<p>I am not sure why, but I keep making simple mistakes. They aren't mistakes like not realizing that you have to make a factor tree for a problem or not realizing how to do a problem at all but rather the kind where I mess up the factor tree of mess up the problem. I keep making simple mistakes where I start the problem off great but my final answer is wrong because I make one tiny mistake like forgetting to square root something or forgetting to change the inequality sign when dividing by a negative. It's killing me that I could have had a good and likely 750+ score on this section (from an official practice test) if I didn't keep messing up. Does anyone else have this problem and if so, can you guys give me advice on how to stop it? I suppose I was rushing a little bit.</p>
<p>Check over your work after you’re done with all the questions. I hated doing this until I realized it helped my score a lot.</p>
<p>I’d recommend just doing more practice math tests. Speaking from experience, the more practice you have, the less likely you are to keep making silly mistakes.</p>
<p>I suggest you read my article on “making careless errors in sat math.” It’s posted on this forum several times. Just do a quick search.</p>
<p>I was doing that too LOL.
For example, on one practice test I was rushing and decided that in the equation y=w+10, 10 was the slope not the y intercept. I don’t even know why I thought that. -___-</p>
<p>Just slow down. That’s what I did. I raised my scaled score from a 590 to an 800. |D You can rush a /little/ bit on the easy questions, but try to take your time as fast as you can.</p>
<p>… PARADOX FTW.
Anyways, yeah. If you finish early, make sure to double check all of your answers, and don’t skip double-checking any question because, as I have learned from experience, the easiest, non-double checked questions, are also the easiest questions to get incorrect. </p>
<p>Read each question carefully too. Don’t skim over the question. Read it thoroughly, and then blast through the problem solving…
and I doubt this applies to you, but if it does,…
It never hurts to rely no your calculator when you are feeling braindead… You will save yourself from thinking 3+3 is 9. :x </p>
<p>If you already know how to solve all of the questions, then the best things to have are:
- A pinch of diffidence (getting overconfident about my answers caused me to rush more than ever, neglect double-checking, and eventually get obvious, easy questions wrong, which gave me a 630 instead of an 800…)
- Slight paranoia about getting every answer wrong (so that you’ll double check all of your answers)
- The ability to read thoroughly and slow down (it’s really easy to miss key parts of the question and still think you have all of the information you need.)</p>
<p>I took all of your advice (especially the double checking) and just scored a 770 on a practice test. I really did just need to slow down and take it a bit slow. Thank you all for your help! Now I just need to work a bit on probability to cover my last weak spot. @gomdorri I especially agree with your number 3 as that still continues to hurt me (reason I got a 770 on that last test, I only read 4 names on some averages question instead of 5 so I divided by 4 etc.). Thanks to everyone for the great advice! Also, if anyone wants to know how I began to understand all of the material in one weekend, I just used that math bootcamp thing from robert schombs and that really taught me everything I had forgotten and that is what got me up to the mid 700s range.</p>