Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Mr Hepner's Top Twenty Tips for SAT Success

#2. Know Your SAT's Parameters

The SAT has very definite boundaries. Make it your job to know them before you sit to take a real SAT.

Know how many questions per section. Know how much time you'll have for each section. Know the order of the sections. Know that at least one will be "experimental" and won't count one whit towards your score (or lack thereof), but that you won't know which one it will be, only that it will be a Critical Reading or a Math section.

Section 1: Always an essay, always 25 minutes to complete it.

Sections 2-7: Always include one 35 question Writing Skills section, and either two Critical Reading and three Math sections, or three Critical Reading and two Math sections. Again, one of the "ThreeFers" will be "experimental," you just won't know which, only whether it's Math or Critical Reading.

All sections 2 - 7 are 25 minutes in length.

There's a five minute break after the second section, and another after the fourth section. Then there's a minute break after the sixth section.

All 25-minute Critical Reading sections will have 24 questions, 5, 6 or 8 of which will be Completing the Sentences. The remainder will be passage based reading analysis.

25-minute Math sections will have either 20 questions, or 18; on the 18-question sections, four will be grid-in. Wrong answers on grid-ins will not be deducted from your score.

The 35 question Writing section will feature 11 "Improving Sentences" questions, 18 "Identifying Sentence Errors" questions, and 6 "Improving Paragraphs" questions.

Sections 8 & 9 are 20 minutes each, one Math, and one Critical Reading. The Math will have 14 questions; the Critical Reading will have 19 questions, 5, 6 or 8 of which will be Completing the Sentence questions, the rest of which will be passage-based reading analysis.

There's a one minute stand at your desk "stretch break" between Sections 8 & 9.

Lastly, Section 10 tests your Writing skills with 14 "Improving Sentences" questions.

Knowing what to expect in terms of timing and composition of the SAT puts you in the driver's seat for feeling comfortable while taking this arduous test.

Knowledge is power, whether it's a bigger vocabulary, or simply knowing just how many questions, just how much time you'll have to answer them, or what order you're likely to find them, and where the "time-outs" are.

Preparation SAT: The Anti-Stress.

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