<p>I'm writing this because I realized during the June 2006 test that had I omitted none and guessed on the 5 I left blank, I would've gotten 2 right for sure and a 50% chance of the other 3. THIS could've raised my score by 20 points or more.</p>
<p>Let's look at these examples:</p>
<p>omit 2, answer 78, get 5 wrong
omit none, get 7 wrong</p>
<p>..both = 780. However if you can narrow down, the odds are definently in your favor. </p>
<p>omit 5, get 10 wrong = 740
omit none, get 13 wrong (i.e. you guessed 2 right) = 750</p>
<p>...get the idea? Omitting none and guessing rarely hurts you, and may even help you. The American system of a fraction of a point off for a question is definently favored toward the student and encourages guessing.
In Britain for example, on any MC test, a wrong question will always be -1, if one question is +1.</p>
<p>...From this, I've concluded to never leave one blank unless my gut feeling tells me I know absolutely nothing and will get it wrong. But usually you will know something. Hopefully this will help you, I'm definently remembering this next October. </p>
<p>Prove me wrong?</p>
<p>If you can narrow it down, then I agree to guess. But I do not think that guessing on problems you don't have time to work out and put a random answer down will help you. If you have one minute for 10 questions, I would not recommend guessing randomly because it will hurt your score. However, most people do end up guessing if they can eliminate 2 choices.</p>
<p>You smarty panties, i'll take that into consideration in oct too. thanks.</p>
<p>Actually, I usually do much better when i answer all the questions than when i omit 5-10 that I'm unsure of. So yeah, you're right.</p>
<p>well the thing about it is that the guessing penalty STATISTICALLY should even out your score. you have a one in five chance of being right so every five you get +1 and 4*-.25.</p>
<p>HOWEVER if you can eliminate 1 on every question, you've already beaten the system (and most of the time at least one can be eliminated.) For 20 questions, 5 would be right and 15 would be wrong. 5-.25(15)=1.25 which rounds to 1. If it were forty questions, it would be 2.5 raw and it would round to 3.</p>
<p>now these numbers seem low, but most of the time people don't randomly guess. Most questions the taker either knows or can eliminate on. Those questions that they choose to omit could help their score if they are guessing blindly and there are numerous omissions.</p>
<p>In the tests I've taken I tend not to omit. That doesn't mean I know everything. In fact its a mixture of stubborness and the way I take tests at school. I normally have a gut feeling. whether the gut feeling is that something is right or wrong doesn't matter, it all helps my chances statistically cuz I have an idea of the answer in mind.</p>
<p>going to the example above: say that you have 50 questions. there is little difference in raw score between guessing on 2 and omiting 2, however guessing is better on only 2. For guessing on 2, there are 25 combonations that are possible choices. 8/25 times, the guesser will get one right (assuming that they can eliminate one) which puts them at a 48.75 as opposed to a 48 (the 48.75 will round to a 49). then there is that 1/25 chance that both are right (assuming no elimination). that puts the taker at 50 out of 50. 36 percent of the time the guesser will do better, and the other 64 percent of the time, the taker will get a 47.5 which rounds to 48, so they will do no worse. Of course the numbers start to distance as there are more ommisions and wrong answers but there's also the assumptions that the taker is purely guessing and the other answers are right. that's why I guess when I can eliminate at least one(which I usually do)</p>
<p>Anytime and exactly airmanzzzz, my ap stats class this year figured out statistically if guessing harms or helps you, and guessing is actually in your favor, at least during SAT tests. You're much better off attempting to answer everything, especially if you can take 1 out of the list.</p>
<p>cool... but the thing is that if you guess and you get all of them wrong, then you are in bigger trouble than you would have been if you had left it blank.</p>