<p>I'm only asking because I missed only 3 questions on the math section, and I got a 710. I'm not sure if each question is worth 30 or what... Could someone please explain it. Thanks</p>
<p>Did you take the June SAT? If so, then I’m puzzled at your result. I missed three questions as well but got a 740. </p>
<p>If you get a question right, you gain a point on your Raw Score. If you miss a multiple choice question, you lose 1/4 of a point. This is to prevent anyone from profiting from random guessing, yet benefit test takers that use knowledge to eliminate options and guess from there. The grid-in questions, however, have no incorrect answer penalty, because a correct guess is far more unlikely. My guess is you missed 3 MC(multiple choice) questions while I missed 3 grid-ins or 2 grid-ins and 1 MC. </p>
<p>Once the points for correct answers and penalties for incorrect answers are added together, you get a certain raw score that is converted into a scaled score(your scaled score is 710); this conversion from raw scores to scaled scores is, I think, predetermined by CollegeBoard (don’t quote me on that). </p>
<p>Now on to why three questions lost 90 points. Because so many people score in the low 500s, you can miss one or two (maybe even three, though it’s probably rare or nonexistent) questions and not hamper you scaled score. However, there are much fewer people who score as high as you do, and therefore have to make penalties more harsh when scores are high. Why they do that, I’m not sure myself. I remember missing three questions on my PSAT math and getting a 69 (690 if it were the SAT). Missing three questions lost me 11 points, which angered me greatly at the time (granted, there were fewer questions on it than the SAT).</p>
<p>Some people say that a question is generally worth 10 points, but this isn’t true for the really high scores.
I hope this all made sense to you.</p>
<p>Wow, I missed 3 and got a 700. But yeah, as he said, it’s based off of a curve. Points will drop quickly at both fringes.</p>
<p>You also might have omitted a multiple choice answer, or you might have missed a grid in (which only counts as an omit if you get it wrong)</p>