SAT Strategy · Community Favorite

The Legit SAT Guide (Free)

This guide was originally written by a high-scoring student (Reddit user u/ninja542) to help others navigate the SAT. It covers everything from how to take practice tests effectively to specific strategies for Reading, Writing, and Math.

Note: While the core strategies for Reading, Writing, and Math remain highly effective for the SAT, references to the "Essay" and "Subject Tests" are historical, as those sections have been discontinued by the College Board.

Preface

Hi, I hope this guide will help you (I’m not guaranteeing you will get a 1600). If you have complaints/improvement ideas, you can send them to my reddit account: /u/ninja542. Another thing to note, please do not take my statements as true 100% of the time.

This guide does not claim to give you a 1600, so don’t sue me.

Part I: How to take practice tests

Most books start out with “general test taking tips” which is complete and utter waste of time for high schoolers who have taken multiple choice tests before, so I made the first chapter about “practice tests”. However, maybe this part will be boring to you, so feel free to skip it.

A lot of people will tell you when asked about preparing for standardized tests, they say “take some practice tests” or maybe they say “Khan Academy”. However, you can still screw up taking practice tests, so here are my tips for getting the most out of practice tests.

1. Take the actual test

Make the time to take either a full test in one go or one section of the test uninterrupted. I think taking one or two full length test is good for getting a feel for brain fatigue, but after the first two, you can just take individual sections at a time. Making time for one section is easier than blocking a huge section of time for the full test, so no more excuses for not taking practice tests!

The College Board released 8 official tests. “That’s not enough!” you might complain. In my opinion, 1 test lasts a long time, and personally, I only got through 2.5 of them before the April test, so yeah, I feel like 8 is plenty. Add on the Khan Academy problems, then you seriously have enough test problems to last a long time.

If you somehow run out of these, you can repeat the Khan Academy questions or retake the practice tests. If you feel you must take a new test, then just google or look at prep books. I honestly feel like prep books aren’t an accurate portrayal of the SAT, but your mileage may vary.

Useful Resources:

2. Analyze results

So you have finished a full length test or at least a section, and graded it. You might be very sad or mediocre or happy about your score right now. Stop feeling feelings right now.

I split the questions/answers into categories:

  • Guessed (usually I keep track of these through marking question marks)
  • Wrong but was really sure about the answer
  • Wrong bc not really sure (debating between two answers, or some doubt)

I first look at the questions that I guessed on because I had no idea what to do, and read the explanations for all four answers. You should do this for every question you guessed on, even if you guessed it right, because understanding how they got the answer is a million times better than knowing what the answer was.

Then I look at the questions that were wrong but I was sure that they were right. I examine why I chose the answer in the first place and look at the explanation for why it was wrong, and why the right answer is right.

Lastly, I look at the questions that I wasn’t really sure about because two of the answers seemed plausible, and same as above, I look at the explanations for the right and wrong answers.

And this might seem like a lot of steps, but it definitely helps. Why?

  • For reading, you can see patterns emerge in the questions and what to look for in the answers themselves. (kinda hard to explain, but it’s like finding the matrix)
  • For writing, it’s the same as reading, and gives you a review on grammar principles.
  • For math, you learn math and figure out if you’re making silly mistakes or you have a consistent gap in mathematical knowledge.

The key is understanding, and not just knowledge of the right answer. This applies especially to reading and writing. Math is more concrete than reading and writing, so knowledge of how to do math is important as well.

TL;DR:

The point of taking practice tests is to understand how to get the answers, not just what the answer is.

How to effectively use Khan Academy

One of the first steps that I highly recommend is porting your previous PSAT or SAT scores by logging in with collegeboard. I heard they have placement tests, but this is faster and easier and gives an accurate representation of the topics you need help on.

I think one of the most motivating things was levelling up the skills that weren’t perfect, so I think the first thing that you should do is level up everything to level 4 in math and reading/writing. It’s really satisfying seeing everything level up.

After levelling up everything to level 4, you should take a practice test again to see what skills you should practice in. Even though it seems like you are level 4 out of 4 for every skill, the skill levels still are not the most accurate indicator, because having all level 4s doesn’t mean you’ll get a perfect score.

What should I work on first??

Easiest parts to improve is Writing and Math. Start with Math first until you get 700+ (to be honest, it’s an arbitrary number that I chose) (or near perfect if you’re super ambitious), and then move to Writing. Finally, work on Reading, as that’s somewhat hard to improve, although if you’re getting a lot of questions wrong in Reading, then you should work on that a little bit first.

Part II: Section 1 - Reading

Reading. Used to be the bane of my existence, but it’s not anymore (it turned into writing). A thing that helps in general is to read a lot of novels and/or nonfiction articles in magazines. It’s not directly related to the SAT, but it helps with building reading stamina, deciphering old-fashioned English, inferring stuff from the text, and understanding character’s motives and beliefs.

1. Eliminate 3 wrong answers

My number one tip for reading is cross off three wrong answers. Looking for the right answer in reading seems kinda hard, but figuring out which answers are wrong is a lot easier.

The justification for this is that collegeboard has to make the wrong answer definitely wrong. They can’t ask you what something symbolizes, because that something could symbolize a lot of different things and people would start complaining. So the right answer has to be right, and not just half right.

  • Usually there’s one really wrong answer, two half wrong answers, and one right answer.
  • Basically only choose the answer that’s fully supported by the passage
  • If there are two answers that mean the exact same thing, then they are both wrong.

2. Reading the passage

Some people like to skim, or read the questions first then read the passage. Note: Remember that you can refer back to the text while answering questions.

Reading first, then answering questions

I prefer reading first on my tests because I feel like the SAT gives you plenty of time to read the passages. Some answers ask about transitions in the passage, overall tone, or what the passage as a whole is about, so that’s why I prefer reading carefully + quickly before answering questions.

What do I mean by a good read? I don’t mean in-depth annotation, but kind of casual reading everything. So if you decide to do a careful read the first time, it might take a little longer, but doing these two things while reading will justify the extra time:

  • What the passage as a whole is about, and roughly where the main ideas are (main ideas are broken by paragraphs, and usually not in the middle of the paragraph)
  • Having an overall feel of the passage (this helps with overall tone and transition of ideas/tone questions)

3. Vocabulary questions

The vocabulary questions are tricky sometimes. If it’s a familiar word, the answer is usually not the typical meaning (because they want to test if you know the other meanings).

The usual approach is to use context clues to figure out what the definition is. Basically, you judge the meaning of the word by seeing how it is used in the sentence (aka guessing the answer before looking at the choices).

5. Finding the Evidence

A lot of memes focus on “find the evidence” questions and how hard they are, but honestly they are not that bad in my opinion.

If you were stuck on the previous question, then you can look at the next “find evidence” question’s answer choices for four places to look for the right answer to the previous question. This honestly helped me answer so many confusing questions.

Be specific when finding evidence. Just because the narrator was happy in the first paragraph doesn’t mean they would be happy about some major death. Also, the surrounding lines around a piece of evidence will almost never impact whether the answer is right or wrong. All you need to know will be within the evidence itself.

Types of readings

Fiction:

In my experience, the practice tests use old-fashioned fiction/literature, while the actual ones have been quite modern fiction. The old-fashioned fiction is slightly harder than modern fiction because of the “old-fashioned” speak. A lot of inference questions.

Historical/Social Studies:

Usually helps if you know the context, but it’s not that important. These passages mostly advocate for something like civil rights, women’s rights or the constitution. This is the hardest section in my opinion. These passages also use “old-fashioned” language which is a bit dense.

Science:

Questions are mostly information-based. Definitely expect reading graphs. Quite easy, since there’s no subtext to infer.

Part II: Section 2 - Writing

1. Know your grammar rules

I don’t think any tips or tricks will help if you don’t have a basic knowledge of grammar, so you should brush up on grammar. The easiest way to bring up your score.

Commas

Commas can be used to separate lists. Commas also join two independent clauses together with a FANBOY (for, and, nor, but, or, yet). If there isn’t a FANBOY, you have a comma splice, which is forbidden. You can also use a comma to join dependent clauses to independent clauses.

Semicolons and colons

A semicolon is like a comma and a FANBOY in just one punctuation mark. You just use it to join two sentences together.
Ex: I like cats; however, I dislike white cats.

A colon is used to set off a list or sometimes just one item. The one thing I do is replace the colon with “namely” and see if it makes sense. (Colons have to follow complete sentences)

2. Rewriting to change the tone

The right answer is almost always the formal one. None of these passages are “informal”.

3. Rewriting for conciseness

The right answer is never the redundant answer. If any part of the answer repeats itself, you can cross it off. Sometimes they ask you to rewrite a sentence/phrase that’s usually redundant, and the right answer is very very often the shortest answer.

6. Transitions

This was the second most common thing I messed up on. Choosing transition words. So what was this logical step? Look at the clause before and the clause after. What is their relationship?

  • Do they build off each other? (Adding information?)
  • Do they contradict each other? (Discussing the other side, bringing up exceptions, etc.)
  • Is it one thing leading to another? (Cause + effect?)
  • Is it a sequence? (Chronological/Logical?)

Another thing about transitions is that if two of the transition words mean the same thing, you can cross both answers out.

Part II: Section 3 - Math

Accidentally finding the wrong thing

This mistake is pretty common, but sometimes you find the value of a variable x but the question asked for the variable y and you bubble in the value of x. This honestly sucks, but one thing that helps is to circle what the question actually wants. Another thing that helps is to label everything.

Estimate the final answer

Don’t put something completely unrealistic as an answer. Before you bubble in your answer, just think for a brief moment if it's a realistic result. If the question asks how many gallons are in a filled bathtub the answer is not 15, or 1,500.

Use dimensional analysis

Using dimensional analysis looks like a pain in the butt, but doing dimensional analysis helps make sure that you’re converting your units correctly.

Double checking

Double checking is really important. I can never emphasize this enough. Usually I just plug the answer back into the original question to make sure it’s right. Or I use another method to try and solve the question and see if the answers match.

Part III: The Essay (Legacy)

Note: The SAT Essay is no longer part of the standard SAT. This section is preserved for historical context.

Overall, the essay is about analyzing how the writer convinces the reader of his/her purpose using rhetorical devices. The few tips I can give to you:

  • Annotate the passage where you find rhetorical devices
  • Read the box at the end of the passage before reading the passage. This directly gives you the purpose of the essay.
  • Specify how the rhetorical devices persuade the reader. Don’t just list the devices, talk about their impact too.

Part IV: Random Tips

  • If a problem is taking too long, then you should skip it, because none of the sections are ordered by difficulty
  • Sleep a lot
  • Follow your normal morning routine, don’t eat a big breakfast if you usually don’t
  • Wear a lot of clothes and layers. In my experience, the testing rooms are really cold.
  • Most of my previous stupid mistakes were mislabelling stuff (like switching the names of two things), so try to avoid that
  • If you skip a question, star the question so you know to skip that bubble and come back
  • Relax. Being anxious about the test isn’t going to do you any good.

Bonus: SAT Subject Tests (Legacy)

Note: SAT Subject Tests have been discontinued by the College Board. This section is preserved for historical context.

Subject tests were made by collegeboard. Some colleges required two or three. They were scored from 200 to 800. (Content omitted as it is no longer relevant for current students).

Conclusion

This is the end of my guide, and thank you for reading. As always, cliched but true, you are much much more than your scores. Even so, I hope you do well on your SAT. You’ve studied hard, came a long way, and I believe that you will do awesomely well. -ninja542