Slow Down!
Slow Down
If you’ve taken a standardized test recently, then the scenario I’m about to describe will almost certainly be familiar. You come across a math question on the test that you can’t figure out how to solve, but when you come back to it upon review you solve it quickly and easily. Every student I’ve ever worked with has had that experience, as have I. Why is this so common? Many students chalk it up to test anxiety, which seems to have become a catch-all term for any inexplicable source of poor test performance. While clinically diagnosable test anxiety may be the cause of this phenomenon for some students, for most, there’s a much simpler culprit: the test’s time constraint. When solving math questions under timed conditions, many students feel pressured to start working as quickly as possible, before they have fully understood the question and formulated a plan of attack. This is like trying to travel someplace before knowing where or what means you can use to get there. Not a recipe for success. So how do we fix this? The key is developing a problem solving process that you can adhere to regardless of whether there’s a clock ticking in the background. Utilizing a consistent and methodical approach to every question will make it much harder for the clock to throw you off your game. Now let’s get into the process I use for every SAT/ACT math question.
The problem with the problem solving approaches that most test prep providers offer is that they’re too vague; they don’t tell you EXACTLY what you should be doing as you work through a math problem.
To help you avoid this mistake, here’s my step-by-step approach, along with a description of what each step means and why it’s important.
Step 1: Take a Deep Breath
This is a really important one. Strategic deep breathing will help you maintain calm and focus in the face of stressful testing conditions. Once you are calm and focused, you can execute the game plan like a pro.
Step 2: Understand the Actual Question
The first thing I want to know when facing a math question is what I am supposed to solve for. This means that I read the end of each problem before the beginning. I explain the reasoning behind this to my students in the following way. If I gave you a box of full of tools and construction materials but didn’t tell you what I wanted you to build with them, you’d probably have a tough time figuring out what every item was supposed to be used for. However, if I told you from the beginning that I wanted you to build a shed, then you’d have the context required to determine the right way to use your materials. Understanding the actual question first is what provides you with the context required to quickly understand how best to use the given info. If the question wants me to determine the number of male students at Jefferson high school in 2005, I can assess the given info with that goal in mind, thus making it easier for me to see how best to use it.
Step 3: Assess the Given Info
Once I know what the question wants from me, I then assess the given info, thinking about how it will help me reach my ultimate goal.
Step 4: Check the Answers
The answers are part of the question! They often provide me with helpful hints as to how I should attempt to solve the problem. If the answer choices have variables in them, I may want to choose smart numbers. If they offer easy numbers to work with, I may want to work backwards from them. I also find that in many, if not most, SAT/ACT questions there is only one answer that makes sense, so checking the answers often allows me to determine the problem’s solution without having to do any written work.
Step 5: Make a Plan
Once I’ve taken in all the info the question has to offer, including the answer choices, I make a plan of attack. Do I want to set up and solve equations? Pick smart numbers? Work backwards from the answer choices? Skip and come back? Virtually every SAT/ACT math question offers multiple paths to the correct answer. One of your main goals should be to consistently choose one of the easier paths in each question you face.
Step 6: Solve
If you’ve made a wise plan, you should find this step relatively simple. The SAT and ACT will never force you to do very complicated math. If you feel that you’re diving down a rabbit hole, skip and come back!
I always advise that my students practice this process under UNTIMED conditions before attempting to use it under timed conditions. We all abandon processes that are not yet comfortable when under duress. Once this process becomes so comfortable that you can do it without thinking about it, then you’ll be ready to test it out under exam conditions. You should find that you miss far fewer questions that you should have gotten right!