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So why get an 800 on SAT Math?

MIT expects an 800 in SAT Math. by Allen Cheng a perfect scorer| Feb 27, 2015 5:00:00 PM  SAT STRATEGIES

What's your greatest weakness?Strategy 1: Understand Your High Level Weakness:

Content or Time Management

Every student has different flaws in SAT Math. Some people aren't comfortable with the underlying math material. Others know the

math material well, but can't solve questions quickly enough in the harsh time limit.

Here's how you can figure out which one applies more to you:A. Take only the math sections of a practice test.

B. For each section, use a timer and have it count down the time allotted for that section. Treat it like a real test.

C. If time runs out for that section and you're 100% ready to move on, then move on. If you're not ready to move on, keep on working for as long as you need. For every new answer or answer that you change, mark it with a special note as "Extra Time.“

D. When you're ready, move on to the next section, and repeat the above until you finish all math sections.

E. Grade your test using the answer key and score chart, but we want two scores:

1) The Realistic score you got under normal timing conditions,

2) The Extra Time score. This is why you marked the questions you answered or changed during Extra Time.

Get what you're doing here? By marking which questions you did under “Extra Time,” we can figure out what score you got if you were given all the time you needed. This will help you figure out where your weaknesses lie.

If you didn't take any extra time, then your “Extra Time” score is the same as your “Realistic” score.

Here's a flowchart to help you figure this out:Was your “Extra Time” score a 700 or above?• If NO (Extra Time score < 700), then you have remaining content weaknesses.

You might have weaknesses across a range of subjects, or a deep weakness in only a few subjects. (We'll cover this later). Your first plan of attack should be to develop more comfort with all SAT Math subjects.

• If YES (Extra Time score > 700), then: Was your “Realistic” score a 700 or above?

• If NO (Extra Time score > 700, Realistic < 700), then that means you have a difference between your “Extra Time” score and your Realistic score. If this difference is more than 50 points, then you have some big problems with time management. We need to figure out why this is. Are you generally slow at math across most questions? Or did particular problems slow you down? Generally, doing a lot of practice questions and learning the most efficient solutions will help reduce your time. More on this later.

• If YES (both Extra Time and Realistic scores > 700), then you have a really good shot at getting an 800. Compare your Extra Time and Realistic score - if they differed by more than 30 points, then you would benefit from learning how to solve questions more quickly. If not, then you likely can benefit from shoring up on your last content weaknesses and avoiding careless mistakes (more on this strategy later).

Hopefully that makes sense. Typically, students have both timing and content issues, but you might find that one is much more dominant for you than the other.

For example, if you can get an 800 with extra time, but score a 700 in regular time, you know exactly that you need to work on time management to get an 800.

Strategy 2: Do a Ton of Practice, and Understand Every Single Mistake

On the path to perfection, you need to make sure every single one of your weak points is covered. Even one mistake on all of SAT

Math will knock you down from an 800.

1. The first step is simply to do a ton of practice.

2. The second step - and the more important part - is to be ruthless about understanding your mistakes.

Every mistake you make on a test happens for a reason. If you don't understand exactly why you missed that question, you will make that mistake over and over again.

Think of yourself as an exterminator, and your mistakes are cockroaches. You need to eliminate every single one - and find the source of each one - or else the restaurant you work for will be shut down.

Here's what you need to do:• on every practice test or question set that you take, mark every question that you're even 20% unsure about

• when you grade your test or quiz, review every single question that you marked, and every incorrect question. This way even if you guessed a question correctly, you'll make sure to review it.

• in a notebook, write down the gist of the question, why you missed it, and what you'll do to avoid that mistake in the future. Have separate sections by subject and sub-topic (number theory - fractions, algebra - solving equations, etc.)

No excuses when it comes to your mistakes.

Always Go Deeper - WHY Did You Miss a Math Question?Now, what are some common reasons that you missed a question? Don't just say, "I didn't get this question right." That's a cop out.Always take it one step further - what specifically did you miss, and what do you have to improve in the future?

It's not enough to just think about it and move on. It's not enough to just read the answer explanation. You have to think hard about why you specifically failed on this question.By taking this structured approach to your mistakes, you'll now have a running log of every question you missed, and your reflection on why.

Here are some examples of common reasons you miss a question, and how you take the analysis one step further:

Content: I didn't learn the skill or knowledge needed to answer this question.One step further: What specific skill do I need to learn, and how will I learn this skill? 

Incorrect Approach: I knew the content, but I didn't know how to approach this question.One step further: How do I solve the question? How will I solve questions like this in the future? 

Careless Error: I misread what the question was asking for or solved for the wrong thing.One step further: Why did I misread the question? What should I do in the future to avoid this? 

Get the idea?  You're really digging into understanding why you're missing questions.

Yes, this is hard, and it's draining, and it takes work. That's why most students who study ineffectively don't improve. But you're different. Just by reading this guide, you're already proving that you care more than other students. And if you apply these principles and analyze your mistakes, you'll improve more than other students too.

Strategy 3: If You Have Content Gaps, Be Ruthless About Filling Them

Within SAT Math, you have to master a lot of subjects. At the high level, you need to know number operations, algebra, geometry, probability, and 

more. Even within each subject, you have subskills to master. Within algebra, you need to know how to solve equations, how to deal with word 

problems, properties of functions, etc.

Fill in the potholes of your understanding.

Unless you're a math whiz and are already scoring a 750-800, it's unlikely that you've mastered all of these evenly. You probably have different strengths and weaknesses across these subjects.

If from the analysis of mistakes above you find that you have a content problem, you need to improve your understanding of that content.

By Content problem, I mean that you're not comfortable with the underlying math concepts in a subject. Maybe you forgot how to solve a type of problem, or you forgot a formula to use, or you just don't remember the subject material.

If you've identified one of these issues, you've spotted an opportunity for yourself to improve your score.

Think of a mistake like discovering a cavity in your mouth. When your dentist fills in a cavity, he doesn't just patch up the hole right away. He cleans out the entire cavity, sterilizes it, then adds a filling.

Content mistakes are similar - you have a weakness in a subject, say x-y coordinate geometry. This probably means you have a lot of other weaknesses in that subject other than the one identified by that question. Don't just focus on understanding that one question you missed.

Take the opportunity to research that subject and get more practice in it.

Strategy 4: If You Miss a Question, Re-Solve It First

When you're doing practice questions, the first thing you probably do is read the answer explanation and at most reflect on it a little.

This is a little too easy. This is passive learning - you're not actively engaging with the mistake you made.

Instead, try something different - find the correct answer choice (A-D), but don't look at the explanation. Instead, try to resolve the question once over

again and try to get the correct answer.

This will often be hard. You couldn't solve it the first time, so why could you solve it the second time around?

But this time, with less time pressure, you might spot a new strategy, or something else will pop up. Something will just "click" for you.

When this happens, what you learned will stick with you for 20 times longer than if you just read an answer explanation. Because you've struggled with it and reached a breakthrough, you retain that information far better than if you just passively absorbed the information. 

It's too easy to just read an answer explanation and have it go in one ear and out the other. You won't actually learn from your mistake, and you'll make that mistake over and over again.

Treat each wrong question like a puzzle. Struggle with each wrong answer for up to 10 minutes. Only then if you don't get it should you read the answer explanation.

Strategy 5: Finish With Extra Time and Double Check

Your goal at the end of all this work is to get so good at SAT Math that you solve every question and have extra time left over at the end of the

section to recheck your work.The best way to get faster is, as explained above, to do so many questions and get so fluent at the questions that the ways to solve the question 

become obvious to you. Complicated circle questions become as easy for you as 2+2.

What's the best way to double check your work? • Try to resolve the question another way. If you solved a question algebraically, recheck it by plugging in the solution.

• If you’re 100% sure you’re right on a question, mark it as such and never look at it again. If you’re not sure, come back to it on the third pass.

• At least 2 minutes before time's up, rapidly double check that you bubbled the answers correctly. Try to do this all at once so as not to waste time looking back and forth between the test book and the answer sheet. Go 5 at a time ("A D D C B") for more speed.

If you notice yourself spending more than 30 seconds on a problem and aren't clear how you'll get to the answer, skip and go to the next question. Even though you need a perfect raw score for an 800, don't be afraid to skip. You can come back to it later, and for now it's more important to get as many points as possible.

Quick Tip: Bubbling AnswersHere's a bubbling tip that will save you 2 minutes per section.Is your bubbling technique to finish question 1, bubble in answer 1,finish question 2, bubble in answer 2, and so forth?This actually wastes a lot of time. You're distracting yourself between two distinct tasks - solving questions, and bubbling in answers. This costs you time in both mental switching costs and in physically moving your hand and eyes to different areas of the test.Here's a better method: solve all your questions first in the book, then bubble all of them in at once.This has several huge advantages: you focus on each task one at a time, rather than switching between two different tasks. You also eliminate careless entry errors, like if you skip question 7 and bubble in question 8's answer into question 7's slot.By saving just 10 seconds per question, you get back 200 seconds on a section that has 20 questions. This is huge.Note: If you use this strategy, you should already be finishing the section with ample extra time to spare. Otherwise, you might run out of time before you have the chance to bubble in the answer choices all at once.

Strategy 6: Eliminate Careless Mistakes

Careless mistakes are one of the most frustrating types of errors to make, and nearly everyone makes them.  You know the underlying material, you 

know how to solve the question, and you're feeling good. But then you grade the quiz, and you find a careless mistake.

Oops - the question asked for the perimeter of the circle and not the area, which is what you calculated.

These types of errors are the most costly and frustrating. You've already put in a ton of work to master the underlying material, and here a 

question has tricked you into losing a point.This is why finishing the test early is so helpful. You get extra time to take a 

breather and double check your answers.

If you find that careless mistakes are a recurring problem for you, here are some strategies to get rid of them:

•In the question, underline what the question is specifically asking you to solve for. It's so easy for the SAT to trick you into solving the wrong thing.

•If you're solving for a particular value (like length, area, etc), write the units down in the scratch space.

•Be careful with calculator entry. A missing parentheses makes a big difference. "4 + 9 / 2" is completely different from “(4 + 9) / 2.”

•Avoid bubbling errors by using the Quick Tip above.

This question is asking you to solve for y + z. Not x, y, or any other combination of variables.To make sure you remember this, underline y + z, and also write "y + z = ?" in the work space so that you remember for what you’re solving.You can bet that in many answer choices, the SAT will have trap answers for other things you can solve for, like x. (This one happens not to, but it's very common).

Here's an example:

Strategy 7: Memorize the Formulas and Common Math Facts

If you're still flipping to the front of the section to look at the math formulas, you haven't gotten to understand SAT Math 

well enough yet.Not only does this cost you time, it also indicates that you 

haven't practiced enough with SAT Math to have the required formulas come to you fluidly.

Memorize the SAT Math Formulas.

Memorize the formulas at the front of the section and these common math facts:

• calculating slope from two points (rise over run)

• common right triangles: by angles: 45°-45°-90° (x-x-x√2), 30°-60°-90° (x-2x-x√3); and by sides: 3-4-5, 5-12-13

• formulas for arithmetic and geometric sequences

• formula for diagonal of a rectangular prism

This list isn't complete, but if you study according to my advice above, you'll notice which formulas come up over and over again. You should memorize these.

Strategy 8: Keep a Calm Mind During the Test, No Matter What

Now you know what it takes to achieve perfection on SAT Math.You know that it's critical to get a perfect raw score, or you might score a 780.

This makes a lot of students freak out during the test."I can't solve this question...my 800 is gone...I'm getting more nervous and I have 

to skip the next question too..."You can see how quickly you can unravel like this. Before you know it, you're 

scoring way worse than you ever did on a practice test.

You need to learn to be mentally strong, like an athlete on game day.Yes, you might have to skip a question on the first pass through. Maybe even two in a row.But you've practiced hard up to this point. You know this stuff, and you'll come back to those questions and get it later.You need to keep up a positive mindset during the test, or you'll crumble.And in the worst case, maybe you won't get an 800. But if you've consistently been getting 800's on the practice tests, you likely won't go much lower than 750 - and that's super.

In OverviewThose are the main strategies for you to improve your SAT math score to an 800. If you're scoring above a 600 right now, with hard work and smart studying, you can raise it to a perfect SAT Math score.Notice that this didn't actually teach you math content. It didn't point to any specific math solutions that will instantly raise your score.That's because these one-size-fits-all, guaranteed strategies don't really exist. (And anyone who tells you this is deceiving you). Every student is different.Instead, you need to understand where you're falling short, and drill those weaknesses continuously. You also need to be thoughtful about your mistakes and leave no mistake ignored.

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