The Problem With Guessing
In order for the argument for guessing to be any good, two things would have to happen:
1. You have to eliminate only incorrect answer choices.
2. You have to guess randomly from the remaining answer choices.
Do you see why this is?
In the first place, if you eliminate the correct answer choice from the pool of possible answers you’ll consider, then how likely are you to get the question right by picking the eliminated answer? You’re not likely to at all. In fact, you can’t do it. It’s impossible to pick an answer choice that you’ve eliminated from the guessing.
As for the second assumption, if you don’t guess randomly, then the entire argument about what “should” happen according to “probability” goes right out the window. There’s no probability involved at all if you don’t make a completely random guess. (Making a guess where you consider the validity of each answer choice isn’t random. “Random” means you don’t interfere at all. For example, flipping a penny in the air to see how many times it comes up heads is random; catching it every time before it lands and setting it down tails-up destroys the randomness by interfering with the process. That’s essentially what you’re doing if you consider whether the answer choices are any good or not.)
What Really Happens
Most of the people who employ the classic so-called “guessing” strategy are actually doing something very different from eliminating incorrect answers and then making a random, impartial guess. So what are they really doing, and why doesn’t it work?
When people who follow the guessing strategy come to a question they can’t answer, the first thing they usually do is look for an answer choice they like. Then they look to see if they can find one or two other answer choices to “eliminate.” They get rid of those, and then pick the choice they decided they liked in the first place, and (wrongly) call that a random guess. And that’s it—they’ve basically used a bad theory based on a bad argument to justify marking a wrong answer in the vast majority of cases. And, as a result, they lose raw points left and right. They’d be much better off just leaving those questions blank.
Why Guessing Fails On The SAT
There’s a reason it’s almost impossible to satisfy the two assumptions of the guessing strategy. The SAT is intentionally written so that incorrect answer choices seem like correct answer choices to people who don’t know how to answer the questions. In other words, the very thing that keeps you from understanding a question in the first place is also the thing that will probably keep you from (1) eliminating only wrong answers, and (2) making an impartial guess from the remaining choices.
What does all this mean? On the SAT, in order to use the classical “guessing” strategy effectively, you basically have to be wrong about why you’re wrong. Or, to put it another (equally silly) way, you have to be unlucky in a lucky way. Which is just as nonsensically difficult as it sounds like it is, which is why this ‘strategy’ doesn’t help most people very much.
(Here’s a coincidence that borders on conspiracy: as I previously noted, the College Board endorses the traditional guessing strategy described above. And the College Board is also the group that writes SAT questions so that incorrect answer choices look like correct ones—which makes good guessing almost impossible. Hmmmm . . .)
What You Should Do Instead
So if you don’t use the guessing strategy, what should you do instead? Simple. When you come to a question and you can’t figure out the answer, skip it. Don’t think about it—just do it. Remember, the only real alternative is to put down a wrong answer and lose points.
It takes discipline to leave a question blank on an important test like the SAT. But you have to do it sometimes. If you really can’t figure out the answer, there’s no better choice than skipping the question.
I’ll repeat this again to make sure it’s crystal-clear: If you can’t figure out an answer, skip the question. That’s all.
Proof That Guessing Is Bad
If you’re like most people, you probably don’t believe me when I say that SAT guessing is a bad idea. You’ve probably been told by almost everyone you know that you should eliminate the incorrect answer choices and guess from the remaining choices whenever you get stumped on the SAT. And the argument in support of guessing seems fairly seductive and clever, to be sure—until you examine the two things it relies on, at which point the argument falls apart for most people.
How else can I support what I’m saying? There are two ways. The first way is by pointing out that high-scorers (99th percentile and above) pretty much never rely on the traditional guessing approach. Find some and ask them.