<p>I heard of a strategy of doing the math portion of the SAT backwards. Doing the hardest first and easiest last. I think this could help keep focus because during the end of the test you make careless mistakes due to boredom, but in the beginning of the test you are alert, focused, and fully aware. Has anybody tried this strategy? Can you please tell me how much it has improved you by. Thank you.</p>
<p>You know, this is an interesting theory, I think I might try this out…</p>
<p>I’m not too sure how effective it is, since you’d have to budget your time really well. Since all the questions have the same value it’s best to knock off the easy questions right away so you have more time for harder ones.</p>
<p>Also, I’ve never made a mistake on a test due to “boredom.” Tiredness or inattentiveness is probably what you’re looking for.</p>
<p>@MITer94 Yes I meant unawareness. I just believe when you first open that book, you are so focused that it is very hard to make a mistake, but towards the end, you are not as sharp</p>
<p>Eh, well it’s only a 20-25 minute section, I don’t think I’d feel that beat after 25 min. Try taking a USAMO exam, where you have 4.5 hours for three questions (x2 since it lasts two days). Or if you end up doing research and spend years working on an open problem…</p>
<p>While the test remains an individual experience, it seems to be a pretty bad idea. One reason is suggested above, namely possibly running out of time when started the really easy problems that require little time or … guessing. </p>
<p>The second reason this is a bad idea is that a powerful strategy is to ALWAYS know where you are on the test and know where the medium and hard questions are buried. It helps to take the test in the right order and pay attention to the signals of changing sections. While not impossible, it must be much harder when starting from the back.</p>
<p>It might work for a really strong and well-prepared student, but then such student hardly needs any gimmicks. The weaker student will stand a higher chance to screw up with this method, if not answering the questions but probably messing up the scantron entries. I also think that nervous students should keep it as simple and straightforward as possible.</p>
<p>Don’t do it if you’re not confident in math, especially on the last problems.</p>
<p>This goofy idea percolates up now and again. To me, it seems like a good way to waste a morning. There are so many ways for this to backfire that it seems like score cancellation would be the inevitable result. </p>
<p>You don’t have to overthink this test. Learn the tricks, yes. Then review the content. Then take a modest pile of REAL practice tests. Analyze anything you get wrong. Then go take that test and do what you have to do. Go slow, go in order and go carefully…That’s all, no gimmicks.</p>
<p>This strategy does sound interesting. But some people (e.g. me), tend to make more silly mistakes towards the beginning of the test, and less towards the end, so this method would definitely not work well for them.</p>
<p>Another reason is that if you do not know how to the hard questions, you will likely lose confidence and make careless mistakes on the easy questions (the ones you should definitely score on)</p>
<p>Plus all questions are worth one point in the end. Might as well gain all the easy and medium ones first</p>
<p>I have not tried doing math section backwards, but I will tell you what. I have just practiced math section. One of my wrong answers was the FOURTH question of third section. Yesterday, on a different test, it was the FIRST one on the second section. Answered right, bubbled wrong. In the beginning of the test. Hard ones were right. So, I would say that swapping would probably make no difference.</p>
<p>Suppose someone gave you exactly two minutes in total to complete the following tasks and they will give you $1000 for each task you complete successfully:</p>
<p>(1) touch your nose
(2) change 5 light bulbs
(3) find a needle in a haystack</p>
<p>What order would you do these in to maximize the amount of money you will make?</p>
<p>I guess you should find the needle first since the first two tasks aren’t as exciting. :)</p>
<p>I hope my point is clear, but in case it’s not just read Xiggi and pckeller’s posts.</p>
<p>Let’s see if we can come up with some equally effective strategies for taking the SAT. I’ll start:</p>
<p>Begin each math section with 10 minutes of meditation. Then just answer the questions twice as fast to make up for the lost time. The meditation will make sure your mind is clear so you won’t make any mistakes and therefore you won’t need the extra time to check over your work. This strategy is especially effective if you forget to sleep the night before the SAT. :)</p>
<p>Ok, here’s another: start at the beginning, then alternate with the ones at the end so that you get an easy one after every hard one. That way, it would be like interval training in sports. But leave all prime- numbered for last, unless you are in the central time zone. In that case, do the exact opposite. And you are the lucky ones-- I heard that the sat in central time zone always has the easiest curve. Mountain time is brutal.</p>
<p>@pckeller okay I got it. You don’t have to shove it down my throat. Everyone has his or her own strategies that he or she use. You sound very pompous. I do not appreciate your comments.</p>
<p>I agree with the posters that have mentioned it could be bad for confidence. I know some of my math teachers say that they purposefully place easier questions at the beginning of a test so that students’ test anxiety doesn’t worsen because they can’t do the first few problems.</p>
<p>However, if that’s not a problem for you, and neither is time, I could see this method working fairly well.</p>
<p>@mbomb </p>
<p>I can assure you that pckeller’s comment was not meant to shove anything down your throat. We are just joking around among ourselves, and to be fair I started with the sarcasm at the end of my last post. Perhaps it translated better because I added a smiley. :)</p>
<p>Your question is 100% legitimate and none of our jokes are directed at you (or anyone else). </p>
<p>That said, please realize that pckeller and xiggi are the experts in this thread. Any advice they give is worth taking seriously.</p>
<p>@mbomb,</p>
<p>Certainly not trying to tease you at all! And actually, I didn’t think you were advocating the strategy – you described it as something you had heard. There is so much bad advice out there. And it keeps coming back. But I admit that after it was too late to edit my post, I worried that it might seem harsh. Also, to be honest, I worried that it would spawn a new round of theories about which time zone has the easiest test and that the regulars here would have to spend future posts trying to quash that rumor as well…</p>
<p>@runner019 too bad that’s not always the case. I had an abstract algebra midterm with five proof-based problems and only 50 minutes, and there was widespread consensus that #1 was the hardest problem…</p>
<p>@MITer As a teacher I think that it is a grievous error to make problem #1 the hardest. </p>
<p>I actually think that doing this hinders the evaluation process. If a student gets stuck on number one for a long time and has to rush through later problems, then the information that the student comprehends is not really being transmitted to the teacher correctly.</p>
<p>For example on my Advanced Calculus exams. I generally give 3 groups of problems. The problems from group one require either a simple one line proof or a counterexample. And the arguments required get more complicated as you go from group 2 to group 3. </p>
<p>I think that increasing the difficulty level in order this way provides me with the best feedback as to the level of mathematical maturity my students are currently at.</p>
<p>I completely agree.</p>
<p>On the actual test, I was able to solve #2 through #5, but had to BS a solution to #1…</p>