On Saturday, December 1st, thousands of students around the world sat for the SAT test (see what I did there?). Whether you’re an anxious junior preparing to take the test for the first time, or a fretful sophomore taking the Pre SAT, or even a clueless freshman with no prior knowledge of the test, I have prepared a comprehensive guide to slowly ease you into the world of the SAT.
The guide is a bit overwhelming and long, so I have included this table of contents which you can refer to if you already have some idea about the SAT and want to explore specific sections. However, if you are completely new to the SAT and have no idea what it’s about, I suggest you start reading from the beginning.
What is the SAT?
What are the components of the SAT?
How long is the SAT?
How is the SAT scored?
When and where can I take the SAT?
How do I prepare for the SAT?
What are some good practice resources for the SAT?
How do I improve my score on the SAT?
Some final words of advice…
What is the SAT?
The SAT is an entrance exam administered by a non-profit organization called the CollegeBoard to assess student’s aptitude. No, ‘SAT’ does not actually stand for anything. Most international colleges require students coming from a U.S. high school to take the SAT because it’s a standardized means of measuring students’ abilities. In other words, because different high schools have varying grading schemes, and what is considered a ‘good’ grade in one school might be a ‘bad’ grade in another, the SAT provides colleges with a valuable tool for comparing students based on the same standards and admitting those who demonstrate higher scores.
It’s crucial to understand what type of test the SAT is to perform better on it. The SAT is an aptitude test, meaning that it measures your ability to learn and your general information. It does not test your knowledge in specific areas or subjects (CollegeBoard also administers the SAT Subject tests, which do exactly that).
While taking the SAT might seem like a very daunting task, because of its broad nature, it is actually a relatively easy test to ace. But first, before I tell you why getting a good score is actually very simple, it’s always best to know your enemy before you face it, so let’s get more familiar with this foe.
What are the components of the SAT?
The SAT mostly consists of multiple-choice questions. It is comprised of four sections: two math sections and two English sections.
The first section is the longest one. It’s the Evidence-Based Reading section, which is just a fancy name for a comprehension test. The section is an hour and five minutes long and is made up of 5 passages with around 10-12 multiple-choice questions on each passage. There’s a total of 52 questions on this section, and the texts cover the topics of world literature, social studies, and science.
The second section is the Writing and Language section. I like to think of this section as the ‘editing’ section. It spans 35 minutes only and consists of 44 multiple-choice questions. You are given 4 passages with deliberate grammar, spelling, vocabulary and transition errors, and are expected to fix these errors based on what the questions require. This section is actually the easiest section on the SAT, especially if you have a good grasp on basic English grammar and spelling conventions.
The third section is the shortest one on the test: The Math without Calculator section. In this section, you will spend 25 minutes answering math questions, and calculators are not permitted. It may seem counter-intuitive for the SAT to give you such short time for a section where you have to do all the math by hand, but the Math without Calculator section only asks 20 questions, and none of them require laborious or long math calculations.
Finally, the last section is the Math with Calculator section. Don’t be fooled by the ‘with calculator’ part; I personally found this section to be a bit more difficult than the previous one, despite being able to use my calculator. For one, this section generally has more graphs, longer questions, and more problem solving than the one before it, which is why you’re given 55 minutes to complete it. The section consists of 30 multiple-choice questions and 8 grid-in questions. Grid-in questions, also sensibly called ‘Student-produced response questions’, are questions where (yes, you guessed it) you have to write your own answer. You will be provided with a grid of a maximum of four numbers, without negatives, and will have to enter your answers manually.
How long is the SAT?
If you add up the timings for all the sections, the SAT should take around 3 hours. However, you will be given a five-minute break between the reading and writing sections and between the math without calculator and the math with calculator sections. In addition, the pre-testing procedures such as verification of test ticket and ID, filling in your information on the test booklet and answer sheet, and waiting until everybody is finished, normally take around half an hour to an hour. Moreover, if you are planning to the SAT with the essay, you will have to stay an extra 50 minutes to take the essay.
How is the SAT scored?
The SAT is scored out of 1600. Each question you answer correctly earns you one point, and you don’t lose any points if you choose a wrong answer (in some systems, our school thankfully not being one, you lose a fraction of a point for choosing the wrong answer. For instance, if you got 9 questions correct on a test, and you got one question wrong, you will lose, say, an extra half a point. So instead of getting a 9/10, you will get an 8.5/10. The SAT does not do that, which is to your advantage, because you can guess on the questions you don’t know the answer to without risking your grade). After your points are added up for each section, they are scaled according to the difficulty of the section (I’ll explain what that means in a minute).
The reading section and the writing section are scaled separately, then your scaled scores are combined and multiplied by 10 to give you an Evidence-Based Reading and Writing score out of 800. On the other hand, the number of points from both math sections are added to each other and scaled together, giving you a math score out of 800. The sum of your English and math scores gives you your total SAT score out of 1600.
You can think of SAT scaling as a ‘curve’. Naturally, some SAT tests will be more difficult than others. To account for this inconsistency in test difficulty and to make the test fair for everybody who takes it no matter what date, the SAT scores are scaled. Here are two real SAT score conversions from two different tests so you can see how the scores are curved for yourself:
As you can see, in Table 1, you can only score an 800 on math if you get all the answers correct (58 correct answers). If you lose one point, your score directly drops to a 790. If you lose 2 points, it goes to a 780, and 3 mistakes lands you a 760.
On the other hand, the second curve seems much more generous. You can get a full score on math even if you get one mistake, and you can still get a 790 if you miss 2 or 3 points. Take a minute to inspect both tables and understand the intuition behind the scoring.
We can infer from the generosity of the second curve that the second test was much more difficult than the first. This is often the case on SAT tests. If you have an easier test, it will be scored more harshly than a more difficult one, and your score drops more rapidly if you lose the same amount of points.
As far as difficulty goes, there isn’t a single time of the year where the test is consistently difficult or one where the SAT is always easy. The difficulty of the SAT is a truly random factor and you shouldn’t rely on it. As I have demonstrated, you may even have a disadvantage by taking the easier test, because your score will be much lower for the same amount of mistakes.
When and where can I take the SAT?
The SAT is administered in many locations throughout the UAE and the world, mostly in high schools and some colleges. There are specific dates and months when you can take the SAT, and each year the CollegeBoard posts all the test dates for that year so you know when to take it. This year, the SAT will be offered only 4 times in Dubai. All SAT dates fall on a Saturday, and tests begin at 8:00 a.m. Unfortunately, from experience, I can tell you that most SAT dates coincide with our exams or quizzes. The one I highly suggest registering for is the December test, because the National Day holidays give you a couple of days to rest and prepare for both the SAT and your first semester exams.
Speaking of test registration, I urge you to register early for the test. Register as early as the summer, because places fill up quickly, and you might realize that you need your SAT for some college by a specific deadline but the test is fully booked. Mind you, the registration itself is a very time-consuming process, so set aside around 40 minutes to fill in the registration form.
To see all the dates on which the SAT will be offered for the next two years, click here.
How do I prepare for the SAT?
Remember when I told you that the SAT is actually easy to master? Let me tell you why. The nature of the questions on the SAT is so general that it requires little to no prior knowledge at all. That means that, unlike your regular school exams, you won’t have to actually study material and memorize information for this test. Moreover, the SAT is very predictable in terms of what will come on the test. The CollegeBoard details the areas in math and English which the test covers, and many prep resources provide a useful percentage of how often certain types of questions show up on the test. For that reason, there is one very simple thing you need to do in order to ace the SAT and get your dream score.
This might sound very cliché, and I know you will roll your eyes at me and scoff, but trust me when I say, this is genuinely the key to improving your score on the SAT.
Practice.
Practice.
Practice.
Fun fact: Last year, when I was preparing for the SAT, I used to complete one practice test each week. I would divide the test into four sections and take one section each day, and leave the shortest sections for the days when I was busiest. I highly suggest this method of practice, especially if you know you’re too busy to allot the required time to take a full practice test. Dividing up the test will ensure that you practice enough without taking too much time off your day.
What are some good practice resources for the SAT?
There are tons of resources that help you prepare for the SAT. Some of the most common ones are SAT prep books, such as Barron’s and The Princeton Review. I’m going to speak from my personal experience now, because I have done over 20 practice tests over the course of last year and I spent over 6 months preparing for the SAT.
Your primary resource for the SAT should be the official CollegeBoard practice tests available here. These tests are like a gift bestowed upon you from CollegeBoard. All eight practice tests are actually previously-administered tests over the last couple of years. Therefore, these provide you with the most accurate prediction of how your score will be when you take the test, and since they’re written by the test-makers themselves, they will make you intimately familiar with how SAT questions come up.
So what do you do after you’ve used up all 8 official practice tests? My response was to buy an SAT prep book. The books I have used and I do not recommend you use are Barron’s and Princeton. Barron’s practice tests are way more difficult than the actual SAT. They will demoralize you and inaccurately reflect your score. I used to get 100 points less on the Barron’s practice test than on the official practice test. Princeton similarly does not accurately portray the SAT. However, if you are desperate for more practice material and have run out completely, do go ahead and use them. But don’t be discouraged if you find that your score decreased on one of the unofficial practice tests. Remember that they are not written by CollegeBoard and thus do not reflect what you will actually get on the exam.
Speaking of books, I do not recommend you buy the bulky CollegeBoard’s Official SAT Study Guide book, because all the practice tests in the book are already available online for free. And if you prefer solving on paper, you can actually print the online tests along with an answer sheet.
With regards to online resources, there is an educational website called Khan Academy that partnered with CollegeBoard to provide free, personalized SAT practice. I highly recommend you use this site. It gives you a diagnostic test, identifies your weak areas, and drills you with many exercises in those areas until you have mastered them. Khan Academy is very handy; however, it doesn’t substitute actually taking full practice tests. Try using them both hand-in-hand to get the most out of them.
Finally, one of my favorite resources for the SAT is PrepScholar, a blog that posts many helpful articles about improving your SAT score in different areas and fields.
How do I improve my score in the SAT?
First, take a diagnostic test. This will tell you where you stand now in terms of your score and will help you identify your knowledge gaps.
Second, set a goal. You will never get anywhere practicing for the SAT if you do not have a goal in mind. Make sure your goal is high, but realistically attainable. Keep in mind that the higher your SAT score is, the more difficult it will be to improve it. For example, going from a 1300 to a 1400 takes much more practice than increasing your score from a 900 to a 1200.
Third, appoint a schedule. Try using my personal schedule which I provided above. If it doesn’t work for you, find a schedule that does. This is a crucial part in improving your score. If you do not practice at regular intervals, you will not see much improvement.
Finally, practice mindfully. By mindfully I mean keeping track of your progress. Don’t just take a practice test and say ‘I’m done for the day’. Analyze your results. Look at the questions you got wrong and try to find out the fallacy in your thinking. Identify the reasoning behind the correct answer without actually looking at the explanation. In reality, taking the SAT is a skill like any other. If you train your mind to think the way the test-makers want you to think, you will have a better chance at attaining your dream score.
Some final words of advice…
It is recommended that you take the SAT twice and not more than three times. The CollegeBoard actually offers you the advantage of choosing which scores to send to colleges, so if you did better on one test than another, you can simply send colleges your best score.
I personally suggest you start studying for the SAT from the summer of sophomore year. The amount of practicing you will have to do depends entirely on how much you’re aiming to improve your score, but try not to do less than 3 months of practice.
Also, get done with everything related to the SAT before your senior year! I cannot stress this enough, and you’ll find that most seniors agree with me. The pressure on your shoulders will be amplified during your last year of high school, especially since you will have to juggle applying for colleges with heading clubs and taking other required tests, such as the IELTS or TOEFL, not to mention figuring out your major and college of choice. If you are a junior, it’s not too late. If you start practicing today, you could take the May exam and then later attempt the October test. If you are a sophomore, heed my advice and start preparing as early as summer. If you are a freshman, well, you don’t really have to worry about anything at the moment, but do keep this advice in mind!
If you have come this far, congratulations, you are now aware of everything you need to know about the SAT. Of course, I have not been able to cover every aspect of the test completely, so if you have any additional questions, do feel free to ask me in the comments below (you will be prompted to sign up, then you can comment). And if you ever feel scared or anxious about the SAT, remember that it is a monster anyone can conquer and defeat with the right practice methods!