More On Careless Mistakes and Efficient Prepping

More On Careless Mistakes & Efficient Prepping

This post is based upon a question I was asked by a student in regards to being able to increase one’s math score by the next SAT.

In the same question the student states that most of his errors are just “careless” mistakes. I redirected him to my article on avoiding careless mistakes, but let me just repost our conversation here as it has information relevant to a lot of other students. I hope you find this useful…

Student: Hi Dr. Steve, I feel as if I have hit a plateau because I can’t really score higher than a 710. I always do practice sections from the College Board Blue Book and miss around 1-2 questions per section. The questions I get incorrect are usually medium questions and not hard. I believe I make careless mistakes… What should I do? I also tend to do A LOT of practice sections. Could this negatively affect my score? I would like to score 750+ (preferably an 800). Is increasing from a 700 to 750+ in just weeks impractical?

Dr Steve: The increase you are looking for is definitely possible. It sounds like all of your prep right now consists of doing practice tests from the College Board’s Blue Book. You should stop this and start prepping in a more efficient way. Now I also need to know what you mean by the word “usually” when you say that you usually get medium questions incorrect. Does that mean on any given practice test you get more medium questions wrong, or that you practically never get hard questions wrong at all? This distinction is important. Let me start with a few suggestions to get you on the right path.

If you haven’t done so already, read my article on avoiding careless errors here.
Go back through all the practice tests you took and start posting up the questions you got wrong here on my Facebook wall. Also explain what the error you made was, no matter how silly or careless you think the errors were. We can then discuss several different ways to solve these problems and how to avoid these errors in the future.
Are you proficient in the really basic strategies such as plugging in answer choices, picking numbers, taking guesses, etc. If not, then you need to start practicing lots of problems using these strategies even if you know more efficient ways to solve them. The Intermediate Course from my “28 New SAT Math Lessons” series emphasizes these strategies in a systematic way. The Advanced Course reviews these strategies very quickly in the first lesson, but still gives solutions using these techniques throughout the book. In your case, if you did decide to get one of these, I would probably recommend the Advanced, but make sure you are practicing solving as many of these problems as you can using both basic and advanced strategies. If you choose to continue using only the materials you already have, then again, make sure you are practicing both basic and advanced techniques.
Let me emphasize that as you practice solving SAT math questions, try to solve each one in 2 to 4 ways. Possibly using a basic strategy, a more advanced strategy, the way you would do it in school, and/or the quickest way you can think of. Remember – you will never see any specific math problem that you do on your SAT – it’s more important to learn techniques than it is to solve a specific problem.
To really improve your score do every problem you get wrong about once per week until you get that question right on your own without making any “careless” errors. Make sure you wait at least several days before reattempting a problem you have gotten wrong. You don’t want to get it right because you recall the mistake you made. You want to get it right because you are no longer falling into the trap you previously fell for.

Student: Well I can confidently say that I know most, if not all, of your strategies (I bought your book and went through the level 5 questions of your book since I got all level 4 questions correct) and that I know all the math involved in most, if not all problems. Out of all the sections I have ever taken, I have only been totally clueless in only like 2 problems. By “usually” I mean I practically never get a hard question wrong unless I make a silly mistake or get tricked, which is quite rare. Since I know not to follow my intuition on hard questions, I tend to check over my work like 2-3 times. On medium questions, however, I tend to work really fast through them. The reason I do this is because it can sometimes take me quite a while to solve some hard questions even if I’m using strategies. Another thing, the way I attack the SAT math section is by just going once through the whole section. Even if I feel that I got all the answers right, I somehow made a mistake in one without noticing. I have question: What is the maximum amount of questions I can miss and still get a 750 or higher? Or does that change from test to test?

Oh wow, I looked back to a problem that I was totally clueless on and solved it in less than 30 seconds.

Dr Steve: To guarantee a 750 you can only get 2 questions wrong. However, the scaling at the high end is very inconsistent, so this varies from test to test.

Based upon your last response, here are a few suggestions:

For at least the next week focus on one problem at a time (no full practice tests). Go back and pick out problems that have taken you more than 1 minute. Really take the time to work out the problem several different ways and try to really internalize these methods. Then pay special attention to the one that was quickest.
In about a week take another practice test and really focus on NOT RUSHING. Pace yourself correctly meaning if you are working on a problem for about 30 seconds and you’re still confused by it, mark it off and move on – come back to it later – don’t worry – you’ll get to it, and as long as you’re pacing yourself correctly you will have plenty of time to finish the section, go back and work on the ones you skipped, and you may even have several minutes to go back and redo many of the problems one more time. You may want to read this article.”

The student replied that he would look at the additional material.

I wish him and all other students taking the SAT the best of luck in achieving an exceptional math score.

If you are preparing for the SAT, you may want to check out this special deal on all 8 of my SAT math prep books: