Pacing & Flow

With the changes that came with switching to the digital SAT, students now have more time per question than they used to. But this doesn't mean that it won't still be a time crunch for a lot of people. Managing your time and approach effectively and intelligently is key to doing well on the SAT.

In order to pace yourself effectively, you need to have a strong feel for how long each section tends to take you personally. The best way to do this is to take multiple practice tests, simulating actual testing conditions as closely as possible. If you know that you always have time left on both Reading & Writing modules, then don't stress about your timing, and make sure you spend enough time on each question to fully digest the questions and the answer choices. If you struggle to finish in time, then you might want to employ more of the pacing strategies on this page.

While you definitely want to be efficient, rushing through the test is a mistake I see a lot of students make. I often see multiple problems missed from sloppy mistakes caused by rushing, and the time saved by that rushing is almost never worth it. Sure, it might give you more time to have a crack at an extra question or two, but the questions you're doing at the end of the module are usually the ones you have a higher chance of missing anyways. These sloppy mistakes often happen on fairly easy questions (which are weighted a bit more heavily), so you want to make sure that you are converting on what should be layups.

This goes hand-in-hand with the previous point. For most students, it's counterproductive to try to get to all the questions at the expense of not spending enough time on each question. You're better off making sure that the questions you do work on are answered correctly. If you're shooting for a 1600, then yes, you are going to need to make sure you process all the questions. Of course, this does not mean you shouldn't answer all the questions; since you are not penalized for guessing, you should always at least enter an answer for every question, even if you didn't have time to read the question. How many questions should you get to? Unfortunately, there is no blanket answer, or even a table based on your target score. This is going to be highly personalized, and you need to figure out the pace that works best for you. You should try to stay alert and focused and move efficiently throughout, but don't move so fast that you fail to capture the nuances of what a passage is converying, or that you make an accidental sign or calculation error in math. Some students get through the whole module feeling like they were able to fully take in every problem, and the problems they miss are just ones they weren't able to solve correctly. Other students might only get through 80% of the questions, but are able to get them all right.

The Bluebook app provides a useful feature where you can flag questions that you want to come back to later. I highly encourage you to make use of this feature. If you think you have the answer but want to double check your work later, or if you get stuck on a question and want to come back to it later, you should flag it. The app makes it easy to see at a glance which questions you've flagged, and click to return to them. Whenever you do flag a question, make sure that you at least enter an answer before moving on.

If you find yourself at an impasse, don't stay stuck. Flag the question and move on. You can always come back to it later if you have time. How do you know when it's time to move on? I don't like to set a hard time limit, because some questions take longer than others, and because excessive clock watching can be a distraction. If you feel like you're still making progress, then keep going. If you return to the problem later, you'll probably waste a little time getting your orientation back on that question. But if you feel stuck between two answers, or figuring out the next step on a math problem, or if you thought you solved a math problem but the answer choice isn't on the board, then flag the question and move on. Do your best to at least eliminate some of the answer choices that seem incorrect, so and make your most educated guess among the remaining choices before moving on.

The Bluebook app provides a timer that can constantly show you how much time you have left on the module. While this can be helpful, it can also be distracting. You definitely want to be mindful of your timing and have a general sense of how much time you have left, but paying too much attention to the clock tends to be counterproductive. This can lead to anxiety which can make you less focused. And even if it doesn't make you anxious, every second spent looking at the clock is a second you're not spending on the test. Fortunately, the Bluebook app gives you the ability to hide the timer. My advice is to hide the timer most of the time, and quickly pull it up every 2-3 questions to keep track of where you are.

Let's say you've determined that you do best when you pace yourself to get through 20 of the 27 Reading & Writing questions, and you did the math and calculated that this gives you 1:45 per question. This number is just an average time you should expect to spend on each question. Some questions you will be able to do much more quickly, and others will take longer. Don't focus on how long each question is taking you - just try to keep moving efficiently, and only move on from a question when you are confident that you've solved it, or you're not sure that spending additional time on the question will help.

Particularly if you have trouble getting through a module without rushing, you'll want to make sure that the questions you are able to spend time on are the ones you're most likely to solve correctly. Keep in mind how the questions are ordered in the different sections. In Reading & Writing, the questions are grouped by question type, and the same type of question will always fall around the same place in the section. With practice, you'll get a feel for which types of questions you perform best on, which you can use to your advantage. Jump straight to these questions off the bat. This helps in a few ways: it makes sure you give a good crack at the questions you're most likely to get right, it helps give your brain a warmup on easier questions before moving on to harder ones, and it can help give you a confidence boost, which can help you perform better on the rest of the section. In Math, the questions are ordered by difficulty, but this is based on how likely the average student is to get the question right. Your personal order of difficulty might be different. I wouldn't skip any of the first ten questions or so, because they are weighted more heavily and should probably be solvable for you. But after that, if you see a problem that you don't know how to get started on, or if you think you can solve it but know it will require a lot of time, then flag the question and move on.

We've established that you don't want to overly fixate on the clock, but you definitely need to keep an eye on it. If you're checking the clock every 2-3 questions, then if you check it and there is less than 5 minutes left, then flag the question you're on and take a moment to enter an answer for all the remaining questions. We'll get into more detail in the "guessing" section, but don't just fill in the same answer for all the remaining questions. Try to make your guesses as random as possible. Once you've done this, then go back to that last question you flagged and keep working through the problems until time runs out.

Due to the adaptive nature of the test, your second module in a section will either be harder or easier than the first module, but it won't be the same difficulty. Therefore, you shouldn't let the amount of time you have left (or the number of questions you have left) on the first module dictate your pacing on the second module. Do not get a sense of complacency that you have plenty of time just because you had 5 minutes left when you finished the first module. That's a decent sign that you did well and you might get the more difficult second module, in which case you'll probably find the next module to be more of a time crunch. Of course, just because you think you got the harder module, this also doesn't mean you should start rushing to get through it. Just make sure you're working through the problems with a good balance of efficiency and focus

Ok, you got through the last question on the module, and have several minutes left. Time to sit back and relax, right? Not so fast. You're never "finished" with a module. If you have any questions that you flagged, this is when you go back and take another look at them, and see if you can get any new insight to help you solve them. If you don't have any more flagged questions to go to, then go back and review other problems, making sure there's nothing you missed. If you're doing math, double check calculations, and that you didn't mess up a positive/negative sign. Also, double check exactly what the question is asking, and make sure that is what you solved for (like if the question asks what x+4 is, make sure you didn't give the solution for x). If you're on reading and writing, make sure fully read each answer choice, and make sure there isn't another choice that might look good as well. If so, see which answer choice has a weakness that makes it incorrect. The fight is never finished until the timer runs out.

We mentioned that when you're getting low on time you want to enter an answer for all the remaining questions. Now let's talk about when you're really about to run out of time - like you have 30 seconds left and you are about to move on to a new question. In this case you have to make a choice. If you have flagged some earlier questions, then you might stand a better chance of figuring out one of those that you have already put some work and thought into then you do of solving a complete new question in 30 seconds. But if you don't have any questions you think you can go back to and improve your answer in 30 seconds, then how should you handle the next question that you likely don't have time to properly solve? In this case, I'd read just the question and the answer choices, and make a guess as to which seems most likely. If it's reading and writing, then look for red flags that might indicate wrong answers (we'll get into more detail on this later). If it's math, then eliminate any answer choices that are big outliers from the rest, and guess among the remaining choices. If you still have a little time after doing this, then try to skim through the actual passage/question, and see if you can glean anything that might change your guess, or maybe even solve the problem.