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Step 1
First, it is essential that you understand how the questions on the math section are scored. Some of the questions are called "student produced response questions." These are more commonly known as "grid-ins." If nothing else, it is absolutely essential that you understand the proper way of formatting your answer for these questions. Another article of mine covers that topic. For this article, what you need to know is that there is no penalty at all for guessing wrong on a grid-in question. In other words, you will lose the same amount of points if you leave it blank as if you take a guess. Don't ever leave any grid-in question blank. Just look at the problem and take your best guess if you're not sure how to answer it.
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Step 2
Most of the questions on the SAT math section are multiple choice, with five answer choices. Here is how the scoring works: For every question you get right, you get a point. For every question you get wrong, you lose one-quarter of a point. Since a question has five answer choices, if you guess on 5 questions, it is most likely that you will get one question right, and four wrong. For the four wrong you lose one-quarter point times 4, or 1 point, which cancels out the one point you earned for the correct answer. In other words, you broke even at 0. The test was designed this way so that students would not likely earn any points just from pure random guessing.
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Step 3
Understand that guessing always involves the law of probability over the long-term. What that means is that you could guess on 5 questions, and get all 5 right. You could guess on 20 questions and get all 20 wrong. However, if you guess on any question, then from a probability standpoint you have a 20% chance of getting it right, just like you have a 50% chance of a coin landing on heads on an individual flip.
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Step 4
With that said, if you have absolutely no idea of how to do a question, and you are unable to eliminate any answers at all, and if your intuition is not guiding you toward any particular answer, then simply omit the question. Be careful to not get your numbering mixed up on your answer sheet.
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Step 5
Understand that it is not very often that this will be the case. Look at the answer choices of each question very carefully. Often you can eliminate at least one answer as definitely or probably wrong. You might see right away that it is too big or too small. You might know that the answer has to be negative, which means you can eliminate the positive answers. You might be able to substitute an answer choice into the problem to see it works. Or, you might be able to eliminate answers just based on your intuition and math experience, even if you can't exactly explain how.
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Step 6
Understand that if you can eliminate at least one answer from the five choices, then you should guess. If you guess, the odds are simply in your favor over the long haul. Many students don't like this idea, and argue the point that they may still get the question wrong, and they don't want to risk it. From a probability standpoint, this is a poor decision. The only time you shouldn't guess is if you have absolutely no idea whatsoever as to what the right answer is. If you can eliminate at least one answer on a question, then take your best guess.
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Step 7
Let's look at an example. Pretend that you can eliminate two answers on every question, and are left to guess from three choices. Out of 30 questions, the most likely occurrence is that you will get 10 questions right, and 20 wrong. You will score 10 points for the correct answers, and lose one-quarter point times 20, or 5 points for the wrong answers, giving you a score of 15 in your favor, instead of 0 if you had omitted all of those questions. Still, there are no guarantees that your guesses will work out that way. You could still guess every question wrong, but it isn't likely, just as it isn't likely that you could flip a coin 30 times, and have it land on heads 27 times. It is most likely that it will land on heads between 13 and 17 times, as expected.
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Step 8
In summary, never leave a grid-in question blank. Take your best shot at it. You are not penalized for guesses on those questions. For a multiple choice question, if you have absolutely no idea what the right answer could be, then omit it. If you are even slightly guided toward one answer, or if you can eliminate at least one wrong answer, then guess. Good luck!
