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the Academics plus tutoring center SAT BLOG

Most high school students are indimated by this, typically misunderstood and often overemphasised, exam.  Many prepare for the test without the knowledge that would help them excel on it, and few perform to their potential.  For the most part, parents are in the dark about the significance and application of this exam. We have been teaching students how to excel on the SAT for over 14 years; our average student score increase is 230 points and some of our students have made leaps of 450 points.  Our goal is to help you do the best you can!  This blog will be useful to parents as well as students. We will post basic information as well as never before secrets about the test.  We will share tips, hints and strategies.  We will make test preparation suggestions and product strategies, and provide links to the most help SAT preparation sites. We will also, answer and address some of the most common and frustrating questions and concerns about this test.  Let’s start by briefly introducing the SAT.

What is the SAT?

Well the letters used to stand for Scholastic Achievement Test, but now the College Board, who are the makers of the test, say the letters just mean SAT. A little weird if you ask us, but so be it.  Now, what the SAT has always been, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future is a college entrance exam.  It is one of the measures that college acceptance deans use to discern between the thousands of applicants per year and is supposed (we’ll get to whether the test lives up to this or not in a later blog entry) to serve as a prediction of a college grades. That being said, the test itself is a 3 hour and 45 minute exam that is designed to measure a student’s mathematical, verbal and grammar reasoning skills. Keep in mind that, although the test itself is only 3 hours and 45 minutes, on the big day, it will most likely be at least 5 hours between the time you arrive at the testing center and the time you leave.  Reading instructions, breaks, seat assignments and the management of any day-of problems or issues, factor into what is already already a long testing experience.  Okay, let’s take a quick look at the test. The SAT is comprised of 3 sections and the scores for each section range between 200 and 800 points, for a total potential score of 2400. We listed some basic information about each of the sections below:

CRITICAL READING
The critical reading section is 70 minutes long.  It contains two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section. There are 67 questions in all, including 19 sentence completions and 48 reading passage questions.

WRITING
The writing section is 60 minutes long.  It contains one 25-minute and one 10-minute multiple choice section, as well as a 25-minute essay.  There are 49 multiple choice questions in all, including 18 identifying sentence error questions, 25 improving sentences questions, and 6 improving paragraph questions. 

MATH
Just like the critical reading section, the math section is 70 minutes long.   It contains two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section.  There are 54 questions in all, including 44 multiple choice questions and 10 student-produced questions, also known as “grid-in” problems.

All together, the test contains 170 multiple choice and free response questions and one essay. It is also important to know that in the math section, writing section, and sentence completion component of the critical reading section, questions are arranged (roughly) from easiest to hardest.  Although the range of difficulty varies, the number of points you receive for each question is the same.  That means that the most difficult question on the SAT is worth the same amount of points as the easiest question.  Keep this in mind! We’ll show you how to use this piece of information to your advantage in a later blog entry.

The Variable Section

In addition to all the sections the College Board uses to calculate your score, there is one 25-minute unscored section, known as the variable section. This section does not count toward your final SAT score, but instead is used by the exam-makers to determine the effectiveness and usefulness of certain question types.  This unscored section may be either a critical reading, mathematics, or writing multiple-choice section. Now here is the kicker, even though the variable section is not used in your score, you will never know which section the variable section is so you must give your best effort to each section of the test.  In essence, you must act as if each section is equally important.

The Order of sections

The 25-minute essay will always be the first section of the SAT, and the 10-minute multiple-choice writing section will always be the final section. That leaves six 25-minute sections, which can appear in any order, and two 20-minute sections, which also can appear in any order. Also, test takers sitting next to each other in the same testing session may have test books with entirely different sections, so you know what that means. Well, that concludes our first SAT blog entry….we promise to keep the information light, fun and flowing…stay tuned.  

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