Imagine that you are taking a test that consists of two questions.After your teacher hands out the test, and before you set to work, ahelpful little gnome whispers to you, “The first problem is verysimple, the second is much harder.” Would the gnome's statement affectthe way you approach the two problems? Yes. For a “very simple”question, it seems likely that you should be able to answer it quicklyand with little or no agonized second-guessing. You will probably haveto spend much more time on a “much harder” question, both to come upwith an answer and to check your work to make sure you didn't make anerror somewhere along the way.
What about all the other students who didn'thear the gnome? They might labor over the first, easy question,exhaustively checking their work and wasting time that they’ll need forthe tricky second problem. Then, when those other students do get tothe second problem, they might not check their work or be wary oftraps, since they have no idea that the problem is so difficult.
The moral here is you should spend less timeon the simpler questions that appear early in the test, and devote moretime to the harder questions appearing later. Because Math IC questionsare ordered by difficulty, it’s as if you have that helpful littlegnome sitting next to you for the entire test.
Knowing When to Be Wary
Most students answer the easy Math ICquestions correctly. Only some students get moderate questions right.Very few students get difficult questions right. What does this mean toyou? It means that when you are going through the test, you can oftentrust your first instincts on an easy question. With difficultquestions, however, you should be more cautious. There is a reason mostpeople get these questions wrong: not only are they more difficult,containing more sophisticated vocabulary or mathematical concepts, theyare also often tricky, full of enticing wrong answers that seem as ifthey must be correct. But because the
SAT orders its questions bydifficulty, the test tips you off about when to take a few extraseconds to make sure you haven’t been fooled by an answer that only
seems right.
The tricky answers seem right because theyare actually the answers you would get if you were to make amathematical or logical mistake while working on the problem. Forexample, let's say you're flying through the test and have to multiply 6
8
3.So you quickly multiply 6 and 8 to get 42 and then multiply 42 by 3 toget 126. You look down at the answers, and there's 126! You mark itdown as your answer and you get the question wrong. 6
8 equals 48,
not 42, making the correct answer 144.
From this example, you should learn thatjust because the answer you arrived at is among the answers does notmean you definitely have it right. The SAT is designed to punish thosewho make careless errors. Don't be one of them. After you get ananswer, quickly check your work again.
