How do I stop misreading SAT® math word problems?

By deciding what the answer is before you start calculating. Most misreadings in SAT word problems happen in the same few places: the quantity the question asks for, rates written the wrong way round, and units that change halfway through. The wrong answers are built from exactly those misreadings, so a misread almost always has a choice waiting for it.

Why it happens to good math students

Strong students read word problems quickly, find the numbers, and start working. The math is right. But the question asked for something slightly different — the difference instead of the total, the cost per item instead of the total cost, minutes instead of hours — and the test offers the answer to the question they solved.

That is why this mistake feels so frustrating: you did the hard part, and lost the point on the easy part.

One example

Rates can always be written two ways — pages per minute or minutes per page, dollars per gallon or gallons per dollar — and the test often includes both. The one you want is decided by the last line of the question, not by which division feels natural.

A habit that fixes most of it

Write the answer’s unit first. Before calculating, write what the answer will be, with its unit: “____ minutes per page”. Then set up the calculation so that the units come out that way. Minutes on top, pages on the bottom.

Underline the last line. The quantity the question wants is almost always in its last sentence. Read it again after you finish, and check that your answer is that quantity and not a step on the way to it.

Keep units next to numbers. When a problem mixes hours and minutes, or cents and dollars, write the unit next to every number you use. Unit changes are one of the most common sources of wrong choices, and they are almost impossible to see if the units aren’t written down.

Know where you slip

Most students misread in one or two consistent ways, not all of them. Look at your last few wrong answers on word problems and write, for each one, what you answered instead of what was asked. If the same kind of switch keeps appearing, that is the one check you need every time.

This happens to a lot of people. What you don't know yet is whether it happens to you, and with which one. Sixteen questions will tell you.

Try the sixteen free questions

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