Voted Top Ten Tips for SAT

Voted Top Ten Tips on the SAT

Getting things right quickly.  As a tutor, I’m always looking for ways to help my students slash through their SAT prep time.  So I spent the month of July, looking for the best ideas tested by tutors from across the U.S.  Stellar tutors such as Stacy Lott and Erica Meltzer win hands down.  Covering  both East and West coasts, they offer some savvy advice.

Here's  a brief summary of Top Ten Tips, found useful by my own students in Westchester:

Critical Reading:

1) Fill in the Blank Vocab Questions: Jot down the words that you think are the right ones (don’t look at the answers).  You must WRITE DOWN THE WORD (not just air write it in your head).   Then, find the word from the multiple choice answers that best matches your meaning.  CROSS OUT the wrong answers by putting a line through them.

2) On the "backwards questions" in the Critical Reading section, circle the NOT or EXCEPT word to remind yourself that you're looking for the "backwards answer."  

 3) The more excited you are to read the Critical Reading passages, the better you will do.  Attitude is everything in life.

4) For main idea questions — The thesis is usually the last sentence of the first paragraph.

(Thanks to Stacy Lott for Critical Reading)

Writing:

5) Try to cross out prepositional phrases and get the sentence down to the bare bones.  Frequently used Prepositional Phrases: Of, to, In

6) Do you know what a "Dangling Modifier" is? (Don't feel badly if you don't.  Check out Erica Meltzer’s blog to see full explanation.)

7) Read Erica Meltzer's EXCELLENT BLOG and PWNtheSAT's great dangling modifier explanation and examples.  Also check out verb-subject agreement and parallelism.  It would be worth spending a few hours before the next SAT to figure these out.

Math:

(These ideas, shared by Ms. Lott)

8) Turn things back to y = mx + b when it’s written differently.

9)  Make sure you know what you are solving for.  Circle or write down what they are asking.   AFTER you solve the problem, and BEFORE you look at the answer choices, RE-READ the question to make sure you know what they are asking for.  (Common error here).

10) Be Smart -- Does your answer match the difficulty of the question?  (Medium questions have medium - not easy - answers).  In other words, if you're agonizing over question #3, you're probably overcomplicating it; and if you got question #20 very easily, be suspicious.  Your answer is probably not right. This is an obvious but CRITICAL evaluation I have shared with my students.

Students - Be brief, be savvy, go for the bull's eye of the question!

Theresa Michna, M.A., has coached hundreds of students for the SAT/ACT/ISEE.An adjunct at Pace University and Manhattanville College, she teaches English at the French American School Larchmont (FASNY).  Visit www.TheresaMichna.com.  914-630-4357.