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5 Keys to Improving Your SAT Math Score |
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Follow these 5 tips to a higher math score.
- Review and strengthen your weakest math areas. There are a finite number of math topics covered on the SAT and not all topics are tested with the same frequency or depth. Familiarize yourself with the topics tested and take the time to shore up your weak areas.
- Recognize question types. Tests don’t repeat exact questions, but they do repeat types of questions. It is this repetition that makes the SAT math section coachable. The successful test taker is familiar with these question types, readily identifies them, and has general approaches for solving them.
- Be flexible in your approach. Most SAT math questions can be solved in more than one way. Build an arsenal of methods and strategies to attack questions. For instance, if you’re stuck trying to solve a question in the forward direction, try to solve it in the reverse direction by using the answer choices.
- Identify and eliminate wrong answers. Then make an educated guess from the remaining choices. There is a small point deduction for incorrect answers, but the “penalty” is just an adjustment to offset random guessing. Educated guessing is an important part of improving your score.
- Use the “Choosing Numbers” strategy. Choosing Numbers provides a way to make abstract questions more concrete and difficult questions more accessible. You can use it on about 20% of math questions.
Here’s one example of Choosing Numbers:The population of Smithville increased by 20% between 2001 and 2002 and by 30% between 2002 and 2003. By what percent did the population increase between 2001 and 2003? (A) 62% (B) 56% (C) 50% (D) 45% (E) 32%
Having been taught to introduce variables for unknowns, many students would create a variable for the population of Smithville in 2001. The strategy of Choosing Numbers simplifies the solution by assuming that the population of Smithville in 2001 is 100 (100 works well with percentages). So if you work out the answer, you get:- 20% of 100=20 making the 2002 population 120
- 30% of 120=36 making the 2003 population 156
- % increase between 2001 and 2003 is 56/100 or 56%.
So the answer would be (B) 56%!
