sample problems – not yet at least. Instead, I am going to help you “think” about the SAT in a way that will change the way you take tests, and hopefully, change the way you score. This is SAT strategy in a very clear and easy-to-understand manner.

My hope is to help you score more points on the SAT. I will do this by demystifying a lot of what you are doing.

1) Stop looking for the right answer

The SAT is a multiple-choice test. The advantage of a multiple-choice test is that one of the 5 options HAS to be correct. The problem is that you only have a 20% of guessing correct. With that said, there is an initial 80% chance of finding a wrong answer. So, why are you trying so hard to find things that are hard to find, when you could EASILY find things that are EASY to find? That’s not smart SAT strategy.

From this day forward, spend your time looking for WRONG answers. (easier said than done ) As you work through your problems, you will eventually be left with two choices – a 50% chance. Now those are good odds!

I recommend getting access to a sample SAT, specifically the Official Guide, and working as hard as you can to do every problem in this way. Be left with the right answer.

If you spend your time looking for wrong answers, you will be left with the right answer.That is smart test-taking.

2) Stop answering the questions in order

Each SAT section is timed. It is true that there is a general order of difficulty on the SAT. Generally speaking, the test begins with an easy question, moves to medium questions, and ends with a hard question. With that said, the SATs understanding of easy, medium and hard ignores individual order of difficulty preferences. It’s just silly SAT strategy to start with 1 and end with 18 (or 20, or 24…)

For example, if you are terrible at geometry, it doesn’t matter if the SAT says that the geometry question is easy, for you it is hard. In addition, if your algebra is excellent, the hardest algebra question on this section may be easy for you.

Why on earth, then, would you spend your time on the first geometry question and risk getting it wrong when you could be spending your time on the easier for you algebra questions.

If you spend your time answering questions that you are good at first, you will increase your chances for a high score because you will have a higher accuracy and more time for questions you can do.

I know this gets pretty confusing, especially when you are working on practice tests. Whenever I work with students, we use a stop-watch. These help you keep time at home without having to constantly look at your watch, the wall, or a computer. Pacing is essential for the SAT, especially if you are going to skip around. Get a stop watch and get that peace of mind.

That is very smart test-taking.

3) Stop answering every question

Unless you are looking to earn a 2400, you do NOT need to answer every question. In fact, doing so will hurt you rather than help you. I’m not the only one to say this.

As you should know, each wrong answer subtracts 1/4 of a point from your total raw score. (This will change in 2016). What you might not have considered is that each wrong answer also takes your concentration and time away from working on other questions.

If you can identify the score you need, then you can identify the number of questions you must attempt. Only attempt those questions. Doing so will ensure your high score by giving you more time to answer hard questions and less time wasted on questions you’d get wrong anyway.

Answering every question is really poor test-taking, but entering the SAT with a plan to NOT answer every question is really smart test taking.

Putting all of this together, then, gives you a strategy to both identify what you are good at AND what you are bad at; letting you ignore the questions you are bad at and spend more time on the questions that you are good at. It also involves assessing each question using a thorough process of elimination.

That, my friends, is SAT strategy that will put you right in line to scoring higher than you ever have before.
Now, go prepare for your SAT, score well, fulfill your dreams. And if you try and fail… consider hiring a tutor. I hear they are smart, capable, and very, very funny.

I know the SAT is an incredibly stressful test. You have parents, friends, school, sports, debate, work, boyfriends/girlfriends, and a hundred other things going on. And yet you have to find time to study for this SAT.

There are many different options that you can take throughout your SAT prep. If you are here early in your high school career, I highly recommend trying to study on your own. It’s okay to take the SAT two or three times. If you have the energy and don’t want to spend money on a course or a tutor, get some books (listed below) and follow these simple steps. I guarantee you will see improvement.

SAT Study Plan

In today’s video, and in the lesson that follows, I will create a SAT study plan based on the following assumptions:

• You do not really have the time during the week to study for your SAT, because you must sleep, work, do homework, sports, or another extra curricular activity
• You have 3 months to prep (ie. 12 weeks before your next SAT exam)

If those assumptions do not fit you 100%, don’t worry. The two books I refer to are listed below in the resources headline.

The Three Month Weekend Only SAT Study Plan

If you have three months to prep there is no reason you should not do great. If you are a very busy person, with sleep problems, extra curricular activities, or whatever, then your only choice is to work on the weekends.

And that’s okay.

Look, my plan requires a few sacrifices on your part:

• Sorry, but no weekend trips for 3 months (if it’s the Spring, you can take a break during Spring Break.)
• You basically lose your weekend for the next three months. I know, it sucks. Deal with it. What’s more important? A few hours with your friends or the chance to take the SAT once, rock it in the socks, and move on with your life?

Instead of breaking your study schedule into day-by-day or even month-by-month, I will break it into four chunks:

• Saturdays AM & PM
• Sundays AM & PM

SAT Self Prep – Saturday AM

For the next 12 weeks, every Saturday morning you will wake up bright and early, get a nice breakfast, have a coffee or a juice or whatever it is that you drink, and you will take a practice SAT. Timed. No cheating!

You will do this for three reasons:

1. You need to get the pacing and timing down. If you are forcing yourself to take timed sections, you will do better day-by-day
2. You need to get the patience and stamina to handle your real SAT. By taking the full-length test 10-12 times, your real test will be easy.
3. You need to get your mind working on math, reading, and writing at the same time, so you aren’t focusing only on one thing.

During your test, you want to treat your strategy the same way you’d treat it on the real thing. You want only one thing: a really good SAT score.

So, you will guess when appropriate, you will skip when appropriate, and you will do whatever you can do to get the highest grade possible. But, whenever you guess, please mark on your test or answer sheet that you guessed. This is important because we will spend a lot of time Saturday evening and Sunday evening reviewing your test.

And that’s it for Saturday morning. It’s probably noon. Go take a break. Eat some lunch, play a game, do some sit-ups, call your boyfriend on the phone and complain about the SAT. Whatever. Just clear your brain. This afternoon is going to be an adventure!

SAT Self Prep – Saturday PM

This evening is going to be the most painful of every prep session. You will come back and open up your test book. Do NOT grade your SAT, yet. Instead, you will go to each section (excluding the essay and grid-in) and explain why each wrong answer is wrong.

Please note what I mean:

1. Start in Section 2
2. If you marked, “C” for question #1, I want you to explain to yourself (in your mind or on paper) exactly why A, B, D, and E are incorrect.
3. Do that for every question on the test

After you run through that drill, take note of all the questions you changed, all the guesses you made, and all the patterns that emerged. This drill encourages you to understand exactly what the SAT is trying to test. It will help you identify patterns and should lead to an amazing score.

Once you complete that, grade your SAT.

SAT Self Prep – Sunday AM

Your Sunday morning SAT session will involve learning new tricks and strategies, as well as new knowledge. You will work out of the Barron’s guide (link at the bottom of the page). Each Sunday morning take a few hours to read a new section (just start at the beginning and work through the entire guide).

Pay special attention to learning the strategies and common errors. This is an incredibly important part of your SAT prep because it ensures you acquire the knowledge you don’t currently have and practice new strategies.

SAT Self Prep – Sunday PM

In the afternoon, you will want to once again go through your test from Saturday. Because you have your score and have already worked through each problem twice, the only thing you want to do now is go through each section trying to find instances that match the lesson you learned this morning.

For example, if you learned about adding fractions, go through each math section looking for questions that make you add fractions. Once you recognize that this is an adding fractions question, see if you can work through it faster than you did yesterday using the techniques we learned. This ensures you are moving in the right direction and encourages you to work really, really hard.

Resources

I did mention two resources in this post, the official guide and Barron’s. It’s important for you to get these two books. They are the two I recommend. You can go to your local bookstore or purchase them from Amazon. Just click on those links above and get to them.

Did this guide help you? Do you have less than three months? Leave a comment, share on facebook, and ask a question. I’d love to help.

Because of the variation in grading standards and course rigor across high schools worldwide, many schools use the SAT to judge academic potential. Today, the SAT is the benchmark assessment of the critical reading, mathematical reasoning, and writing skills students should have developed while in school and that they need to be successful at university.

Each year, more than two million students take the SAT. Nearly every university in America and many universities worldwide use the test as a common and objective scale for evaluating a student’s college readiness.

Each question is thoroughly tested to ensure the question is not biased towards any gender, race, or socio-economic situation.

At over 1,000 testing centers, the College Board offers the SAT six times a year: October, November, December, January, May and June. To ensure that the results for international students are held to “the same standards of quality, service, shipping, and security,” there are additional fees to take the tests. Students taking the test in the United States have the option to take the SAT in March.

Overview & Scoring

The SAT has three sections: math, reading, and writing. Each of the three sections that comprise the SAT Reasoning Test has a possible score range from 200 to 800 points.

When taking the test, each question is worth 1 raw point. For every question correct, students earn 1 point. For every question left blank, students earn 0 points. And for every question incorrect, students lose (1/4) of a point.

When the test is graded, students will have a raw score for math, reading, and writing. The math score is out of 54. The reading score is out of 67. The writing score is out of 49. Scores are then placed on a bell curve based on the average score of all test takers. This is why the Official Guide lists score ranges; your score depends both on how well you do and on how well everyone else does.

Math Overview

The SAT math section covers arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and data analysis. Students are allowed to use a calculator. There are at least three math sections. Students will have two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section.

The 25-minute sections will have either 20 questions or 18 questions. The section with 18-questions will have 8 problem solving questions and 10 grid-in questions. Problem solving questions give a question and then 5 potential answer choices. Grid-in questions ask a question, but have no multiple choice answer options.

The 20-minute section will have 16 questions. These will be multple choice problem solving questions.

Students will be asked a range of math question, but will never have to use calculus, trigonometry, or advanced math. Students will have specific arithmetic questions, such as rate, average, and number definitions. Students will also have specific algebra questions, such as quadratic equations, simultaneous equations, and solving for x. Finally, students will have specific geometry questions, such as area and perimeter of parallelograms and triangles.

To do well on the math section, students should focus on overall strategies, specific techniques, and knowledge of each content type.

Reading Overview

The SAT reading section covers vocabulary and reading comprehension. Students are not allowed any outside material. There are at least three reading sections. Students will have two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section.

The 25-minute sections will have 25 questions each. The 20-minute section will have 19 questions. Each question in the reading section is multiple choice, meaning you will have five potential answer choices for each question.

The first few questions will be sentence completion questions. These are vocabulary questions that give a sentence with one or two blanks. Your task is to pick the answer that uses the correct words for the blank. After your sentence completion questions, you will be tasked with short reading passages. Short reading passages are one paragraph passages followed by 2 to 4 questions. You will either answer questions on 1 passage or on 2 passages.

After your short reading passages, you will have either 1 or 2 long reading passages. These are followed by several questions. You are asked specific questions, general questions, purpose questions, vocabulary questions, inference questions, tone questions, and analysis questions.

To do well on the reading section, students should focus on the over strategy, specific question-type strategy, speed reading, and paraphrasing. Non-native English speakers tend to do poorest on the reading section. It’s important to learn speed reading and paraphrasing techniques to overcome reading difficulties.

Writing Overview

The SAT writing section covers writing, grammar, and paragraph structure. Students are not allowed any outside materail. There are at least three writing sections. Students will have one 25-minute essay, one 25-minute multiple choice section, and one 10-minute multiple choice section.

The essay is always the first section, and it is graded on a scale of 0 – 6. Your final essay score will be between 0 and 12, as it is graded by two people. That grade, coupled with your raw writing score, determines your writing SAT score.

There are two grammar question types, error identification and sentence correction. Error identification questions ask you to find an error in a sentence. You will be given one sentence with several words or phrases underlined. Your job is to find the underlined error. If there is no error, you will select the answer that says there is no error. Sentence correction questions ask you to fix the underlined portion of a sentence. You will be given a sentence with some or all of it underlined and each answer choice has an option to fix the underlined section. You must pick the grammatically correct option.

You will also be tasked with improving paragraphs. You are given a short essay with structural problems. Each question will ask you to add, remove, rewrite, or title the essay. Your job is to pick the best option from among your choices.

To do well on the writing section, you must learn the essay template, have good examples, understand the most common grammar errors, practice writing paragraphs, and learn the techniques and strategies for each question type.

NOTE:

A message from Craig Gonzales: Please do not hesitate to email any questions you may have about the SAT. I want you to do as well as possible. IF you think I can help you, start your classes today by signing up for private or small group SAT tutoring. If you think you only need help on one section, send me a direct message and I’ll do my best to help.

Thank you, and good luck with your tests!

Craig