The September 12 SAT is a week out. This page is everything you need to know about the Math section before you sit it, and what to do with the seven days. Nothing new to learn here. A plan for using what you already know.
The shape of the section
- 44 questions, two modules of 22, 35 minutes each. That is about 95 seconds a question. Most students finish with time; the ones who do not are stuck on two or three hard ones, not slow on the rest.
- The second module adapts. Do well on the first and you get the harder second module, which is the only route to a top score. Struggle on the first and the second module gets easier and your ceiling drops. Module 1 is not a warm-up.
- About three quarters multiple choice. The rest you type a number into a box. No penalty for guessing, so nothing stays blank.
- Desmos is built in. The graphing calculator is one click away on every question. Knowing when to type instead of solve is worth real points.
- The reference sheet is one click away too. Area, volume, the Pythagorean theorem, the special right triangles. Everything else the test expects you to know cold.
What it tests, and how much of each
- Algebra, about 35%. Linear equations, systems, and what the numbers in a linear model mean.
- Advanced Math, about 35%. Quadratics, exponentials, equivalent expressions, the one-solution and no-solution questions.
- Problem-Solving and Data Analysis, about 15%. Percentages, ratios, tables, scatterplots, statistics.
- Geometry and Trigonometry, about 15%. Angles, triangles, circles, volume, sine and cosine.
Read the first two lines again. Lines, systems, quadratics and exponentials are 70% of the section. If you have one week, that is where the points are.
The 24 things it expects you to know
The reference sheet covers the basics. The test then assumes you know about two dozen other things: what slope means in a word problem, the three quadratic forms and what each one hands you, the discriminant, how a percent change works backwards, what standard deviation is telling you. I drew all 24 out, one diagram each, with my notes and the exact question I solved on each one. The SAT Math formula sheet is free, and the video walks through all 24.
The last-week plan
- Seven days out: one full-length test, timed, in one sitting. Not a topic drill. You need the real thing, two modules, the clock running, so you find out what breaks under time. The first full-length test is free.
- Days six to three: fix the misses, by topic. Sort what you got wrong into topics. Almost everyone finds their misses live in three or four buckets. Work those, easy to hard, until the misses stop. Leave the topics you got right alone.
- Day two: the formula sheet, once through, then the quiz. Read all 24 diagrams. Take the 24-question quiz. Anything you miss there gets its diagram read one more time. That is the whole review.
- The day before: nothing new. No new topics, no full test. Twenty minutes of easy problems if you need to feel warm, then stop. Sleep is a bigger lever than one more hour of practice.
- Test morning. Bluebook updated and opened once the night before. Device charged, charger packed. Admission ticket and photo ID. Your own approved calculator if you like it more than Desmos. Eat. Arrive early.
After the test
Scores come out about two weeks later. The August 22 scores arrived on September 4. If September is your first sitting, the next dates are October 3, November 7 and December 5, and most students go up on a second sitting because the first one was the practice they never had. What a 700 in Math means, and how to plan the retake.