This will apply to both PSAT/NMSQT and SAT.

The PSAT 10 and the PSAT/NMSQT are the

same, but easier than the SAT. (go to tools -> document outline for easy navigation)

Preface
Hi, I hope this guide will help you. After reconsidering my goals, I decided that I will not
try to scam people, but I’m going to try and make money. If you have complaints/improvement
ideas, you can send them to my reddit account: /u/ninja542. Another thing to note, please do not
take my statements as true 100% of the time. They are mostly true, but it might not be right all
the time.

Part I: How to take practice tests

Most books start out with “general test taking tips” which is complete and utter waste of
time for high schoolers who have taken multiple choice tests before, so I decided to make the
first chapter about “practice tests”. However, maybe this part will be boring to you, so feel free to
skip it if you choose to.
A lot of people will tell you when asked about preparing for standardized tests, they say
“take some practice tests” or maybe they say “Khan Academy”. However, you can still screw up
taking practice tests, so here are my tips for getting the most out of practice tests.

1. Take the actual test

Make the time to take either a full test in one go or one section of the test uninterrupted. I
think taking one or two full length test is good for getting a feel for brain fatigue, but after the first
two, you can just take individual sections at a time, and it won’t be harmful. Making time for one
section is easier than blocking a huge section of time for the full test, so no more excuses for
not taking practice tests!
The College Board released 8 official tests. “That’s not enough!” you might complain. In
my opinion, 1 test lasts a long time, and personally, I only got through 2.5 of them before the
April test, so yeah, I feel like 8 is plenty. Add on the Khan Academy problems, then you
seriously have enough test problems to last a long time.
If you somehow run out of these, then just google or look at prep books. I honestly feel
like prep books don’t give an accurate portrayal of the SAT, but your mileage may vary.

Obligatory website links:

https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sample-questions
Extremely short, but still questions from collegeboard
https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/practice/full-length-practice-tests
8 full tests. These are the same full length tests from Khan Academy, but Khan Academy
lets you take the tests online.
https://www.khanacademy.org/sat
 Khan Academy helped a lot, they break down the math, reading and writing into different
skills, allowing you to choose which categories to practice in. Seriously, I depended on this. The
interactive full length tests are very nice. The problems are pretty much endless, and they are
extremely close to real test problems. You will hear people talk about Khan Academy, and you
might be tired of hearing about it, but this is seriously a great resource if you know how to
extract value from practice tests.

2. Analyze results
So you have finished a full length test or at least a section, and graded it. You might be
very sad or mediocre or happy about your score right now. Stop feeling feelings right now.
I honestly sucked at practice tests too and magically got better, so you can too!

I split the questions into two categories:

● Guessed
● Wrong but was really sure about the answer
● Not really sure (debating between two answers, or even a shred of doubt)

I first look at the questions that I guessed on because I had no idea what to do, and read
the explanations for all four answers. You should do this for every question you guessed on,
even if you guessed it right, because understanding ​how​ they got the answer is a million times
better than knowing ​what ​the answer was.
Then I look at the questions that were wrong but I was sure that they were right. I
examine why I chose the answer in the first place and look at the explanation for why it was
wrong, and why the right answer is right. You probably already do that though.
Lastly, I look at the questions that I wasn’t really sure about because two of the answers
seemed plausible, and same as above, I look at the explanations for the right and wrong
answers.

And this might seem like a lot of steps, but it definitely helps. Why?
For reading, you can see patterns emerge in the questions and what to look for in the
answers themselves. (kinda hard to explain, but it’s like finding the matrix)
For writing, it’s the same as reading, and gives you a review on grammar principles.
For math, you learn math while doing practice and figure out if you’re making silly
mistakes or you have a consistent gap in mathematical knowledge.
The key is understanding, and not just knowledge of the right answer. This applies
especially to reading and writing to an extent. Math is more concrete than reading and writing,
so knowledge of how to do math is important as well.

Another piece of advice I say is to forget about the problems and the answer after
finishing a section1. I am not telling you to forget how to do the problems, but the problem itself.

1
To be honest, I am very good at forgetting stuff, so maybe this won’t work. However, this is a book of my
advice, so I’m including it here.
For reading, forget about the passage. You are taking practice exams for the technique, not for
memorizing precise answers. Also, if so desired, you can retake the same practice test again
after some months and see if you can apply the techniques again and improve on your score.
This is useful if you ran out of practice tests.

TL;DR:
The point of taking practice tests is to understand how to get the answers, not just what
the answer is.

The difficulty of practice tests vs real tests:

I find that this is a question asked a lot on the internet. I think that sometimes the
collegeboard practice tests are a bit easier, but I think they are relatively accurate.
So my experience was that my first PSAT 10 I took was 1430/1520, and then I was like “I
should study harder”, so I practiced some more. The next two practice tests were 1480 and then
1500. The PSAT/NMSQT I took next ended up being 1510/1520, and then in January, I took the
real SAT and got a 1520. I didn’t feel like taking a full practice test so I just practiced another
section of reading and writing the day before the school SAT, and managed to get a 1600. So I
guess for me they were pretty accurate, but I’ve seen people on reddit say that the actual SAT
was harder than the practice tests.

Part II: The actual sections

probably the thing you came here for

Section 1: Reading
Reading. Used to be the bane of my existence, but it’s not anymore (it turned into writing).

1. Eliminate 3 wrong answers

My number one tip is cross off three wrong answers. Looking for the right answer in
reading seems kinda hard, but figuring out which answers are wrong is a lot easier.
The justification for this is that collegeboard has to make the wrong answer definitely
wrong. They can’t ask you what something symbolizes, because that something could
symbolize a lot of different things and people would start complaining. So the right answer has
to be right, and not just half right.
Usually there’s one really wrong answer, two half wrong answers, and one right answer.

2. Reading the passage

Some people like to skim, or read the questions first then read the passage.
Reading first, then answering questions.
I prefer reading first on my tests because I feel like the SAT gives you plenty of time to read the
passages. Some answers ask about transitions in the passage, overall tone, or what the
passage as a whole is about, so that’s why I prefer reading carefully + quickly before answering
questions.
What do I mean by a good read? I don’t mean in-depth annotation, but kind of casual
reading everything. So if you decide to do a careful read the first time, it might take a little
longer, but doing these two things while reading will justify the extra time:
● What the passage as a whole is about, and roughly where the main ideas are
(main ideas are broken by paragraphs, and usually not in the middle of the
paragraph)
● Having an overall feel of the passage (this helps with overall tone and transition
of ideas/tone questions)
Another thing that might help to read the passages is to try to be interested in the
passage itself. Maybe I’m a really big nerd, but most, if not all, the passages are quite
interesting to me, so I retain more information and read better the first time.
If you decide to skim first, then I would say just try to figure out where main points are
(mark them with a star) so when you come across questions, you know roughly where to look
for the answers.

3. Vocabulary questions
The vocabulary questions can be tricky sometimes. If it’s a familiar word, the answer is
usually 99% not the typical meaning.
The usual approach is to use context clues to figure out what the definition is. Basically,
you judge the meaning of the word by seeing how it is used in the sentence.
The second thing is to replace the vocab word with the answer choices (or the answer
you think is right) into the passage and see if it makes sense.

4. Finding the Evidence

A lot of memes focus on “find the evidence” questions and how hard they are, but
honestly they are not that bad in my opinion.
If the previous question was hard, then you can look at the “find evidence” question’s
answer choices for four places to look for the right answer to the previous question.
If the previous question was easy, then the “find evidence” should be pretty easy
because you were probably looking at a specific place in the passage to get the answer for the
previous question.
This means that two questions are done at roughly the same time.
I personally would avoid random guessing on these question pairs (regular question +
find evidence) because they connect and help each other.
5. Types of readings
There is one fiction, two historical/social studies, and two science passages.
One passage is a two perspectives type (either historical or science-based)

Fiction:
In my experience, the practice tests use old-fashioned fiction/literature, while the actual
ones have been quite modern fiction. The old-fashioned fiction is slightly harder than modern
fiction because of the “old-fashioned” speak, but I think the questions are both similar anyways.

Historical/Social Studies:
Usually helps if you know the context, but it’s not that important. These passages mostly
advocate for something like women’s rights or the constitution, so questions will mostly be about
details of what they are advocating for and the overall purpose of the passage.

Science:
Questions are mostly information-based. Definitely expect reading graphs.

Two perspectives:
These questions are usually typical of the subject, but they also throw in:
compare/contrast questions
“what is something they would both agree on?”
I would either mentally or take notes on how both passages stand on the issue like what
they agree on or disagree on.

Section 2: Writing

1. Know your grammar rules

I don’t think any tips or tricks will help if you don’t have a basic knowledge of grammar,
so you should brush up on grammar. Khan Academy has a nice list of all the grammar stuff they
will test, but maybe I’ll write a list over here later.

damn commas
Commas can be used to separate lists.
Commas also join two independent clauses together with a FANBOY(for, and, nor, but,
or, yet). If there isn’t a FANBOY, you have a comma splice, which is forbidden. You can also
use a comma to join dependent clauses to independent clauses. You do not need a FANBOY
for that. You may not join subordinate clauses with a comma.
 Independent Clause: ​clause with both a subject and predicate (action). Another way to
tell is if the clause makes sense by itself.
Dependent Clause: ​Clause that modifies an independent clause, but can’t stand by
itself.
Subordinate Clause: ​Clause that has a conjunction that’s not a FANBOY. This is not a
complete sentence either, but because it has a conjunction, you can’t use a comma with them.
Ex: “because I was cold”.
Right​: I wore my coat because I was cold.
Wrong​: I wore my coat, because I was cold

Those semicolons and colons:

Semicolons and colons look kind of similar. They are completely different.
A semicolon is like a comma and a FANBOY in just one punctuation mark. You just use
it to join two sentences together. Sometimes a semicolon is used to separate items in a list with
items that contain commas, like a list of cities and their countries.
A colon is used to set off a list or sometimes just one item (not as common). The one
thing I do is replace the colon (or potential colon place) with “namely” and see if it makes sense.
Ex: I would like to see the following people: Bob, Anna, and Dylan.
I would like to see the following people, namely, Bob, Anna, and Dylan.
It looks weird, but it does the trick.

2. Rewriting to change the tone

The right answer is almost always the formal one. None of these passages are
“informal”.

3. Rewriting for conciseness

The right answer is never the redundant answer. If any part of the answer repeats itself,
you can cross it off.
Sometimes they ask you to rewrite a sentence/phrase that’s usually redundant, and the
right answer is very very often the shortest question. (please make sure it’s the right answer
though)

4. Reordering passages
Passages will be mixed up in one of two ways:
● Cause and effect
● Chronological order
If it’s cause and effect, the cause always goes before the effect.
If it’s chronological order, just order the sentences by which one goes first.
Another way passages are mixed up is putting something that breaks the flow of the
passage or the logic. Usually, the odd sentence out is obvious.
5. Deleting/Adding sentences
The collegeboard is evil because the sentences they give you are always somewhat
connected to the topic.
Delete the sentence if:
● It has nothing to do with the main idea of the paragraph
● Explains something very loosely related, but only adds extraneous info.
Add the sentence if:
● It clarifies something.
● Logically follows the sentence before.

Section 3: Math

Part III: The essay

I can’t really tell you anything, other than you can google “rhetorical analysis essay” for
tips? I got a 6/6/6, and it doesn’t really give me any authority to give essay tips.
Overall, the essay is about analyzing how the writer convinces the reader of his/her
purpose using rhetorical devices.
The few tips I can give to you:
● Annotate where you find rhetorical devices
● Read the box at the end of the passage. This directly gives you the purpose of
the essay, which is what you will write about in your essay

Part IV: random tips

● If a problem is taking too long, then you should skip it, because none of the sections are
ordered by difficulty
● Sleep a lot
● Follow your normal morning routine, don’t eat a big breakfast if you usually don’t
● Wear a lot of clothes and layers. In my experience, the testing rooms are really cold. You
don’t want to be sniffling while taking the test, so try to keep yourself warm. Especially if
you test is in a cafeteria, it’s going to be drafty and cold.

Part V: Luck
ok “luck” isn’t real, but I feel like the SAT has a different difficulty level each time I take it.
(imo April 11th 2017 was easier than January 2017)
 Which means if your score isn’t as awesome as you want it to be, and you have the
means to pay for another test, you should take it one more time (after some more studying, of
course.)

Conclusion
This is the end of my guide, and thank you for reading my guide. As always, cliched but
true, you are much much more than your scores. Even so, I hope you do well on your SAT.
You’ve studied hard, came a long way, and I believe that you will do awesomely well. -ninja542