So your first goal is to get a general grasp of the mechanics of each part of the test. You do this by reading the relevant portion of this Black Book, following along with some or all of the sample solutions, and checking out the free videos at www.SATprepVideos.com until you feel like you can understand the reasoning behind most or all of the test.
After you have a grasp of the foundation of the test, your next goal is to understand the mistakes you make when you look at questions on your own (whether we’re talking about practice tests, practice sections, or just individual test items—more on that below). In other words, at this stage your main goal isn’t really to keep from making mistakes; it’s simply to understand your mistakes after you make them. You want to figure out what the mistake was, of course, but you also want to figure out why it happened, and what you should have noticed in the question that would have kept you from making the mistake in the first place, or would have allowed you to catch it and correct it after it was made. This is why I spend so much time in this Black Book talking about each question as a system of concepts and relationships, and explaining the ways that right answers differ from wrong answers, and the relationships that typically exist among them. Those are the things you want to get in the habit of noticing when you look at an SAT question, because if those things seem to be in order then you’ve probably understood the question correctly.
Once you have a solid grasp of the reasons you’re making mistakes and the things you could do to avoid them, your next goal is to actually eliminate those mistakes, either by avoiding them in the first place or by noticing them after they happen and then correcting them. This is where it really helps to be aware of the test’s rules and patterns, particularly when it comes to answer choices. At this stage, your goal is to make sure that you never miss a question as a result of a mistake on your part—you want to get to a point where the only reason you ever miss a question is that it might involve a word, grammar principle, or math concept that you were unfamiliar with, and that you can’t work around. In other words, your goal is to eliminate so-called “careless mistakes.”
When you have essentially eliminated careless mistakes, you’ll probably be at a point where your scores on practice tests are more than satisfactory. If not, you need to think carefully about what’s causing you to miss the remaining questions, and how to fix those issues. But be careful here—too many people jump to the incorrect conclusion that a weakness in vocabulary is the reason they miss a reading question, or that an unknown math formula is the reason they miss a math question. Remember the lessons of this book: the SAT really isn’t an advanced test when it comes to subject matter. Of course, there are definitely questions in which vocabulary plays a very large part, and it can sometimes be difficult or impossible to work around an unknown word, but there are many, many more questions in which vocabulary only seems to be an issue, and you could actually find a work-around if you thought about it. Similarly, there are many SAT Math questions that seem specialized and advanced to most students, but none of them actually are.
You may also have to think about timing issues at this stage in your progression, though most people who get to a point where they’ve eliminated “careless errors” find that timing is no longer a concern. If timing is still an issue, review the portion of this Black Book on time management, and remember that it isn’t a matter of doing a lot of work very quickly—it’s a matter of streamlining and reducing the amount of work that goes into answering each question in the first place.
The Order Of Attack
I pretty much always recommend that students start with the Critical Reading section, because it’s typically the part of the test where it’s easiest to start noticing how the SAT uses rules and patterns to make questions predictable and objective even when they might seem not to be. It’s also a good introduction to the extreme importance of reading carefully and paying attention to details.
There are only two reasons I might recommend not starting with the Critical Reading section, really. One would be if you already had a perfect 800 on that section. The other reason would be if you really wanted to work on your Math score AND just didn’t have enough time before your test date to start with Critical Reading. In all other situations, though, I’d start with the Critical Reading, even if that isn’t the part of the test that bothers you most. It’s the foundation for the rest of the test.
Once you feel like the Critical Reading section is starting to make sense, I would turn my attention to the Math section. As I will mention many times in this book, the Math section is all about basic concepts being combined and presented in strange ways, and our goal is to learn how to look at a Math question that seems impossible at first and figure out which basic concepts are involved, and then use them to answer the question. Because there’s more variation in the surface appearance of Math questions than there is in the appearance of the questions from other sections, learning how to think about them properly often takes more time than it might take for other question types. So be aware of that when you’re planning your approach to the test.