Practice Tips
Practice version of the SAT that may lead to receiving money for college that you take in the 10th grade.
The Preliminary SAT, also known as the PSAT/NMSQT® (National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test)
Take to get a feel of the SAT and receive a base score to help you start practicing areas of weakness using college board + Khan Academy SAT prep.
Describe the reading portion of the exam
What is a section of multiple choice and based on passages.
Describe what the math exam is like.
Describe the reading portion of the exam.
When you take the Writing and Language Test, you’ll do three things that people do all the time when they write and edit:
How many tests should you take? When?
Take your first test by June of your Junior year.
Take your second test by September of Senior year.
If needed, take your third test by November of your Senior year.
The amount of study time you need to do well.
Minimum:10 hours
Average: 45 hours
Max: 150 hours
The length of the reading exam (minutes + questions)
What is
65 Minutes
52 Questions
The length of the math exam (minutes + questions)
What is
80 minutes
58 questions
The length of the writing exam (minutes + questions)
What is
35 minutes
44 questions
The schedule
The benefit of timing yourself.
When you take practice tests, time yourself exactly as you will be timed on the real SAT. Develop a sense of how long 35 minutes is, for example, and how much time you can afford to spend on cracking difficult problems. If you know ahead of time what to expect, you won’t be as nervous.
The four types of passages you will read.
Three areas of focus on the math exam.
The Math Test will focus in depth on the three areas of math that play the biggest role in a wide range of college majors and careers:
What to expect from the writing questions.
To answer some questions, you’ll need to look closely at a single sentence. Others require reading the entire piece and interpreting a graphic. For instance, you might be asked to choose a sentence that corrects a misinterpretation of a scientific chart or that better explains the importance of the data.
The passages you improve will range from arguments to nonfiction narratives and will be about careers, history, social studies, the humanities, and science.
What to bring. What not to bring.
Bring:
Don't bring: Your Cellphone or smart watches or devices that may make noise (ie alarms).
The biggest mistake a student can make on test day.
To spend too little time on the easy and medium questions, and too much time on the hard ones. The problem with this approach is that if you rush through the easy and medium questions, you are almost certain to make a few careless mistakes. Here are the pacing steps that will help you improve your score.
What the Reading Test Measures
What the Math Test Measures
The Math Test is a chance to show that you:
You’ll demonstrate your grasp of math concepts, operations, and relations. For instance, you might be asked to make connections between properties of linear equations, their graphs, and the contexts they represent.
What the Writing and Language Test Measures
Command of Evidence
Questions that test command of evidence ask you to improve the way passages develop information and ideas.
Words in Context
You’ll need to choose the best words to use based on the text surrounding them. Your goal will be to make a passage more precise or concise, or to improve syntax, style, or tone.
Expression of Ideas
Some questions ask about a passage’s organization and its impact.
Standard English Conventions
This is about the building blocks of writing: sentence structure, usage, and punctuation. You’ll be asked to change words, clauses, sentences, and punctuation. Some topics covered include verb tense, parallel construction, subject-verb agreement, and comma use.
The length of the entire SAT exam (minutes + questions)
The SAT is 154 questions with an optional essay.
The SAT clocks in at 3 hours (3 hours and 15 minutes with breaks). And if you choose to sign up for the optional essay, the SAT takes 3 hours and 50 minutes to complete (or 4 hours, 5 minutes with breaks).
Look for the right answer or the wrong answers?
Look for wrong answers instead of right answers.
Don't know the right answer? It happens. But if you know which choices are definitely wrong, you will significantly improve your chances of getting the question right. This is called process of elimination. Since you aren't penalized for wrong answers on the SAT, you should always guess, even if this means choosing an answer at random.
Here’s how it works: Each question has 4 possible answer choices. Eliminate even one possibility, and you have a 1:3 chance of guessing correctly. Let's say there are 9 questions where you eliminate 1 choice and guess among the remaining choices. Statistically, you will guess correctly 3 times and incorrectly 6 times. You just earned 3 points!
Which choice best describes what happens in the passage?
A) One character argues with another character who intrudes on her home.
B) One character receives a surprising request from another character.
C) One character reminisces about choices she has made over the years.
D) One character criticizes another character for pursuing an unexpected course of action.
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It was how she viewed Naomi. Even though Naomi was eighteen and training endlessly in the arts
55 neededtomakeagoodmarriage,Chiehadmadeno effort to find her a husband.
Akira blushed.
“Depending on your response, I may stay in Japan. I’ve come to ask for Naomi’s hand.”
60 Suddenly Chie felt the dampness of the night. “Does Naomi know anything of your . . .
ambitions?”
“We have an understanding. Please don’t judge
my candidacy by the unseemliness of this proposal. I65 ask directly because the use of a go-between takes
much time. Either method comes down to the same thing: a matter of parental approval. If you give your consent, I become Naomi’s yoshi.* We’ll live in the House of Fuji. Without your consent, I must go to
70 America,tosecureanewhomeformybride.”
Eager to make his point, he’d been looking her full
in the face. Abruptly, his voice turned gentle. “I see I’ve startled you. My humble apologies. I’ll take no more of your evening. My address is on my card. If
75 youdon’twishtocontactme,I’llreapproachyouin two weeks’ time. Until then, good night.”
He bowed and left. Taking her ease, with effortless grace, like a cat making off with a fish.
“Mother?” Chie heard Naomi’s low voice and80 turnedfromthedoor.“Hehasaskedyou?”
The sight of Naomi’s clear eyes, her dark brows gave Chie strength. Maybe his hopes were preposterous.
“Where did you meet such a fellow? Imagine! He85 thinkshecanmarrytheFujiheirandtakeherto
America all in the snap of his fingers!”
Chie waited for Naomi’s ripe laughter. Naomi was silent. She stood a full half minute
looking straight into Chie’s eyes. Finally, she spoke.90 “Imethimatmyliterarymeeting.”
Naomi turned to go back into the house, then stopped.
“Mother.”
“Yes?”
95 “I mean to have him.”
* a man who marries a woman of higher status and takes her family’s name
Choice B is the best answer. In the passage, a young man (Akira) asks a mother (Chie) for permission to marry her daughter (Naomi). The request was certainly surprising to the mother, as can be seen from line 47, which states that prior to Akira’s question Chie “had no idea” the request was coming.
Choice A is incorrect because the passage depicts two characters engaged in a civil conversation, with Chie being impressed withis incorrect because the passage is focused on the idea of Akira’s and Naomi’s present lives and possible futures. Choice D is incorrect because the interactions between Chie and Akira are polite, not critical; for example, Chie views Akira with “amusement,” not animosity.
Kathy is a repair technician for a phone company. Each week, she receives a batch of phones that need repairs. The number of phones that she has left to fix at the end of each day can be estimated with the equation P = 108 − 23d, where P is the number of phones left and d is the number of days she has worked that week. What is the meaning of the value 108 in this equation?
A) Kathy will complete the repairs within 108 days.
B) Kathy starts each week with 108 phones to fix.
C) Kathy repairs phones at a rate of 108 per hour.
D) Kathy repairs phones at a rate of 108 per day.
Choice B is correct.
Coworking: A Creative Solution
When I left my office job as a website developer at a small company for a position that allowed me to work full-time from home, I thought I had it made: I gleefully traded in my suits and dress shoes for sweatpants and slippers, my frantic early-morning bagged lunch packing for a leisurely midday trip to my refrigerator. The novelty of this comfortable work-from-home life, however,
23 soon got worn off quickly. Within a month, I found myself feeling isolated despite having frequent email and instant messaging contact with my colleagues. Having become frustrated trying to solve difficult problems,
24 no colleagues were nearby to share ideas. It was during this time that I read an article 25 into coworking spaces.
A) NO CHANGE
B) colleagues were important for sharing ideas. ideas C) couldn’t be shared with colleagues.
D) I missed having colleagues nearby to consult.
Choice D is the best answer because it is the only choice that provides a grammatically standard and coherent sentence. The participial phrase “Having become frustrated. . .” functions as an adjective modifying “I,” the writer.
Choices A, B, and C are incorrect because each results in a dangling modifier. The participial phrase does not refer to choice A’s “no colleagues,” choice B’s “colleagues,” or choice C’s “ideas.” As such, all three choices yield incoherent and grammatically incorrect sentences.
How completion affects your score?
You’re not scored on how many questions you do . You’re scored on how many questions you answer correctly. Doing fewer questions can mean more correct answers overall!