critical reading completely turn off your brain for this section. reading into the stories will only mess you up. do not make assumptions; take the articles for exactly what they write. here’s an example of what i’m talking about: let’s say the speed limit on a residential street in chicago is 30 mph. sally is driving at 45 mph. if you concluded that sally is speeding, you’re wrong. i never said /where/ sally was driving. she might be driving in new york for all you know. the point is, there are NO hidden meanings on the SAT. in addition, always go back and explain why each answer choice is wrong. if you can’t explain why a choice is wrong but you just feel that it is, don’t rule it out. there is always a reason why an answer is wrong. it may be because of a pattern you don’t see right away, but don’t forget the reason is there. for the word choice problems i only have one tip. the section starts with easy, medium, and hard problems. instead of learning thousands of words, i simply just guessed based on the difficulty of a question. if i knew a question had to be hard (it was at the end of a section), then i knew the answer had to be a hard word. that works for easy and medium problems as well. an easy problem always has an easy word as the answer. you’ll get better at determining which words are hard/easy as you take more practice tests.

math ok math is by far my worst section. my only tips would be to get the PWNtheSAT book (it’s hilarious and helps a lot) and to take a bajillion practice tests. sometimes the fastest way to solve a problem is to use the answer choices already there and backsolve. remember that all math problems are worth the same amount of points. it’s better to spend more time getting the medium and easy problems right than to worry and waste time on hard problems you might not get right anyways.

writing writing is the easiest section to improve. if you’re having problems, fear not. i got u. first of all, get erica meltzer’s sat grammar book. it is a literal godsend. if you do that book, you’re guaranteed a 750. no lie. (or a 790 like me. i got every multiple choice problem right but i messed up the essay–tips for that to come.) it details every little bit of grammar you need to know. it may seem daunting at first, but i promise you, as you go through it, the errors will start jumping off the page. before that book, i couldn’t tell you a thing about gerunds, word pairs, or dangling modifiers, but now i smile whenever i see one of those errors in a problem because they are so easy to fix once you understand them. as for the essay, you have to fill up both pages. always. you always need at least 2 great examples. i wouldn’t use more than that, unless you’re confident you can adequately explain them in the allotted time. try to stick to historical or literary examples; martin luther king jr, past presidents, or wars are usually your best bet, along with well-known literature. try to have your examples planned out in advance, or you’ll end up like me and panic and write about mulder and scully from the x files.

general YOU NEED THE COLLEGE BOARD BLUE BOOK. ONLY USE THOSE PRACTICE TESTS. NO OTHERS. NOT BARRONS, NOT PRINCETON REVIEW. THEY DO NOT ACCURATELY REFECT THE TEST. (with math you should be alright BUT NEVER FOR READING ESPECIALLY) IM YELLING BECAUSE IT’S IMPORTANT. you also need to take a bunch of practice tests. as many as possible. seriously. the best prep if you ignore everything else i’ve said is practice tests. you can’t go wrong with them. make sure you are actively learning from them, though. always go through and understand why you got each problem wrong. if this means writing it out 300 times, do it. you won’t regret it when you see a similar problem on the real sat and you know exactly how to handle it.