SAT

  • "Whenever I had last minute deadlines for IB papers, Jefferson tutors helped me. I wouldn't have passed without them! Thank you!!"

    Leila, student in Qatar

  • “I searched far and wide for customized IB support for my sons. Jefferson Academics was the only company that offered bespoke services at the highest possible level. They have my highest possible recommendation.”

    K. O’Malley, parent in Manhattan, NYC

  • "I needed help with my Extended Essay and some IA's. I am a boarding school student in Switzerland and very busy with athletics. Jefferson tutors helped me complete all my assignments and I received high marks."

    Fyodr, student in Switzerland

  • "I wouldn't have received my IB Diploma without the help of Jefferson Academics. English is my second language so completing the papers was almost impossible without their help."

    Anastasia, student in Switzerland

The SAT is a college admissions exam that measures your critical thinking skills in math, critical reading, and writing. The SAT is offered every year during October, November, December, January, March, May, and June. International test dates vary. Jefferson encourages our students to take their first SAT during the winter or spring of junior year.

How is the SAT Exam Organized?

Critical Reading

  • Questions: 67 total, including 19 sentence completions and 48 passage-based reading questions
  • Time: 70 minutes total, including two 25-minute sections and one 20-minute section
  • Content: Reading Comprehension

Math

  • Questions: 54 total, including 44 multiple-choice questions and 10 student-generated responses
  • Time: 70 minutes total, including two-25 minute sections and one 20-minute section
  • Content: Arithmetic, algebra I and II, functions, planar and coordinate geometry, and probability

Writing

  • One Essay Topic (25-minute time limit)
  • Questions: 49 total, including 25 Multiple-choice sentence improvements, 18 Multiple-choice sentence errors, 6 Multiple-choice paragraph improvements
  • Time: 35 minutes total, including one 25-minute section and one 10-minute section

Experimental

  • Questions: Varies
  • Time: 25 minutes total
  • Content: Critical Reading, Math, or Writing multiple-choice

For each section, you can score between 200-800 points, so your final score could be between 600-2400 points. The 25-minute essay (which is always the first section of the SAT) ranges from 0-12 points.

SAT Scoring Policy: The New SAT Score-Reporting Policy

Designed to reduce student stress and improve the test-day experience, Score Choice is a new score-reporting feature that gives students the option to choose the SAT scores by test date and SAT Subject Test scores by individual test that they send to colleges, in accordance with each institution’s individual score-use practice. This allows students to put their best foot forward on test day by giving them more flexibility in score reporting. Score Choice is optional, and if students choose not to use it, all scores will be sent automatically.

Colleges continue to set their own score-use practices, which may vary from college to college. Different colleges use test scores in different ways and a “one size fits all” approach to college admissions does not reflect the diverse needs of colleges and universities. The College Board is enabling participating colleges to display their SAT score-use practices directly to students on collegeboard.com. This information is presented at the time that students are asked to send scores.

Students are encouraged to follow the score-reporting requirements of each college to which they apply, but their scores are not released for admission purposes without their specific consent. Colleges and universities will only receive the scores that students send them.

SAT Tips

  • Be familiar with the structure of the SAT so you know what to expect. Know the directions for each section so you save valuable time on the actual test day.
  • Answer easy questions first (which come first before the harder ones).
  • Clearly mark questions that you skip in your exam book so you can quickly go back to them later.
  • Guess if you can eliminate at least one answer choice
  • Skip the question if you don’t have a clue at the answer
  • Understand how the SAT scoring works: You get one point for every correct answer. You lose a fractional point for an incorrect answer. You lose no points for omitted answers or for incorrect answers in the math section grid-ins.
  • Feel free to write all over the test book (cross out wrong answers, underline important points in the reading passages, and more).
  • Be careful when filling in the answer grid for the math section (check to make sure you wrote the right value down).
  • Don’t waste time by focusing too much on a question. The easier questions should take a few seconds, and spend no more than more than 1-2 minutes on the harder ones.
  • Remember to keep track of the time you have left as you work on a section.

Tips for Specific Sections of the SAT

Critical Reading Section – 5 Tips for Sentence Completion

  • Before examining the answers choices, try to complete the sentence with words you know that make sense to you. Think of other words that have similar prefixes, roots, or suffixes.
  • Consider all the answer choices to make the best choice.
  • Use the context of words in the sentence to fill in the blanks.
  • Pay close attention to negative words (like ‘not’) or prefixes (like un-).
  • Let transition words (like ‘however’ and ‘also’) help to suggest the correct answer.

Critical Reading Section – 8 Tips for Reading Comprehension:

  • Base your answers solely on what is presented/implied in the passages.
  • Read the italicized text introducing the passages. When there are paired passages, the introduction tells you how they relate to each other.
  • Skip the questions you don’t know and go back to them after answering easier ones.
  • Remember: the first and last sentences of each paragraph are important.
  • Just as you answer questions by difficulty (easier ones first), answer questions on familiar topics before those that are unfamiliar.
  • It could help to read the questions before reading the passages so you know what to look for.
  • Don’t waste time memorizing details in the passages.
  • Spend more time answering questions than reading the text.

Writing Section – 7 Tips for Student Essay

  • Write a short (about 250-300 words), persuasive essay on an assigned topic.
  • The essay should be around 5 paragraphs: Introduction, Body (about 3 paragraphs), and a Conclusion .
  • You have 25 minutes to complete this section. Read the essay prompt quickly and think about what you will write (around 5 minutes). Take most of the time (about 15 minutes) to actually write the essay. Then spend the last 5 minutes editing.
  • The Introductory Paragraph should state the position that you’re taking and 3 main points that support this position.
  • The 3 Body Paragraphs should expand the 3 main points with details/examples.
  • The Concluding Paragraph should summarize your point of view by restating your position taken with different words than the ones used in the Introduction.
  • Avoid wordiness and slang.

Writing Section – 2 Tips for Multiple Choice on Usage, and Sentence/Paragraph Correction

  • Usage & Sentence Correction questions are based on individual sentences, testing basic grammar, sentence structure, and word choice.
  • Paragraph Correction questions are based on 2 brief passages, with many questions on each passage.

Math Section – 5 Tips for Student Produced Response (Grid-Ins)

  • Guess if you can’t come to an answer. There’s no penalty for wrong answers in this section.
  • Negative values are NOT possible answers so if you get a negative number, do it again.
  • There are 4 columns to fill in the value of your answer, and for shorter ones, you can start in any column. For instance, .8 can be entered in columns 1-2, or 2-3, or 3-4 (the decimal takes up one space).
  • If an answer is a repeating decimal (like .33333333), just enter as many decimals that fit in the grid (.333).
  • Don’t enter mixed numbers. For example, if your answer is 3 and 1/2, enter it as 3.5 or 7/2.

Math Section – 4 Tips for Standard Multiple Choice

  • Remember to use the test booklet for scratch work and to mark up diagrams/graphs.
  • Questions in this section are easier at the beginning, so spend less time on them.
  • Don’t get lost in detailed calculations. Look for a shortcut if the question seems time consuming.
  • When a question contains a weird symbol, just substitute the accompanying definition when figuring out the best answer choice. For example: a■b, where ■ = 4ab, substitute the square with 4ab.
  • For this exhaustive list of sectional strategies on the SAT, visit: http://www.testinfo.net/sat/sat-tips.htm.

6 Tips for Your SAT Test Day

  • Get 8 hours of sleep before your exam day.
  • Eat breakfast (and pack snacks, such as bananas and nuts) to eat during the breaks at the end of each hour.
  • Bring a Photo ID and your official SAT Admission Ticket.
  • Bring two No. 2 pencils and a good eraser. Pens and mechanical pencils aren’t allowed.
  • Bring a calculator with new batteries (or ones you’re certain that you just recently changed)
  • Unless told otherwise, arrive at the test center by 7:45 a.m. The SAT should end between 12:30 and 1 p.m.

For more information, please visit: http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/sat/testday.html

To schedule a free, confidential consultation with an adviser at Jefferson Academics, please contact us today.