Effective Strategizing
Knowing about a strategy doesn’t help you if you never
use it on the SAT. Many students read a book like this, say “Yes!
That’s all true!” then never once apply the techniques on the real
or practice test. As you might expect, their scores don’t improve
very much, if at all.
To prevent this from happening, look at every item you
encounter and first ask yourself “Which strategy would work well
on this item?” Sometimes more than one strategy will do the trick.
The items themselves often contain clues within the stem
that give you a good idea of what strategy to use:
| If you see . . . |
You probably have a . . . |
| Equations or inequalities with numbers
and variables throughout the stem |
Buncho |
| Lots of text describing a real-world
situation |
Storytime Algebra |
| Lots of text with variables sprinkled
throughout |
Storytime Algebra |
| Expressions with variables as your
answer choices |
Storytime Algebra |
| Weird symbols used in an equation |
Obey the Function! |
| The expression f(x) |
Obey the Function! |
| The word function |
Obey the Function! |
