5:1 General Test-Taking Strategies

Adapted from Kaplan SAT Strategies for Super Busy Students (2008 Edition) and Study Points

Know the Test Format

The first time you see an SAT or ACT should NOT be on Test Day. On the day of the test, you should recognize Sentence Completions, Grid-Ins, Science Sections, and the setup of any other question type or section on the test.

SAT Format
The SAT is a 3-hour 45-minute, mostly multiple choice exam. It's divided into ten sections. The Essay is always first, and a writing multiple choice section is always last. The other sections can appear in any order. The sections are broken down like so:

• One 25-minute Writing section where you will write an essay
• One 25-minute Writing section containing Identifying Sentence Error, Improving Sentence, and Improving Paragraph questions
• Two 25-minute Critical Reading sections containing Sentence Completion questions and long and short Reading Comprehension questions
• One 20-minute Critical Reading section made up of Sentence Completion and Reading Comprehension questions
• One 10-minute Writing section containing Improving Sentence questions
• One 25-minute Math section with multiple-choice questions
• One 25-minute Math section with multiple-choice questions and Grid-in questions
• One 25-minute Experimental section (Critical Reading, Writing, or Math) that does not count towards your score (but you won't know which section it is)

ACT Format

The ACT is composed of four multiple-choice sections—English, Math, Reading, and Science—and one optional essay section—Writing. Total testing time is 2 hours and 55 minutes for the ACT without Writing and 3 hours and 25 minutes for the ACT with Writing. However, if you want to use the ACT as your main testing score for colleges, be sure to take the ACT with Writing. The breakdown of the ACT with Writing is as follows:

• One 30-minute Writing section where you will write an essay
• One 45-minute English section made up of multiple choice and rhetorical analysis questions
• One 60-minute Math section with multiple-choice questions
• One 35-minute Reading section made up with multiple-choice and reasoning questions
• One 35-minute Science section made up of multiple choice, analysis, and data representation questions

Know the Directions

One of the easiest things you can do to help your performance on the SAT and/or ACT is to understand the directions before taking the test. Knowing the instructions beforehand will save you precious time reading them on Test Day. The directions NEVER change, so learn them now.

Have a Plan and Stick with it

Kaplan has come up with a seven-step plan that organizes the way to approach the tests:

1) Think about the question before you look at the answer: The people who write the tests put distracting answer choices to throw students off. If you jump into the answer choices without thinking about what you're looking for, you're much more likely to fall into a test writer's trap. So, always think for a second or two about the question before you look at the answers.

2) Pace yourself: The SAT and ACT give you a lot of question to answer in a short period of time. To get through a whole section, you can't spend too much time on any one question. Keep moving through the test at a good speed; if you run into a hard question, circle it in your test booklet, skip it, and come back later to it if you have time. Remember, you get the same amount of points for easy questions as you do for hard ones.

3) Know When a Question is Supposed to be Easy or Hard: Some questions are designed to be more difficult than others. Generally, questions are designed to get tougher as you work through a set. 

4) Move Around Within a Section: On a test at school, you probably spend more time on the hard questions than you do on the easy ones because hard questions are usually worth more points. As we said before, pace yourself. But don't be careless. Don't rush through the easy problems just to get to the hard ones. When you run into questions that look tough, circle them in your test booklet, and skip them for the time being (make sure you skip them on your answer sheet, too). Then, if you have time, go back to them AFTER you have answered the easier ones. Sometimes, after you have answered some easier questions, troublesome questions can get easier. Remember, the name of the game is to get as many points as possible, so you need to score points as quickly as possible.

5) Be a Good Guesser: You will be faced with questions that you don't know how to answer and need to guess. For the SAT, if you can eliminate one or more answers that are definitely wrong, then you should try answering the question (you get 1/4 point off for every wrong answer on the SAT). For the ACT, you do not get any points off for wrong answers--so try answering everything, even if it's just a guess!

6) Be a Good Gridder: Don't make mistakes filling out your answer grid. When time is short, it's easy to get confused skipping around a section and going back and forth between your test book and your grid. If you mis-grid just one question, you can mis-grid several others before realizing your error--if you realize it at all. You can lose a TON of points this way.

7) Two-Minute Warning--Locate Quick Points: When you start to run out of time, locate and answer any of the quick points that remain. For example, some Reading Comprehension questions will ask you to identify the meaning of a particular word in a passage. Those can be done in the last minute, even if you haven't read the passage.

**Be sure to complete the General Test-Taking Strategies Quiz in order to receive College Knowledge points!!**