Score High on the SAT or PSAT

The SAT is an exam intended to measure your academic readiness for college. As a result, you will find that colleges are interested in how well you score on the SAT in addition to your high school GPA. Scoring high is essential to being admitted to prestigious colleges and universities, such as Harvard University and Yale University. With a few techniques in mind, you can master the exam. The SAT lasts a total of four hours and two minutes (including two breaks).

Steps

  1. Set a realistic, but challenging goal. If you've taken the PSAT or SAT before, establish your baseline score. For the PSAT, multiply your score by ten to get an estimate of how well you might do on the SAT. If you've taken the SAT, set your goal slightly higher than your baseline score. It is most important to make it realistic. If you haven't taken the PSAT or SAT, visit College Board and obtain a copy of the Official SAT Practice Test and print it. If you don't have access to a printer, try to get a copy of College Board's SAT preparation booklet from your high school guidance counselor (they are the same).
    • Find a quiet area in which you can work for approximately four hours without interruptions.
    • Take the SAT practice test under the same conditions as the exam
      • Time yourself on the sections
      • Take at most two minute breaks between sections
      • After finishing three sections, take a break for ten minutes.
    • Follow the directions on how to grade the test and convert the section scores to a scaled score. You can use these scores as your baseline for goal setting.
    • Find average SAT scores for freshman at colleges to which you're applying. You can find this information at college admissions offices or online.
    • Set goals that are challenging but realistic.
  2. Practice. This is the most important step in scoring high on the SAT and PSAT. Since the length of the test is about four hours, it is quite difficult to solve all the questions unless you are well prepared. The only way you can prepare for the lengthy test is by practicing tests of similar duration in a similar setting. Use College Board's practice study tools to prepare for the SAT. "Question of the Day" and "Word of the Day" may be useful, but be sure to practice the questions and exams.
  3. Determine the number of questions you should try to answer. It is important to set a high, but realistic goal. Don't try to answer too many questions, because if you push to answer them all, you may be get more questions wrong. Note that you aren't penalized for questions you don't answer, but are penalized for wrong answers. Therefore, you need to fine tune a strategy that takes into account both the wrong answer penalty and the no credit/no penalty scoring for unanswered questions. (The strategy to skip every question that raises the least little bit of uncertainty is probably not in your best interest.)
  4. Pace yourself. Move quickly (but carefully) through the easy questions (which are in the beginning), but steadily and slowly through the harder questions. Don't answer questions 16-20 in each section unless you have at least five minutes left. In that case, look at the last questions and choose two you like best, and try to answer them.
  5. Know how to guess. If you can eliminate at least one of the answers, always guess. If you rule out answers that make no sense, you dramatically improve your chances of getting the question right. Many math questions have absurd answer choices that absolutely can never be true (negative numbers when positive are required, wrong units).
  6. Keep track of time. Bring a watch, even if there's a clock in the room. Set your watch to 12:00 so you can quickly figure out how much time has elapsed and how much you have left. If you use the room clock, you will waste time looking up and calculating the time elapsed. Instead, spend your time and brain power actually answering questions.
  7. Answer the easy questions, then the hard ones. Each section progresses from easy to hard, so usually you should answer them in the order in which they appear. There are some questions that appear on every test that are giveaways. Since the easy questions are worth the same amount as the hard questions, it is better that you answer easy questions correctly while missing the hardest ones rather than giving all the time to answering a mere few of the difficult questions.

Tips

  • Go to bed early to ensure that you are well rested on the day of the exam.
  • Latin roots will help immensely with vocabulary since many incomprehensible words are based on simple Latin verbs.
  • You can take the SAT more than once. Do not attempt the test more than three times if you have an excellent score to show the colleges. Admissions officers take notice of you being overly obsessed with grades.
  • Don't change answers on a last minute whim. If you know for certain you made a mistake, go ahead and make the correction (make sure you completely erase the old answer). The general guideline is "Don't change an answer". In most cases, answers are changed from right to wrong.
  • You can write anything you want in your test booklet. Use this opportunity to highlight and write notes in the margin.
  • Take note of the types of questions you nail and head for those right away.
  • You may bring a calculator, but it is not needed in order to complete the test. Try to mentally approximate so that you can assess the "reasonableness" of all calculator output.
  • It is way faster to circle your answers in the test booklet and copy them to the answer sheet when you have three minutes left for the section (or when you get to the hardest questions starting with #16). Take your time transferring the answers,-- three minutes is ample time. Make sure to use this strategy in practice tests, so you are comfortable using it.
  • The test was recently changed (2015) so make sure you're up to date with the new information!
  • Don't spend too much time on one question.

Warnings

  • Don't make any stray marks on your answer sheet. The SAT is scored by a computer, and if two answers are detected, the question will be marked wrong. Erase thoroughly.

Things You'll Need

  • Watch or silent countdown timer
  • Calculator
  • Pencils
  • SAT preparation guide from College Board

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Sources and Citations

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