SAT Definition and Meaning

SAT Definition and Meaning

Although SAT test rooms are often quiet, the sound of the clock and pencils moving has never been so loud before. As if the SAT wasn’t difficult enough, the time taken to complete it makes it a bit stressful. For many students, completing each question on the exam on time seems like an almost impossible task. For students who finish the SAT exam on time, the rush against the clock may have caused them to miss their exams and miss some mistakes.

For all students, the SAT exam involves a race against time for which you must learn to prepare. This race is not only about acceleration, it is also about the way you run, that is, the techniques you have.

SAT Definition and Meaning

General strategy: Run two laps

In most exams in college, students usually answer questions sequentially and spend as much time on a question as necessary to answer it before continuing. The same happens when they try to solve the SAT in the same way However, the SAT is no ordinary test.

Abbreviated by ABBREVIATIONFINDER, the SAT is a test designed to make time an obstacle for you, so working through each question in order without taking time into account just won’t work. If you try to take the test in this way, you will probably spend too much time on the questions at the beginning and leave out the questions at the end. As a result, you will have to rush to complete the rest, possibly not even finishing the exam on time.

So what to do?

The key is to think of the SAT as a race that you must complete in two laps Let’s call them the “easy turn” and the “hard turn”.

On the easy round, you will go through the questions in order, but whenever a difficult or time-consuming question comes up for you, just skip it Once you have completed your first lap, it’s time for the second: the hard lap Now go back to the questions you skipped and complete them in order.

This may seem strange at first, but it actually makes a lot of sense. On the SAT, easy questions and hard questions are worth exactly the same number of points. Imagine that you waste 5 minutes on a single question, you may not have enough time to finish the rest of the section. Worse still, you may not answer the easy questions in other sections.

The key to fighting time on the SAT comes down to two principles:

  • Review the exam twice (Run two laps)
  • Skip the tough questions quickly

SAT test reading section

Of course, the above strategy will vary slightly in each section. The biggest difference will be in the reading section Because it involves multiple passages, the “run two laps” strategy will not make much sense since when you return to a passage you may not remember the text very well.

So it is best to apply the above strategy in each passage separately. Think of each passage and the questions that accompany it as if it were the same exercise or the same race. In this way, you can put the two-round strategy into practice If you divide the Reading section into equal parts, you will have 13 minutes to solve each passage with its respective questions.

Remember, reading quickly will not help you solve the reading section if you cannot remember the passage. The important thing is that you make sure you capture as much detail as you can.

SAT exam writing section

The general two-round strategy is also reapplied in this section. Although this section is also divided into passages, you don’t have to worry about forgetting the details. Therefore, we recommend that you review the exam twice. Try to complete the first round in 30 minutes (that gives you approximately 40 seconds to answer each question), then use the remaining five minutes to solve the questions that you have skipped due to their difficulty.

SAT test math section

Each of the math sections on the SAT is like the writing section when it comes to time. Since there are no long passages to read, it is best to treat each section of Math as one big clue.

For the section without calculator (section 3), we recommend:

  • Easy round: 20 minutes (1 minute per question)
  • Hard lap: 5 minutes

For the section with calculator (section 4), we recommend:

  • Easy lap: up to 47.5 minutes (approximately 1 minute and 15 seconds per question)
  • Hard lap: 7.5 minutes

However, keep in mind that you may want more time for the second round depending on how many questions you skip. To ensure you have enough time, it is important to quickly skip a question when you realize that it is a difficult one.

SAT Test Essay Section

In the essay section, the timing strategies are a bit different Since there are no questions to skip, there is no need to do two laps Here, the key to managing your time is spending about 20 minutes on the brainstorming text Then use the remaining 30 minutes to write your essay Spending more time planning actually helps you write more and better because you’ll know exactly what you mean.

With these timing strategies, you’ll be ready to take the SAT the right way As a final note, we recommend having your own watch so that you can better control your time.