many students are blown away by the fact that every digital sat math section has a geometry cheat sheet at the very beginning (hopefully, they pick up on this before they take the actual test).
math formulas provided for you on the sat formula reference sheet
here are all the math formulas that will be provided for you for reference on the digital sat with more details on the most important ones below:
1. circumference and area of a circle
recall this formula as naturally as you can recall your home address. it’s easy:
area = πr^2
circumference = 2πr
and don’t mix the two up!
2. area of a rectangle
this one should be pretty intuitive. to find the area of a rectangle/square multiply length x width (they are the same in a square). perimeter, which is not part of the sat cheat sheet, is found by adding the length and width and multiplying by 2.
3. area of a triangle
it’s 1/2 of the base x the height. don’t waste time flipping the pages back and forth. know this cold.
4. volume of a box
don’t memorize this—just refer back to the page if necessary. one thing you don’t get is the surface area of a box. for a cube, things are much easier: volume is s^3, in which s = the side; surface area is 6s^2.
5. cylinder
you probably won’t see a problem relating to a cylinder. anyhow, it’s not that easy to memorize. so it’s great to see it as part of the cheat sheet at the beginning of each section.
6. pythagorean theorem
know this cold. and be fluent and being able to find the missing sides.
7. 30:60:90 triangle
don’t feel you have to know this cold, though it will make things faster. just make sure you know what everything stands for when you refer to the diagram.
8. 45:45:90
as a tutor, i always want to make sure my students know this well. but at the end of the day, if you don’t know memorize the formula, you can just use the cheat sheet. just make sure you know how the sides are connected.
for instance, sometimes you can have a √2 as one of the sides. the relationship between the two equal sides and the hypotenuse is that the hypotenuse will always be √2 times greater.
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