There are some test-prep books out there—we won’t name names, cause we’re nice—that claim the SAT only tests your ability to take the SAT and doesn’t test any actual knowledge. Well, those test-prep books are written by at least one of the following types of people:

The fact is, someone who has all the math on the test down cold but doesn’t know any of the strategies will almost always do better on the test than some other kid who’s studied up on the strategies but doesn’t know the Pythagorean theorem.

But who would ever go and study just the strategies, or just the math? The whole point is to study both. And we promise you: If you know the math and the strategies, you’ll whip both of those hypothetical kids who focused only on one or the other.