Like a good standardized skill assessment test, the SAT is generic in scope and progressive in challenge. It is also unique in a number of ways: all questions are weighted the same in terms of merit regardless of type or level, and certain sections of the test are presented in order of difficulty. The corollary to this is that there are low hanging fruits to be picked.
If all questions are worth the same single raw point, wouldn’t it be savvy to go for the easier questions rather than the harder and more arduous ones? Indeed, it is but the trick is in telling them apart. Although Sentence Completion (Critical Reading) and Math questions are stipulated to be laid out in order of difficulty, it takes some clever imagination to scout SAT Low Hanging Fruits from the other sections.
Sentence Error ID (Writing) questions are examples of the less conspicuous, but nevertheless low hanging fruits. They can be much more quickly dealt with than the Sentence and Passage Improvement ones that they are bundled with. After all, the SAT is about getting the most number of correct answers in the least amount of time. Folks should leap over to Sentence ID before attending to Sentence Improvement which is lined ahead of it.
The essay may not be easy to ace, but it is rare to come away empty-handed from it either, making it a low hanging fruit and there’s never any demerit penalty. Essay assignments are given in the form of questions. Although they are graded holistically, simply taking a position or point of view on their questions is legit mileage right there. It’s even crafty to restate content from the prompt box for fluff, and that too is legit.
Actually, nothing is really difficult in the SAT, tricky or tedious maybe, or often both. The rest are low hanging fruits but they cut both ways. Except for Math grid-ins, wrong answers are penalized. A neat Penang SAT analogy for it would be that missing an easy question is like dropping a fragrant durian, on your bare foot!
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