About SAT
The
SAT is an aptitude test. Like all aptitude tests,
it must choose a medium in which to measure intellectual
ability. The SAT has chosen math and English.
The
question is -- does it measure aptitude for college?
The SAT's ability to predict performance in college
is only a little better than chance.
No
test can measure all aspects of intelligence. Thus,
any admission test, no matter how well written, is
inherently inadequate. Nevertheless, some form of
admission testing is necessary. It would be unfair
to base acceptance to college solely on grades; they
can be misleading. For instance, would it be fair
to admit a student with an A average earned in easy
classes over a student with a B average earned in
difficult classes? A school's reputation is too broad
a measure to use as admission criteria. Many students
seek out easy classes and generous instructors in
hopes of inflating their GPA. Furthermore, a system
that would monitor the academic standards of every
class would be cost prohibitive and stifling. So,
until a better system is proposed, the admission test
is here to stay.
SAT
Strategy and Pacing
Although
time is strictly limited on the SAT, working too quickly
can damage your score. Many problems hinge on subtle
points, and most require careful reading of the set-up.
Because high school can put heavy reading loads on
students, many will follow their academic conditioning
and read questions quickly, looking only for the gist
of what each is asking. Once they have found it, they
mark their answer and move on, confident they have
answered it correctly. Later, many are startled to
discover that they missed questions because they either
misread the problems or overlooked subtle points.
To
do well in your classes, you have to attempt to solve
every, or nearly every, problem on a test. Not so
with the SAT. In fact, if you try to solve every problem
on this test you will probably decimate you score.
For the vast majority of people, the key to performing
well on the SAT is not the number of questions they
answer, within reason, but the percentage they answer
correctly.
Scoring the SAT
The
two parts of the test are scored independently. You
will receive a reading score, writing score, and a
math score. Each score ranges from 200 to 800, with
a total test score of 600-2400. The average score
of each section is about 500. Thus, the total average
score is about 1500.
In
addition to the scaled score, you will be assigned
a percentile ranking, which gives the percentage of
students with scores below yours. For instance, if
you score in the 80th percentile, then you will have
scored better than 80 out of every 100 test takers.
SAT
Skipping and Guessing
Some
questions on the SAT are rather hard. Most test takers
should skip these questions. We'll talk about how
to identify hard questions as we come to them.
Often
students become obsessed with a particular problem
and waste valuable time trying to solve it. To get
a top score, learn to cut your losses and move on.
All questions are worth the same number of points,
regardless of difficulty level. So skip the hardest
questions and concentrate on the easy and medium ones.
Although
there is a small guessing penalty on the SAT, if you
can eliminate even one of the answer-choices, it is
to your advantage to guess.
SAT
Order of Difficulty
Like
most standardized tests, the SAT lists problems in
ascending order of difficulty. Therefore, when trying
to decide which questions to skip, skip the last ones.
NOTE:-
some SAT sections have subsections. Within these subsections,
the problems also ascend in order of difficulty. For
example, one of the writing sections has three subsections:
error identification, improving sentences, and improving
paragraphs. So if the section starts with improving
sentences, then Question 1 will be the easiest and
Question 11 (the last of improving sentences questions)
will be the hardest. Then Question 12 (the first error
identification question) will be the easiest, and
so on.
SAT
The "2 OUT OF 5" Rule
It
is significantly harder to create a good but incorrect
answer-choice than it is to produce the correct answer.
For this reason, usually only two attractive answer-choices
are offered: One correct; the other either intentionally
misleading or only partially correct.
The
other three answer-choices are usually fluff. This
makes educated guessing on the SAT immensely effective.
If you can dismiss the three fluff choices, your probability
of answering the question successfully will increase
from 20% to 50%.
