TIME MANAGEMENT IN SAT EXAM

The SAT poses a typical challenge: you must complete an arduous task in a short amount of time. This is a difficulty for many students as they attempt to reconcile the need for quality with the necessity of speed, and time constraints can drive us to make mistakes that we would not make if we could work at our own pace.

FIRST, GET USED TO ANSWERING QUESTIONS CORRECTLY.

We must practice it slowly and attentively to become highly good at something. When you start studying for the SAT, wait to take timed portions. Slow down. Take the time you need to study the questions and consider your options. You can identify trends in question types and topic areas with consistent practice. You will then be ready to incorporate the time aspect. Before you strive to answer questions fast, learn to answer them correctly.

UNDERSTAND YOUR POSITION

Once you’ve mastered the test and are comfortable answering questions, you should calculate how long it takes you to finish each portion at a comfortable speed. This feedback will inform you if or whether the timing is something you should focus on, and it will assist you in setting reasonable goals for pacing development.

CONSIDER THE BIG PICTURE

The SAT gives 13 minutes for each reading passage, 8 minutes and 45 seconds per writing passage, and between a minute and 15 seconds and a minute and 27 seconds for every maths part, depending on the component (note: these numbers apply to standard time testing; information about extended time testing can be found here). These are helpful averages but differ from the figures to focus on.

The 65-minute time restriction for reading indicates that the entire assignment should take that long rather than specifying that each paragraph should be finished in 13 minutes. This is a crucial difference since although some chapters could take us 11 minutes; others might take 15. The same is true for maths, where you could complete specific problems in under a minute while taking over two minutes to complete others. We must let go of the idea that each passage or question needs to take the same amount of time, even though time practice is beneficial. It is helpful to know how long each section takes when you time them, but you should actually consider the overall impact of the paragraphs.

UNDERSTAND SPLITS

Each SAT part has a somewhat different split calculation requirement:

You should time yourself when reading a text, but it also helps to keep track of how much time you spend reading the passage and how much time you spend answering the questions. You may then make changes to increase your efficiency after determining how your time is used. Many students read the chapter aloud for an excessive amount of time. Note that you need to take the time to thoroughly compare your responses to specific examples from the book and comprehend the question’s particular requirements to make sure you understand the material. Many students find that a ratio of around 1:3 for time spent reading to time spent answering works well, but you’ll need to experiment to find what works best for you.

The most significant issue for many students in writing is slowing down to read the surrounding material for context before responding to each question. The key to timing your splits here is to control your speed such that you are maintaining a pace that is near to 8 minutes and 30 seconds every passage (while recognising that some passages will take longer than others). You can take your time and be more thorough if you have extra time to finish this part, especially for questions that focus more on rhetoric than grammar.

Knowing how far you can go in half the time is essential for controlling splits in mathematics. You should be more than halfway through each part when half of your time has elapsed because the questions grow harder as you go. For instance, you have 55 minutes to complete Section 3’s 38 questions, but by the time 22.5 minutes have elapsed, you should have progressed somewhat farther with question 19, giving you extra time for the challenging questions that could take a little longer. There is no “correct” speed for maths, but keeping track of your progress around the midpoint of each section is a valuable method to ensure you keep moving quickly. If you are short on time, remember that the first few “grid-in” questions are usually more straightforward.

CONTROL THE CLOCK TO PREVENT IT FROM CONTROLLING YOU.

It’s simple for time to take over once you start adding more hours to your practice, which frequently lowers the calibre of your job. Consider what happens when you look at the clock: first, you divert your attention from the task at hand; second, you do a little mental arithmetic to determine how much time is left in the section based on the clock; and third, you experience some sort of psychological and emotional response to this information, which typically results in some level of stress or anxiety. After then, you have to make an effort to return to the task at hand while still being motivated by the knowledge that your limited time is passing.

LEARN TO RUN OUT OF TIME GRACEFULLY.

You could discover that you frequently need more time in a particular segment. If so, it’s critical to create a strategy to make sure we are strategic while we are running out of time, maximising our accurate responses, and averting unproductive labour in the last few minutes of our exam. What will you do if you have yet to begin reading the final text in Reading or completing the grid-in questions in Arithmetic when the invigilator sounds the five-minute warning? In both situations, choosing which questions you respond to is crucial. Instead of wasting time looking, concentrate on questions in Reading that refer to particular lines or paragraphs, and in Math, look for problems that are based on well-known concepts rather than struggling with complex or new topics.

PRACTICE PARTS WITH TIME LIMITATIONS

Try practising with somewhat time-restricted parts if you feel at ease with the SAT’s scheduling. Take 62 minutes to complete the reading and 23 minutes to complete the maths without a calculator. Don’t drastically alter the timing, but if you can complete a segment in less time while retaining accuracy, you have now included a little buffer that enables you to make a mistake on test day and recover from it.