category: sat
-
sat score choice vs. superscore
to hear the college board tell it, the sat score choice makes the sat less stressful and more balanced. while there’s a grain of truth there, its far from the whole story. in reality, score choice isn’t actually helpful. in fact, colleges don’t want to you use it! choosing your highest sat scores is…
-
what skills does the sat test?
how many skills does the sat test you on? on the surface, you might say there are three: reading, writing and math. and in a way, you’d be right. those are three scores you receive, after all. but there’s a lot more to it, really. here are five other skills that the sat makers are…
-
when to trust your instincts on the sat
when faced with a tough choice, it’s easy to second-guess yourself (and the sat is full of tough choices). think of how hard it can be to choose toppings for a pizza. you think sausage and pepper sounds good, and you’re all set to order, and then you see the barbeque chicken, and it’s not…
-
key words in sat reading comprehension
in spoken english, there’s a pattern of stressing syllables and words that makes a sort of rhythm. the sat reading comprehension doesn’t have any questions about that, exactly, but we can learn a bit from it. and why we stress those sounds has something to do with finding important information in sat reading comp. to…
-
sat geometry
about a quarter of sat math problems need some geometry skills to be solved, and most of those ask you to use geometry knowledge alone. so you could say that getting all of the geometry questions right would earn you about 150 points on the test, although if you’re wondering how to calculate sat scores),…
-
taking a break from sat studying
if you’re sitting down with a full-length sat practice test, then the breaks we’re talking about here don’t really apply. half the point of those practice tests is to build up your comfort with a test-like environment, and you don’t get to take a whole lot of breaks during your sat. in fact, you’ll only…
-
sat math grid-in questions
if you’d never taken the sat before and hadn’t practiced for it, you’d have a choice on your sat: either read the instructions for bubbling in math grid-ins or don’t. if you read the instructions, you’d be spending valuable time that could be used to pick apart questions instead. on the other hand, if you…
-
sat improving paragraphs: answers and explanations
let’s look at the answers to those improving paragraphs questions. explanation 1 the problem: there’s a redundancy issue here. “in general” and “for the most part” mean the same thing, so using them both in a sentence—especially right next to each other—is awkward and totally unnecessary. whenever possible, the sat prefers shorter, clearer ways of…
-
sat improving paragraphs practice questions
here’s some practice with sat improving paragraphs questions. remember not to spend too much time reading the passage—you only need to get the gist of it. after you skim it, use the questions to guide you through the reading passage to the pieces you should be focusing on. remember to watch for common sat grammar…
-
how to find the main ideas in sat reading passages
sat reading passages can be a little hard to pick apart. they’re not light reading, and you probably won’t have any real interest in the topic. and they’re full of detail, a lot of which ends up being pretty unnecessary for the questions. it’s true that there are lots of questions that ask about specific…