Many people are writing online that the digital SAT is harder than the paper SAT. Is it reasonable to assume score ranges for colleges in this coming admissions cycle will decrease? DIGITAL SAT TIPS

Written By:

Duraideivamani Sankararajan

The way that the digital SAT works will make it feel harder. Many of these digital tests use adaptive testing, which means that the questions will get harder as you go until you make some number of errors. At that point, the test has decided your score will be in a specific range. The questions after will dial-in your score specifically. College Board will normalize scores, as they have done for decades, but that's irrelevant. The perception of exam difficulty isn't important, and it's highly likely that the scores from the digital SAT won't be lower than from the paper SAT.

DIGITAL SAT TIPS:

READING RULES

1. Every word of a correct answer must match something in the text you can point to that means the same thing.

2. Answer matching is only valid if the matched answer addresses the exact wording of the question.

3. Never read the entire passage. Read only as little as you need to but as much as you have to.

4. First answer the specific line referenced questions following the passage. Then answer the ones that don’t have line or paragraph references, paying careful attention to the exact wording of the question so that you know what words in the text you are skimming for.

5. On the SAT, look ahead for questions that are immediately followed by evidence questions. This type of question should be answered as a pair. But always start with the evidence question. First, pay attention to the previous question and locate the evidence that directly answers it. Then, find the answer to the previous question that matches the correct evidence answer’s text.

6. 80-90% of the time, you can answer a primary purpose question just by matching the answers back to the title passage. When this doesn’t work (because the title is not straightforward), you can read the first sentence of each of the paragraphs one after another without stopping. Then create a summary of what you have read. Your summary should match to the correct answer. In the rare case where this doesn’t work either, you will need to skim for multiple matches to the correct primary purpose answer.

7. When faced with questions that ask about both passages or what both authors agree with, focus solely on Passage 1 and see which answer matches to it. 95% of the time, only one answer will match to Passage 1, and once you find it, you have successfully found the correct answer. In the 5% of the cases where more than one of the answers matches to Passage 1, you will then have to see which of those two answers that matched to Passage 1 also matches to Passage 2. But when only one answer matches to Passage 1 (as happens most of the time) you can confidently choose that answer without having to spend any time on Passage 2.

8. Correct graph or table question answers must match completely back to the graph. If any words in a graph answer do not match to the graph, you can eliminate that answer.

9. Sometimes matches may be reverse matches, when the meaning of the text is restated in an answer that conveys the meaning by using an opposite way of saying it. For instance, if the text says, “Jack works only during the day,” the correct answer might state that same idea as “Jack doesn’t work at night.” If the text says, “Jack hates to be late,” the correct answer might be a reverse match that says, “Jack prefers to be on time.” Look out for the words “imply,” “infer” or “suggest” in questions, which frequently mean there will be a reverse match involved.

WRITING RULES

1. The correct answer is almost always the one that is as short as possible while being grammatically correct.

2. When given 4 choices (2 Yes, 2 No), read all choices and look for the one which is 100% correct and pointable; all wrong answers have at least one completely false element. Anything ADDED to a paragraph must be VERY TIGHTLY MATCHED to the theme of the existing paragraph.

3. When the question contains specifics, make sure you are answering to those specifics.

4. Semicolons are soft periods and require a complete sentence both before and after.

5. Match verb tense to other verbs in the sentence or if none other in the sentence, to verbs in nearby sentences.

6. Match pronouns back to the words they are referring to.

7. Match verbs directly to the noun subject of the sentence, NEVER to the prepositional phrase modifying the subject. For instance, “The number of students are increasing every year” is an error; the subject is “number”, not “of students”

8. Use as few commas as possible, but place them where you have to pause.

9. When placing a sentence, there will almost always be words in what you are placing that match to words in where it should go.

10. For transition questions, read words preceding and following the transition very, very carefully. The correct transition will match the precise logic that exists between the preceding and following words. There are three basic types of transitions:

11. Colons are used to either give a list, or as a way of saying, “here it is:"

12. Dashes are used to set off a bit of information that is an aside or footnote, information that is not fundamental to the structure of the sentence. Dashes almost

1) Additional facts. Example: It was raining outside. Also, it was

foggy. (Words like also, in addition, furthermore.); 2) Contrast. Example: It was

raining outside. However, Jack chose not to bring an umbrella. (Words like

however, nevertheless, but, yet); 3) Logical result. Example: It was raining

outside. Therefore, Jack brought his umbrella. (Words like therefore, thus, consequently)

13. When combining sentences, the correct answer must precisely match the meaning of the original ones. If more than one matches exactly, pick the more concise choice.

14. When employing a comparison, the beginning and ending of the comparison must be parallel. For instance, it is INCORRECT to say, “The use of plastic is greater than wood.” If we begin our comparison speaking about a “use”, we must compare it to a “use.” We could either say “the use of plastic is greater than the use of wood” or we could substitute a pronoun to prevent from having to use the same word twice: “the use of plastic is greater than that of wood.”

MATH RULES

1. Every question is a little puzzle that meant to be solved in 2-5 steps. Correct answers are short by tricky, never long and complex.

2. The reading of the problem is as important if not more important than the math itself.

3. Whenever you encounter a fraction on one or both sides of an equation, whether at the beginning of the problem or in the steps to solve it, the next step is to cross multiply.

4. With linear equation word problems, the constant is what you start with (and will match to words like “origin”, “beginning” or y-intercept.) The slope is a rate of change and will match to words like “increase or “decrease”.

5. When the question contains the phrase “no solution”, remember this occurs only when the slopes of the two linear equations are equal, meaning they are parallel and will never cross. There are 3 steps to solving any “no solution” problem: 1) Put the equations into simple y=mx+b format and find the slopes; 2) Set the slopes equal and 3) Cross multiply to find the value of the variable.

6. When the question talks about “line going through the origin” this means that the slope for every point on that line is y/x. So you can set y/x for any point equal to y/x for any other point to arrive at the solution.

7. Tricky exponent questions are meant to be solved using substitutions. For instance, 32 is equal to 2 to the 5th power; 81 is equal to 3 to the 4th power.

8. The rule of sectors: whatever fraction of the circle one attribute of a sector represents will be the same fraction for all of its attributes. The three attributes of a sector are its area, its arc and its central angle.

9. There are only two trigonometry rules required on the SAT: 1) sin (x) = cos (90-x) and cos (x) = sin (90-x) 2) when sin(a) = cos(b), then a+b = 90 degrees

10. To solve a system of equations, remember you are going to add the two equations together, and your goal is that when they are added together, one of the variables should cancel out to zero. So before adding, you will need to multiply one or both equations by some number so that after the addition one of the variables cancels out to zero.

11. The only way to get to zero through addition is to add a positive number to a negative number. Adding to positive numbers or two negative numbers will never arrive at zero.

12. The two things that create problematic situations on the SAT: zero in a denominator (which makes the fraction undefined) or a negative number under a radical (which results in an imaginary, not a real number)

13. To find the maximum value/minimum value/vertex of a parabola when you have been given a factored quadratic, use these three steps: 1) Find the two values of x that would make y=0; 2) Find the point that is exactly in the middle of the two values you found in step 1; 3) Plug the value you found in step 2 for x and calculate the value of y which will be the maximum value/minimum value/vertex.

14. The formula for percent change is (difference between original and final)/original.

15. To apply a percent change in a single step do this: for percent increase, add the percentage as a decimal to the number “1” and multiply with it; for percent decrease, subtract the percentage as a decimal from the number “1” and multiply with it.

16. When your answers are all variables (as opposed to numbers), this is a signal to plug in real numbers for the variables given. Don’t use 1 or 2 when plugging in. Always use 3 or greater.

1. For solving probability questions, the denominator is the group you are choosing from and the numerator is exactly who out of the denominator you are choosing.

2. Factors only occur when the function value is zero.

3. When you see the word “intersect” it means to set things equal.

4. When you have a fraction in front of a variable, the variable always goes in the numerator.

5. For survey/poll/study questions always pick the answer that is the most conservative and least extreme.

6. Linear equations always advance by the same increment, but exponential equations advance by differing increments.

7. When the problem GIVES YOU and equation but then asks a hypothetical, you will almost always want to just plug in real number.

1. When they give you graphs in the problem, think about plugging in real x values to create (x,y) points and see which graph contains those points.

2. Average questions on the SAT are almost always given in reverse of the way you see them in school. In school, you are given a series of values, which you add together and divide by the number of items to yield the average. But on the SAT, they will typically give you the average and the number of items averaged, which you multiply together to get the original sum of the values. And then the actual answer is usually found by subtraction.

3. With geometry puzzles, you will almost always have to draw a line in somewhere to solve it. And when triangles are put into circles, it is almost always because the triangle sides are radii, telling you they are equal.

4. Whenever the SAT gives you the difference of squares (x squared minus y squared, a squared minus b squared) you will always factor into the sum of the square roots times the difference of the square roots.

5. Be very careful whenever you see a negative sign in front of a parenthetical phrase: remember that you must distribute the negative sign across every item within the parenthesis.

6. When all of your answers are linear equations with different slopes, just plug points into (y2-y1)/(x2-x1) and find the slope.

7. When dealing with functions, the number within the parenthesis is the x value and the f(x) or function value is the y value.

8. There are two signals that tell you it’s a long division of a polynomial problem: 1) You are given a fraction (division) of two polynomials and 2) At least a couple of the answers contain a fraction added to the end of the answer, which would represent the remainder of a long division of a polynomial problem. Remember that long division of a polynomial is exactly the same process as long dividing numbers.