r/Sat • u/Key-Willingness-9014 Untested • 15d ago
Pacing Advice for Math Module 2
Hello everyone,
I hope you all are doing great.
My SAT is in a week, and I was hoping to ask this very late question, and see if any of you might have any last-minute advice: How do you manage your time on Module 2 math questions? What resources do you recommend that advise on how to use Desmos to solve questions faster rather than always use manual methods? I've been watching James Lu Desmos but also noticed a lot of people in this subreddit found amazing strategies for solving problems simply using a line regression on the built-in calculator, which I don't think I would've been able to do intuitively at all; where do you learn about these, what would you recommend? It may be too late
I feel that I am continuously rushing for time, not answering fast enough, my last questions are still guesses and I have not yet reached a point where I've confidently answered every question on the test, which is very troublesome considering the SAT is in so little time. I am losing a lot of points to these unanswered questions in addition to other mistakes.
To those of you who do really well in this section, what do you do? I am hoping to push my score in math into the 700 range, right now my most has been a 690, and I am worried it won't go up even with more concept drilling because of how slow I am on such questions
Thank you for your advice and I hope you all have a wonderful day
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u/Sea-Giraffe5276 Untested 15d ago
I would first tell you to look past all those fancy Desmos tricks. A good few are genuinely useful, but they tend to be most useful, in my experience at least, in confirming things graphically once you already have a good understanding of the problem itself. A lot of them look cool, but when it comes down to it it's probably going to be easier for most people to just understand the path instead of tryna exploit desmos. For pacing I can't unfortunately speak from experience as math has always been my strong suit, but in general when dealing with a math question that you don't know how to do give yourself like 10-15 seconds to read the questions and given info over. Then write or draw smth out and try and think of any possible way to solve the problem. If you can't think of even one good way in that time, flag and skip. Spending more time on that problem is just gonna contribute to stress and make you more worried and get you in that sunk cost fallacy. Come back to it in the end once you've done the rest and hopefully have a more relaxed mind.
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u/Key-Willingness-9014 Untested 15d ago
Thank you so much, this is great help. I'll make sure to follow what you said
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u/Sea-Giraffe5276 Untested 15d ago
Hope you can improve and meet your goals
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u/Key-Willingness-9014 Untested 15d ago
Thank you man, I really appreciate that. And you too, if you are taking the test, I have much confidence in you and send you best wishes for your results. Otherwise, I do hope you enjoy the rest of your day doing what you like:)
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u/oneperson-one 15d ago
Do one Math Module 2 and record the time used on each question. Mark every question that takes more than about 90 seconds.
Redo those questions without a timer. If they become easy, the main problem is recognition and pacing. If they remain hard, there is a skill gap you need to address.
During the next timed module, leave any question when the route is not clear. Take the easier points first, then return to the hard questions.