{"id":948,"date":"2013-03-20t23:14:48","date_gmt":"2013-03-20t23:14:48","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/sat\/?p=948"},"modified":"2015-04-15t22:59:00","modified_gmt":"2015-04-15t22:59:00","slug":"when-to-trust-your-instincts-on-the-sat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/when-to-trust-your-instincts-on-the-sat\/","title":{"rendered":"when to trust your instincts on the sat"},"content":{"rendered":"

when faced with a tough choice, it\u2019s easy to second-guess yourself (and the sat is full<\/i> 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\u2019re all set to order, and then you see the barbeque chicken, and it\u2019s not so easy anymore. then it all falls apart. hawaiian sounds good, too\u2026but what about something with pesto? or maybe it\u2019d be good to have a bunch of veggies and be a little healthier?<\/p>\n

in situations like that, the best thing to do is usually to go with your gut. that\u2019s just as true for the sat as it is for pizza toppings. there\u2019s a reason your original choice stood out, and unless you can totally write it off after rethinking, it deserves to be taken seriously.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

tricky critical reading questions<\/h2>\n

sat critical reading is made up of two parts\u2014sentence completions<\/a> and passage-based reading comprehension<\/a>. both areas tend to catch test-takers up in frustrating loops of second-guessing.<\/p>\n

in the case of sentence completions, it tends to happen because students don\u2019t know some of the words in the answer choices. then, even if they\u2019re already looking at a word they do <\/i>know and happens to be correct,<\/i> they find themselves tempted by the mystery words.<\/p>\n

being rare doesn\u2019t give a word any more weight.\u00a0 if you have an answer that sounds good, stick with it.<\/i><\/p>\n

in the case of passage-based reading, the sat likes to throw in wrong answers that are slightly too strongly worded<\/a>, and these make people think twice, too. if that happens, then look back at your original choice. can you find any reason why it\u2019s wrong? if not, then don\u2019t make things complicated for yourself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

is there actually a grammar mistake in the question?<\/h2>\n

sat-takers second-guess themselves a whole lot in the writing section when they don\u2019t see obvious mistakes in the sentences they\u2019re given. the problem is simple: people don\u2019t like choosing \u201cno error.\u201d (in improving sentences questions, there\u2019s no \u201cno error\u201d option, but choice a<\/i> is just a copy of the original that you\u2019re supposed to improve.)<\/p>\n

but they shouldn\u2019t be so hesitant. the correct answers are spread evenly among the letters a through e, so \u201cno error\u201d should be correct about a fifth of the time.<\/p>\n

now, that doesn\u2019t mean that you should just choose \u201cno error\u201d whenever you\u2019re not clear on what the problem is. but it does mean that you shouldn\u2019t force<\/i> yourself to find a problem. check back through the original sentence systematically. is there any passive voice<\/a>? do the pronouns<\/a> all refer clearly to things? do the subjects match the verbs<\/a>?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

if it\u2019s a toss-up, go with your instincts<\/h2>\n

even if you can\u2019t articulate why<\/i> an answer seems correct, your gut feeling is better than nothing. if you\u2019re stuck between a two or three answer choices, it\u2019s a valuable tool.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

when faced with a tough choice, it\u2019s 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\u2019re all set to order, and then you see the barbeque chicken, and it\u2019s not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[36,44],"ppma_author":[24883],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nwhen to trust your instincts on the sat - magoosh blog | high school<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/when-to-trust-your-instincts-on-the-sat\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"when to trust your instincts on the sat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"when faced with a tough choice, it\u2019s 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\u2019re all set to order, and then you see the barbeque chicken, and it\u2019s not […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/when-to-trust-your-instincts-on-the-sat\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"magoosh blog | high school\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/magooshsat\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-03-20t23:14:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-04-15t22:59:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"lucas fink\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@magooshsat_act\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@magooshsat_act\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"lucas fink\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"article\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/when-to-trust-your-instincts-on-the-sat\/#article\",\"ispartof\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/when-to-trust-your-instincts-on-the-sat\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"lucas fink\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#\/schema\/person\/c06e6a007d0b81117c00610ed88b6c7d\"},\"headline\":\"when to trust your instincts on the sat\",\"datepublished\":\"2013-03-20t23:14:48+00:00\",\"datemodified\":\"2015-04-15t22:59:00+00:00\",\"mainentityofpage\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/when-to-trust-your-instincts-on-the-sat\/\"},\"wordcount\":522,\"commentcount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"about the sat\",\"sat strategies\"],\"articlesection\":[\"sat\"],\"inlanguage\":\"en-us\",\"potentialaction\":[{\"@type\":\"commentaction\",\"name\":\"comment\",\"target\":[\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/when-to-trust-your-instincts-on-the-sat\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"webpage\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/when-to-trust-your-instincts-on-the-sat\/\",\"url\":\"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/hs\/sat\/when-to-trust-your-instincts-on-the-sat\/\",\"name\":\"when to trust your instincts on the sat - 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