Guessing

Guessing on the SAT is a matter of math. There is a 20% chance of guessing correctly if the student cannot eliminate any of the answers; a 25% chance if she can eliminate just one answer; a 33% chance if two answers can be eliminated; and a 50% chance if three can be eliminated. Because of the way the SAT is scored, there is no statistical advantage to guessing on an SAT question without first eliminating one answer choice. Most test prep advisory services instruct students to guess if they can eliminate at least one answer. I believe that a student should not guess unless she can eliminate at least two answers. This is especially true at the end of a math section or at the end of a sentence completion sequence where the difficulty factor of the questions are high, making it much harder to find the correct answers.