<p>In my review book it says that you should always guess, and that mathematically it will balance out. On the AP U.S. test should I follow this stradegy?</p>
<p>In my opinion, yes. They're right, it does mathematically balance out. If you can't narrow down ANY of the answers, you will gain/lose exactly 0 for guessing. That is the objective of the "guessing penalty". If you can cross off even one answer before you guess then statistically you will come out ahead.</p>
<p>It really depends on whether you can narrow down answers. It also depends on how much you're willing to leave to chance.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that while the expected value of guessing in the long term with no eliminated choices is zero, the long term will not occur during the course of this particular AP Exam.</p>
<p>My own personal recommendation would be to guess if you are looking at a lower score, and hoping to earn a higher score, but to not guess if you have a generally high expectation of a higher score. The philosophy being that if you are going to earn a low score, you don't have a whole lot to lose, whereas if you are earning a high score anyway, the extra points likely don't help you and could possibly hurt you in the short term.</p>
<p>It's kind of like the "Deal or No Deal" situation in a sense. Yes, it would be fantastic to walk away with $500,000, but it would be horrible to walk away with $10. The banker offers you $240,000. Do you take it? The expected value tells you, "No," but my suspicion is that most people take the $240,000. Why? Because YOU only get to play once.</p>
<p>That being said, if you can eliminate a number of answer choices, the "luck" factor of guessing is so minimized that the expected value component is significant.</p>
<p>haha, love the deal or no deal reference :)</p>
<p>i'd agree with TheMathProf. if you're looking at a higher score, probably don't guess. if you're looking at a lower score, it might be worth it. on the other hand, if you can narrow it down on more than a few questions, it might be worth it to guess. for every question that you guess correctly, you can guess wrong on 4 more. for example, if you can narrow 8 questions down to two answers, you'd be expected to get 4 of them correct if you guess on all of them, which would boost your raw score by 3 points.</p>