Up Your Score SAT, 2018-2019 Edition The Underground Guide to Outsmarting The Test

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Incredibly valuable. We did two experiments on the old SAT (which
penalized you for wrong answers) to prove that guessing really works. First, we
took the test by looking only at the answer choices without reading any of the
questions. We got an average combined score of 660. Although that’s not going
to get anyone into Harvard, it was 260 more points than would be expected from
someone with no knowledge of the questions. Our second experiment had two
parts. Ten kids took the test and left blank all the questions they couldn’t do.
Next, we had them read this chapter and then guess on all the ones they had left
blank. Their scores increased by an average of 35 points, and they guessed
correctly on 40 percent of the questions that they had left blank. ¡Ay caramba!
Pretty good improvement for a simple application of the five basic guessing
rules, which we’ll now discuss.


THE FIVE RULES OF GUESSING


RULE 1: ONE OF THESE THINGS IS MOST LIKE THE OTHERS.


If you have no idea what the correct answer is, choose the one that looks the
most like all the other answers. This works because the Testing Serpent is going
to make his Impostors look as much as possible like the correct answer. Use the
Impostors to show you the path to the correct answer.
For example, if the answer choices are:


(A)

(B)

(C)

(D)

you should choose B. Why? Because three out of four choices have in them,
the correct answer probably has a as well, so you can eliminate choice D.
Since three out of four choices have a 2 in the denominator, the correct answer
probably does, too; so eliminate A. Since three out of four answers are positive,

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