[ohcrap12345]

she's seriously being retarded ... she tells me "it's better to randomly guess if you don't know than leaving it blank" .... and i tell her "no, it's actually better to leave it blank because if you leave a question blank, you don't lose any points" ... and then she starts screaming at me and asking "THEN YOU COULD LEAVE EVERY QUESTION BLANK AND GET AN 800 RIGHT? YOU CAN DO THAT" ...... and i'm speechless.

[THEmerryJANE]

lol.

My mom stopped being like that after I got into college. maybe it'll be the same for you.

Sats are hyped up to be the major determinant of your future when they're really not that important, aside from undergrad admissions, nobody else cares what you made.

As you move up in college, there are bigger, better, and harder exams to pass anyways. I hardly think the SATs are worth stressing over.

[j i w o n.]

actually even though you lose points
it's statistically better to guess than leave it blank.
i'm not really sure ho wto explain my reasoning, but
this also depends on how experienced you are? like if you've been taking sat classes for a couple of year or something, then you would know when it would be better to guess/omit/whatever.

but if you don't want to argue with your mom
just tlel her okay
it's not like she'll know if you leave it blank or not when you actually take the test.

[Yuenie]

^ You should only guess when you can eliminate a couple options. If you have no clue at all for a question, don't kill your score by random guessing.

Here, explain it to your Mom with a simple example.

Explanation:
Step 1) You have 4 questions.
Step 2) Each answer left blank is no points lost, each wrong answer for a question is -0.25pts
Step 3) You leave the 4 questions blank; which you get 0 points.
Step 4) You get all 4 questions wrong; which you get -1 points now.
Step 5) You get 1 right and 3 wrong = net of 0 points; You get 1 right and leave 3 blank = net of 1 point

Explain it to her in basic math. And if she continues to nag at you or plain not understand, then just let her nag on and you do whatever works for you on the SAT. Not like she knows if you'll be leaving stuff blank or guessing or what not. She's not the one taking it.

[watcher]

^ how does the scoring work? how many points do you get for scoring right?

[edit]
i did a search on it and here's what i think.

to start, the collegeboard site says that each correct answer gains 1 point, while each answered wrong is subtracted by 1/(# of choices - 1). therefore, if there are 4 choices, you will lose 1/3 if you get it wrong, and 1 if you get it right.

the probability of you getting the answer right if you randomly selected is 1/4. which means, on average, you will get 1 right and get 3 wrong. the end effect would be 0 [(3 * -1/3) + 1] , which at least seems to suggest that despite the punishment, the gains made by the right choice will eventually even things out. the point is that if you dont even try and just guess them all, the rock bottom average is 0. no gain, no loss.

with that in mind, the general test taker will usually be able to eliminate one or two of the choices in most of the cases, which increases the probability of being right. so while the penalty might be -1/3, your chances of gain might be 1/3 [and not 1/4]. so if you answered 12 questions with educated guesses, you'd get 4 right and 8 wrong. plug in the math and you get 4 points - 2.67 points [1/4 penalty] and you come out 1.33 point positive.

this example suggests that as long as you can make educated guesses in those multiple choice questions, you might benefit from taking a guess anyways. the likelihood of you being on the positive is higher than you being negative, or zero for that matter.

i'm not too big of a stats guy, but thats my general impression. i'd guess to my heart's content.

[Yuenie]

^ but each question on the SAT has 5 choices. And I know for a fact that you DO lose 1/4 of a point for every question you get wrong and get a point for every question you get correct. When you are taking the SAT in realtime, the questions booklet even says you lose a quarter of a point for every question answered incorrectly. (Plus following your "each answered wrong is subtracted by 1/(# of choices - 1)" quote from collegeboard, 1/(5-1) = 1/4 too. I find it strange that collegeboard doesn't mention they provide 5 choices for each question.) That is why I said -0.25 earlier.

In the ACT, guessing to your heart's content would work. But for the SAT if you want a relatively high score (let's say something above 2000?), constant guessing, even with elimination of choices, will not be the best method all the time.

[evanbang]

just agree with her
and then do it your way
i doubt she's allowed in the testing room

[trabia-wind]

just guess
i highly doubt you won't be able to eliminate at least ONE or possibly two answers every time, even if it appears to be a ridiculously hard question.
as long as you are reasonably sure it isn't one of them, you will benefit (or at least break even) from guessing.

edit: if you aren't aiming for a high score though, you don't need to guess i suppose, as it wouldn't affect it much either way.
and don't guess on those fill in the blank ones.. though that pretty much goes without saying.

[432521]

I actually went to a seminar type thing for extra credit for AP test, but the guy also does lectures on SAT's and he was like "no matter what leave nothing blank blah blah blah" and then someone asked him " but I thought it was better to leave them blank if you didn't know anything unless u can eliminate at least one or two choice" but then the dude was like "trust me fill them all in blah blah blah". Ima trust him because he had brought some of his students with him and had proof of how good his students did... basically them all getting 4's and 5's.

[Izzie]

if you can't eliminate any answer choice, leave it blank.
if you can eliminate one answer choice, then you can either guess or leave it blank.
if you can eliminate two or more, guess.

as simple as that. and that's a fact.

[watcher]

^ but each question on the SAT has 5 choices. And I know for a fact that you DO lose 1/4 of a point for every question you get wrong and get a point for every question you get correct. When you are taking the SAT in realtime, the questions booklet even says you lose a quarter of a point for every question answered incorrectly. (Plus following your "each answered wrong is subtracted by 1/(# of choices - 1)" quote from collegeboard, 1/(5-1) = 1/4 too. I find it strange that collegeboard doesn't mention they provide 5 choices for each question.) That is why I said -0.25 earlier.

In the ACT, guessing to your heart's content would work. But for the SAT if you want a relatively high score (let's say something above 2000?), constant guessing, even with elimination of choices, will not be the best method all the time.

i'm not saying that you wont lose points. but the idea is that the penalty is worth taking the risk. also, whether it's 5, 4 or 3 questions, i dont see how that makes a difference. randomly guessing a 5-choice question right is 20%. which means on average, you will get 1 right and 4 wrong for each set of 5 questions. this would lead to 1 + (4*-.25) = 0.

but lets say on average, you can eliminate 1 choice out of 5. your chances of getting it right goes up to 25%. say you answer a set of 20 questions. probability says you're likely to get 5 right, and 15 wrong. this would amount to 5 + (15*-.25) = 1.25, which is ultimately greater 0 [the score you get for not answering].

lets say i make a bet with you, and the chances are 50/50. your chances of winning are the same as mine, but if you win, i give you 5 bucks. if i win, you give me 3 bucks. and we can bet up to 10 games. would you not bet me at all because you might lose 3 bucks to me?

sure, you can be extremely unlucky and lose more than half the games, but the more you play, the more it all evens out. that was what i am trying to get at