The SAT is on Saturday. If you are worried about running out of time on Math, here is something from our own data that might surprise you.
We looked at every timed practice test taken on this site and measured how long students actually spent on each question. The students scoring above 700 used about 44 minutes of the 70 they were given. They spent 56 seconds on an average question and finished with roughly 26 minutes to spare.
The students scoring in the 600s were slower, not faster. They took 61 seconds a question.
Across every completed timed test on freepracticesat.com: students scoring 700 and above averaged 56 seconds per question and 44 minutes of working time. Students scoring 600 to 690 averaged 61 seconds per question and 48 minutes. Nobody in either group came close to using the full 70 minutes.
Speed is not what separates a 700 from a 500. So if you have been planning to rush on Saturday, do not. Here are five things that matter more.
Know the shape of the module
Two Math modules, 35 minutes each, 22 questions each. Questions 1 to 15 are multiple choice. Questions 16 to 22 you type in yourself, with no answer choices to work backwards from.
That back stretch is slower by design. Plan for it. If you spread your time evenly you will arrive at the hardest, slowest questions with the least time left.
Give yourself a 30-second decision, not a 90-second one
The useful question is not "can I finish this," it is "do I know what to do."
Thirty seconds in, if you have no first step, flag it and move on. You lose far more points sitting on a question you never had a route into than on questions you moved past.
Bluebook keeps your flags, and the question navigator lets you jump straight back to them. Practise using it before Saturday so you are not learning it on test day.
Protect Module 1
This is the part most students do not know. The SAT is adaptive. How you do on Module 1 decides whether Module 2 is the harder version or the easier one, and the harder version is where the high scores live.
So a point in Module 1 is worth more than a point in Module 2.
The worst way to spend Module 1 is three minutes grinding on the hardest question while three easy ones at the back go unanswered. Nothing in Module 1 gets more than two minutes on your first pass.
"A point in Module 1 is worth more than a point in Module 2."
Decide about Desmos before you start typing
Desmos is there on every question, and it can cost you time as easily as save it.
Graph it when the question hands you equations and asks where things cross, meet, or turn. Systems, intersections, zeros, vertices. Twenty seconds of typing saves you a minute.
Do not graph it when you still have to turn words into an equation. That translation is the actual work, and Desmos cannot do it for you. Opening the calculator on a question you have not understood yet is just a way of avoiding it.
Own the last two minutes
Three things, in this order.
Fill in every blank. There is no penalty for a wrong answer, so a guess on a multiple choice question is a free one-in-four shot, and a plausible number beats an empty box on the typed-in questions.
Check the format of your typed answers. This is where careless points die. A fraction that needed reducing. A rounded decimal. A dropped negative sign.
Do not open a new question. Two minutes is not enough to start something, and it is enough to lose the answers you already have.
The thing to remember on Saturday
Our best students are not the fast ones. They are the ones who spend their time on the questions they can actually solve, and let go of the ones they cannot.
Get a few more tests in before Saturday
Every practice test on this site is free, and there is no limit on how many you take. Use the days you have left to find the questions that are still costing you points, and fix what you can. And if Saturday is not your last SAT, come back afterwards. There is a lot more here waiting for you.
Take a free practice test
Daniel Brink, Ph.D.
Daniel has 32 years of experience teaching mathematics at every level, including 11 years at one of South Africa's leading academic high schools. He holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics Education from the University of Georgia and has trained thousands of teachers through his online programs. He built freepracticesat.com to give every student access to the same diagnostic first approach used by the best tutors.