The Biggest Mistake Students Make When Preparing for SAT Math

I can't scream this loudly enough: Don’t treat the SAT like a test for your school math class!

The SAT doesn’t reward 'real math' the way school does — you don't have to do the problems the way you learned in school. In fact, many times it is just a waste of time to do that! While it's great if you know those methods, they may be slowing you down. During the SAT, nobody is there to approve or disapprove of your methods and nobody will look at your work afterward. The SAT rewards choosing the most efficient path to the correct answer, period.

👉 The goal isn’t elegance. It’s efficiency.

This is why much of the time you don't even have to know the 'real way' to get the right answer. (Sometimes you do, but that's only for a few of the hardest questions.)

But what if you're SO used to doing things that way – the way your teachers have trained you? What if, when you see a complicated equation, you jump right into solving it by hand? Best case scenario: it takes more time than you should have spent, but you get the right answer. Good, right?

Ehhhh, maybe not. Maybe you get the right answer, but you waste precious time. Worse, maybe you make a common Algebra mistake, and choose a wrong answer choice that the test makers put there to trap you.

You don't fall for the traps? While that's possible for some people, it's unusual. And surely you make careless mistakes, especially under pressure, while rushing to get to the end of the section before the time runs out. Right? You've been trained by your teachers to show all your steps, BUT doing more steps means more opportunities to make a careless mistake.

So what do we do about this?

Let's first agree that the best approach is to get to the correct answer by whichever path is fastest, regardless of whether your teacher would approve. Okay? Good.

Achieving that will take a change in your approach. It takes practice to resist diving in the way you're used to. It takes practice to resist the temptation to guess at a procedure in the middle of the test... because you think you kind of remember three years ago your teacher said something like that thing you're thinking of. It takes practice to know when to shift gears.

I've told you what not to do, but what is there to actually do? That's where all the tools and strategies come in. Your two best tools are your calculator (the TI-84 Plus, of course), and Desmos.

Desmos is built in to the test, so make friends with it, practice with it, and use it whenever you can. Some things such as solving equations and finding features of graphs can be completely outsourced to Desmos. As in, you don't have to know it yourself. At. All. If you do know how to do it yourself and you're fast, fine, but double-check it with Desmos. You can even do all the 'finding equivalent expressions' problems on Desmos.

The TI-84 Plus is the perfect calculator to bring with you to the test. Yes, it's allowed, and it can be used to outsource and automate all sorts of other types of problems. These methods are the main focus of my course Streamlined SAT Math. It's more accurate than you are. Heck, it's more accurate than I am, and I've been an expert at this for decades.

Other strategies exist too. You've probably heard people say to test the answer choices. That's an age-old strategy, and good one. But there are also some you haven't heard of before - methods for getting the answers to word problems without knowing the formulas. Methods for deciding which complicated-looking formula models a scenario without knowing anything about 'what number goes where' in the formula.

All of these methods, taken together, help you

(1) do questions faster and more accurately, so you don't feel rushed or make careless mistakes.

(2) get the right answers to questions even when you didn't know the math yourself.

They amount to a very strong army against SAT Math questions and a comprehensive insurance against not knowing the math.

So, here's a variation of what I've been saying: When you see a problem and don't know the 'real way' to solve it, that's OK. Let other people decide they can't do the problem. They'll skip it, invent a method, or just randomly guess. But not you! You know you don't NEED to know the 'real way' because you have alternate paths to the correct answer and they are probably faster anyway!

And that means that no, you don't need to relearn all that math you forgot or haven't learned yet. What a relief, right?

Start with what you do know, add the best tools available, and it's going to be great!