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How I'd Prepare for the SAT Math (to get an 800) — Transcript

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0:00How should you study for the SAT math?
0:01Should you do Khan Academy? Should you
0:03take practice tests? Should you spend
0:05$7,000 on tutoring? I'm going to share
0:08my honest thoughts in this video and
0:09leave you with a step-by-step study plan
0:12that you can follow in the description
0:14below. As you might guess, your study
0:15plan depends on when you're taking your
0:17SAT. So, I've divided this video into
0:19what you should do 1 day before your
0:21SAT, 1 week before your SAT, 1 month
0:24before your SAT, and 1 whole year before
0:26your SAT. So, everyone's got a study
0:28plan. Let's get started with what to do
0:30literally the day before your test.
0:33Apparently, this is a lot of you guys
0:35watching this video because of course
0:37it's a great idea to procrastinate on
0:39the most important test you've ever
0:40taken. If you are one of these people,
0:42here's my number one study tip. Go to
0:44sleep. The SAT is not a memorization
0:46test. Your score is not based on how
0:48many vocab words or math formulas you
0:50can cram into your brain the night
0:52before. Your score is instead based on
0:54your ability to solve relatively simple
0:56problems quickly and correctly. When you
0:59stay up late, you increase the chance of
1:01getting hard questions correct because
1:03you might learn some material that you
1:04didn't already know, but you decrease
1:06the chance of getting easy questions
1:08correct because you will be sleep
1:09deprived and more prone to make small
1:12mistakes. And this is never a good
1:13trade-off to make because the SAT
1:15penalizes you more for missing easy
1:17questions than hard questions. So, make
1:19sure you get 8 to 9 hours of sleep. Your
1:21number one priority is to be as focused
1:23as possible on the test. This also means
1:25you want to eat a healthy breakfast,
1:27bring water to your testing center, walk
1:29around during your 10-minute break,
1:31anything to keep your brain active for
1:32the entire 2 and 1/2 hour test.
1:34Remember, it's a marathon, not a sprint.
1:36Okay, but let's say you have the
1:37afternoon before the test to do some
1:39last-minute studying. What should you
1:40do? My recommendation is to download the
1:42Blue Book software and take a
1:44full-length practice test, both
1:46sections, both modules, if possible. In
1:48fact, this is the first thing anyone
1:50should do, whether you have a day, a
1:51week, a month, or a year before your
1:53SAT. Take this practice test under the
1:55exact same conditions as the real thing.
1:58That means no music, no breaks, no
2:00looking at the answers right after you
2:02solve each problem. It's the best way to
2:03make yourself feel more confident on
2:05test day because you'll already have
2:07gone through the exact same experience.
2:09Based on this practice test, you can
2:10figure out how you should adjust pacing.
2:13If you finish a module with more than 5
2:15minutes to spare, you want to go slower.
2:17Every time you select an answer, do a
2:20double take and reread the sentence that
2:22tells you exactly what you're solving
2:24for. I can't tell you how many students
2:26get a problem wrong because they're
2:27asked to find 3x and instead just find
2:29x. Or they're asked to find when a is
2:31150% more than b and they find when a is
2:34150% of b. These tiny mistakes are how
2:38smart students end with 50 points lower
2:41on their actual SAT than they got on
2:43practice tests. You can also slow down
2:45your pace by checking your algebra with
2:47Desmos, checking your Desmos with
2:49algebra, and drawing out every single
2:51geometric figure on paper. In fact, I
2:54recommend anyone do this regardless of
2:55your pace. This is how you avoid small
2:58mistakes. I have a quick rant before we
3:00move on. A lot of students try this
3:01strategy where they speed run the entire
3:04test so that they can go back and
3:06resolve every problem a second time. In
3:08my opinion, this is a terrible strategy.
3:11If you made a dumb mistake on question
3:13five because you gave yourself 20
3:15seconds to solve it, what makes you
3:16think that you're going to catch that
3:18mistake when you go back to the problem
3:20with even less time to solve it? You're
3:22going to spend your 15 seconds of review
3:24time just reminding yourself what the
3:26problem's even about. You're not going
3:28to catch the mistake. So, once again, if
3:30you're finishing a module with more than
3:325 minutes to spare, go slower and check
3:34your work as you go through the test.
3:37What if you have the opposite problem
3:38and you're running out of time on a
3:40module? This happens to students in the
3:42hard module, too, where they get to
3:43question 15 and then they have like 30
3:45seconds left. If this is your issue, you
3:47should be skipping more problems. A good
3:49rule of thumb is to skip the same number
3:51of problems that you missed on your
3:52previous practice test. So, if you
3:54missed five questions on your last
3:56practice test, you should aim to skip
3:58around five problems and come back to
4:00them once you're done with the module.
4:02When I say skip problems, I mean mark
4:04them for review and then keep going on
4:06with your test. Don't even attempt them
4:09until after you've attempted question
4:1122. The idea is that question 22 might
4:13be easier for you specifically than,
4:16say, question 13 and it would suck if
4:18you didn't even get to try question 22
4:21because you spent eight minutes on
4:22question 13 and ran out of time. Now,
4:24onto the next chapter. How should you
4:26prepare one week before the SAT? I'm
4:29going to recommend that you spend the
4:30first six days scrolling reels and then
4:32on the seventh day do everything that we
4:34just talked about. Okay, now what should
4:36you do one month before I'm just
4:38kidding. If you have one week to
4:39prepare, your step one is the same. Take
4:41a Bluebook practice test [music] and
4:43regulate your pacing appropriately. Step
4:46number two is learning how to use the
4:47Desmos calculator. I have and will
4:50continue to be a proponent of Desmos. I
4:52believe you're screwing yourself over if
4:54you don't know how to use this
4:55calculator. Not only does Desmos help
4:57you solve hard algebra problems, but it
4:59also helps you solve easy problems even
5:02faster, thereby freeing up time for you
5:05to spend on hard problems that don't use
5:07Desmos. Don't be intimidated by some of
5:09the more confusing Desmos tricks. You
5:10can learn most of what you need very
5:13quickly. The first 13 minutes of my
5:14Desmos video covers about 80% of what
5:17you need Desmos for. Watch the first 13
5:19minutes, then go to bedrockprep.com,
5:21click on the videos tab, and solve the
5:23first 14 problems. Each of these 14
5:26problems tests one of the Desmos tricks
5:28that I talk about in the video. So,
5:30think of this as a quiz to make sure
5:32that you actually understand what the
5:34video's talking about. You can learn
5:35most of Desmos in about one hour. The
5:37problems are on Bedrock, which is my
5:39very own SAT math platform that I built
5:41because you chuds cannot just watch
5:43YouTube videos and expect to internalize
5:45everything. You actually have to solve
5:47real problems. And most of the other
5:49platforms, honestly, just do not teach
5:52or structure the curriculum as well as
5:54they could. The Desmos problems are
5:55completely free, as is a lot of the
5:57content on Bedrock. However, there is
5:59also a paid subscription. Throughout the
6:01video, I'm going to recommend Bedrock a
6:02lot, because I truly believe it is the
6:04best way to study. But anytime I mention
6:07something that's behind the paywall, I'm
6:08also going to recommend a free
6:10alternative, so you can decide which
6:12path makes the most sense for you. So,
6:14once you've taken the Blue Book practice
6:15test, watch the Desmos video, solve the
6:17first 14 problems, now you should go to
6:19the Bedrock 125, where I've taken the
6:21entire SAT math curriculum and broken it
6:24down into 125 distinct problem types.
6:27The idea is that if you only have a week
6:29before your SAT, you don't have time to
6:30solve all 2,000 problems in College
6:33Board's question bank. Instead, you just
6:34want to get a little bit of exposure to
6:36everything, and that's what the Bedrock
6:37125 is for. You should also filter
6:39problems based on difficulty. Here's a
6:41chart that tells you exactly which
6:43difficulty problems on Bedrock you
6:45should attempt based on your practice
6:47test score. Bedrock allows you to filter
6:49by difficulty, so start at the top and
6:51just hammer through them. You might
6:53notice that the Bedrock cards are pretty
6:54hard, but don't be discouraged. For
6:56reference, this is what an actual SAT
6:58looks like with problems labeled by
7:00their Bedrock difficulties. Notice that
7:02most of module one and almost the entire
7:04easy module two consists of easy Bedrock
7:08problems, and the hards are pretty much
7:09only important if you're making it to
7:11the end of the hard module two. So,
7:13don't stress too much about the hard
7:14problems one week before your SAT. The
7:16most important thing is that you feel
7:18very confident using Desmos, and that
7:20you get some exposure to as many easy
7:22and medium difficulty problems as
7:24possible. If you have any additional
7:26time in your one-week grind, take
7:28Bedrock practice test one. The entire
7:30test and the answer explanations are
7:32completely free, even if you're not a
7:33pro subscriber, so you can learn the
7:35optimal approach to every single
7:36problem. And you might be thinking, "Why
7:37take a Bedrock test and not another Blue
7:39Book exam?" Blue Book tests are great
7:41because they use the software that
7:43you're actually going to use on test
7:45day, but they're a little easier than
7:47the actual test. Students tend to score
7:49about 30 points higher on Bluebooks than
7:52they do on the actual SAT. So, I've
7:53designed Bedrock's tests to be a little
7:55more representative of the actual exam
7:57in terms of difficulty. I also tweak the
8:00Bedrock tests regularly to include
8:02problems that were literally asked on
8:04recent SATs. So, it's a nice little
8:06added bonus. Okay, now what if you have
8:08one whole month to prepare for the SAT?
8:10This is the part of the video where you
8:11guys are getting bored, so I've added
8:13Minecraft parkour to the background.
8:14With 1 month before your test, now you
8:16can see some very serious improvement.
8:18Dare I say about 100 points on the SAT
8:21math is very plausible with about an
8:24hour a day of studying. I'm going to
8:25recommend the same first few steps. Take
8:27a Bluebook test, watch my Desmos video
8:29guide in full this time, solve the
8:31Desmos problems in the videos tab on
8:33Bedrock, but then instead of going to
8:35the Bedrock 125, go to the course tab of
8:38Bedrock. This course divides the
8:40curriculum into eight levels based on
8:42your score, from iron to bedrock. For
8:45example, if I got a 640 on my initial
8:47practice test, the course would put me
8:49in the platinum level. It's like League
8:51of Legends, except it will not drain the
8:53life out of you, and it'll get you into
8:55a good college. Each level starts off by
8:57giving you a quiz to ensure that you've
8:58mastered the most important topics at
9:00the levels below you. If you haven't
9:02mastered a problem type, you'll be able
9:03to add that topic to your curriculum.
9:05Once you've done that, just start
9:07plowing through the topics at your
9:08level. After a couple of topics, you'll
9:10be prompted to take a Bedrock practice
9:12test. If you score high enough on your
9:14practice test, you'll be promoted to the
9:16next level. It's like a rank up game,
9:18except you don't have teammates to blame
9:20when you screw up. The course does
9:21require a pro subscription, however. So,
9:23if you're trying to study completely for
9:25free, then I recommend following the
9:26Bedrock 125 just as you would in the 1
9:29week study plan. When you run out of
9:31Bedrock 125 problems to solve, I
9:33recommend you then go to College College
9:35official question bank. Filter problems
9:37by difficulty based on your score and
9:39then start grinding through those.
9:41College Board has done an amazing job
9:42designing the most unusable UI for their
9:45question bank and so there are other
9:47sites like SATQuestionBank.org
9:49that are much nicer to use. The Bedrock
9:51course will tell you exactly when to
9:52take practice tests, but if you're using
9:54the Bedrock 125 and the question bank, a
9:57good rule of thumb is to spend around 5
9:59to 6 hours studying between each
10:01practice test. Anything less than 5
10:03hours and you're just spamming practice
10:05tests without really learning new
10:07material and anything more than 6 hours,
10:10you're getting too in the weeds of hard
10:12problems without zooming out and
10:14reminding yourself what the actual test
10:16is like. Once again, if you have a pro
10:17subscription, take Bedrock practice
10:19tests and if you're studying for free,
10:21take Bluebook practice tests. Just
10:23remember to subtract 30 points from any
10:25Bluebook score you get to make it more
10:26representative of the actual SAT.
10:28Whether you're using the course or
10:30solving problems for free, your biggest
10:32challenge is staying consistent,
10:34especially if you have an entire month.
10:36And consistency is very important for
10:38the SAT. It's better to study a little
10:40bit every day than to try grinding out
10:42everything on the weekends. But
10:44consistency is hard, so let me tell you
10:46about this thing called the two-day
10:47rule, which helped me build the habit of
10:49practicing violin consistently back when
10:52I was in high school. The two-day rule
10:53is very simple. It just says you're not
10:55allowed to miss two days in a row.
10:57That's it. If you have an incredibly
10:58busy day, you have an exam, you have a
11:00sports competition, you have clubs after
11:02school, that's okay. Don't study the SAT
11:05math today. But by skipping today, you
11:07are basically sentencing yourself to
11:09study tomorrow. And on the flip side, if
11:11you decide that you are going to study
11:13today, you're basically giving yourself
11:15a free pass to skip tomorrow if you need
11:17to. I know it's just playing a dumb
11:19psychological trick on yourself, but I I
11:21promise it helps. This violin piece
11:23playing in the background is one that I
11:24played my senior year of high school,
11:26which says something because I was
11:27pretty terrible at the violin before I
11:30rigorously adopted the two-day rule.
11:32Also, you know, shout out my violin
11:34teacher who is, of course, very
11:35instrumental, pun intended. And this
11:37right here is pretty much it. If you
11:38follow this plan 30 minutes a day, I
11:40estimate you'll jump 40 to 80 points. If
11:42you do 60 minutes a day, I estimate 60
11:45to 120 points. And if you do 90 minutes
11:47a day, I'd estimate 80 to 150 points.
11:50That being said, the higher your score
11:51currently is, the harder it is to
11:53improve. It's much easier to get from a
11:54600 to a 700 than to get from a 700 to
11:57an 800. Additionally, there's going to
11:59be variance on every test. You might
12:01make small mistakes. You might make
12:03educated guesses that happen to work out
12:05on one test and not the other. You might
12:07happen to get problems that you're
12:09better at or worse at. This is why I
12:11made such a big deal at the start of the
12:12video about sleeping well and eating
12:14well because that will put you at the
12:16higher end of this natural variance.
12:19But, that is also why you should take
12:20the test multiple times. Most colleges
12:23only take your highest score or your
12:25highest superscore. And if you take the
12:27test twice, your expected superscore is
12:30going to be higher than if you take the
12:32test once. Two to three times is the
12:34sweet spot with a couple weeks between
12:36each exam. You'll see diminishing
12:38returns if you try to take the test
12:39four, five, or six times. So, really,
12:42one month is probably not sufficient.
12:44Instead, I think you should play the
12:46long game.
12:51For reference, when I say 1 year before
12:53the SAT, nobody should be actively
12:55studying for an entire year. So, perhaps
12:58a better way of putting it is here's my
13:00advice for people who will not get their
13:02top SAT score until over a year from
13:05now. Because remember, ideally, you're
13:07taking the test two or three times. And
13:09as Chinese philosopher Laozi once said,
13:12I'm in the crib but naked.
13:16No, that was Lil Wayne. Laozi said, "A
13:18journey of a thousand miles begins with
13:21a single step."
13:23Yeah, that's the one. No matter your
13:24age, you can be 12 years old, take a
13:26practice test right now. This is your
13:28first step on your thousand-mile
13:30journey. Then take the PSAT, ninth
13:32grade, tenth grade, eleventh grade, as
13:33much as you can at your school. You
13:35really just want initial exposure to the
13:37test. You want to know what the test is
13:39like big picture and know where your
13:41score currently is as a baseline. But
13:44once you've gotten that initial
13:45exposure, you don't need to start
13:47rigorously studying for the SAT because
13:50realistically, your top score is not
13:52going to come your freshman or sophomore
13:54years. It's going to come your junior
13:55year or senior year because you will
13:57naturally become better at English and
13:59math as you progress through high
14:00school. I took the SAT five years ago
14:02when it was still on paper and a lot of
14:03students asked me, "Eric, how did you
14:05study for the SAT math?" My honest
14:07answer to that is I took the PSAT and I
14:09got a perfect math score, so I didn't
14:11study for the SAT and then I got a
14:13perfect math score. That's it. What I
14:15did do is I put a lot of effort into my
14:17geometry class, my algebra two class, my
14:19precalculus class, my calculus class. By
14:21the time I took the SAT, I was most of
14:23the way through with BC calculus. And so
14:25my baseline was already very high. Now,
14:28to be fair, I think this was easier to
14:29do on the paper test than the digital
14:31test. I think even if you are extremely
14:33strong in math, you should still learn
14:34how to use Desmos and still get
14:36acclimated to the hardest digital SAT
14:38problems because they are harder than
14:39the hardest paper SAT problems were. But
14:42the point is if you're a freshman or
14:43sophomore, you don't need to start
14:45rigorously studying for the SAT. You
14:47need to get some initial exposure to the
14:48test through a Blue Book or a PSAT and
14:51then focus on school. Read as much as
14:53you can, write as much as you can, and
14:55solve a lot of math problems. And then
14:57by the time your junior year rolls
14:58around, you're going to be at a much
15:00higher baseline already. Not to mention
15:02you will have a higher GPA, which
15:04matters more for most college admissions
15:06than the SAT. So now let's say you're a
15:08junior and you're ready to start
15:09studying for the SAT. First, figure out
15:11when you're actually going to take the
15:13test. If you just start studying and
15:15think, "Oh, I'm going to take the test
15:16when I feel ready." Guess what? You're
15:18never going to take the test. Or you're
15:19not even going to study because you
15:21don't have some deadline looming over
15:23your head. Pick a date and stick to it.
15:25This is what I tell all my students. If
15:27you're going into your junior year and
15:28you're already at a near-perfect score,
15:30then you should aim for a National Merit
15:32Award by taking the PSAT October of your
15:34junior year. Then you should study for
15:36that in August, September, and October.
15:38Then you could also take the actual SAT
15:40in October with the option to retake in
15:43November or December. Alternatively, you
15:45can take the SAT December of your junior
15:47year with the option to retake in March
15:49or take it in March with the option to
15:50retake in June. And there's also the May
15:53SAT, but I would advise against it just
15:55because it overlaps with a lot of AP
15:57exams and that can be very brutal if
16:00you're taking APs. You want to get an
16:01SAT score that you're comfortable with
16:03your junior year so that when senior
16:05year rolls around, you're not studying
16:06for the SAT while also writing your
16:08college applications. That being said,
16:10if you want to retake the SAT in August,
16:12September, October of your senior year
16:14as a last-ditch effort to bring up your
16:16score, then go for it. There's no harm
16:17in doing that. This is what I did. I
16:19retook the SAT August of my senior year
16:22without doing much studying just to see
16:23if my English score could go up and it
16:25went up 50 points. So, you never know.
16:27So, once you figured out your first SAT
16:29date, I would recommend taking the
16:31one-month plan that we've already talked
16:33about, expanding it into a 6-8 week
16:35plan, and then spending those 6-8 weeks
16:38studying leading up to your first SAT.
16:40Here's what this might look like big
16:42picture. You take the PSAT your
16:44sophomore year and you get a 550 on the
16:46math. Then you put a lot of effort in
16:48your math classes sophomore year and by
16:50junior year, you're up to a 600. Then in
16:52August at the start of your junior year,
16:55you commit to studying an hour a day
16:57using Bedrock leading up to the October
16:59SAT. In October, you take the real SAT
17:02and get a 720. Then you retake again in
17:05December and get a 750. By the end of
17:07your junior year, you feel like you've
17:09learned more in your math classes and
17:11you want to give it one last shot. So,
17:13you spend three or four weeks in Bedrock
17:16retrying all of your missed problems,
17:18reviewing Desmos, taking a few exams,
17:20and you manage to get a 770. This is a
17:23fairly realistic scenario for how you
17:25can go from an average SAT math score to
17:27a top 1% SAT math score just by playing
17:31the long game. And hopefully, it doesn't
17:33seem that hard. I hope my advice in this
17:34video has been more practical than just
17:36take some practice tests and make a
17:38mistakes log, which seems to be every
17:40other video on YouTube. In the
17:42description below, I've included a
17:43resource that takes everything I've
17:45talked about in this video and puts it
17:47into an actionable step-by-step study
17:49plan that you can follow for yourself.
17:51As always, thank you for watching.
17:53Please use the resource and good luck
17:55studying.

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