Mark Zegarelli - SAT Math For Dummies with Online Practice

11 Chapter 15FIGURE 15-1: The real number line.FIGURE 15-2: Two examples of circles on the xy -plane.

1 Cover

2 Title Page

3 Copyright

4 Table of Contents

5 Begin Reading

6 Index

7 About the Author

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Just like going to the senior prom or getting a driver’s license, the SAT is one of those milestones in the life of a high school student. I wish I could say it was as much fun as those other things, but if I did, you probably wouldn’t believe anything else I say in the rest of the book.

But any way you slice it, the SAT is still there, scheduled for some Saturday morning a few weeks or months from now. Most colleges require you to submit an SAT score as part of your application process. So because there’s no getting around it and it’s not going away, your best bet is to do some preparation and get the best possible SAT score you can.

That’s where this book comes in. The entire book you have in your hot little hands right now is devoted to refining the math skills you need most to succeed on that all-important SATurday.

A lot of SAT prep books divide their attention among all three sections of the SAT: English, math, and the writing sample. This is fine as far as it goes, because you probably want to boost all three scores. But in this book, I focus exclusively on math, math, and more math to help you achieve the best score you can on this — what can I say? — most often dreaded part of the test.

The SAT covers a variety of areas, including algebra, geometry, trigonometry, functions and graphs, and statistics and probability. This book focuses on those SAT topics and helps you get used to problem-solving so that you can turn facts and formulas into useful tools.

I wrote this book to give you the best possible advantage at achieving a good score on the math portion of your SAT. There’s no shortcut, but most of what you need to work on comes down to four key factors:

Knowing the basics inside and out

Strengthening SAT-specific math skills

Practicing answering SAT questions

Time yourself taking SAT practice tests

For that last point, almost every example and problem here is written in SAT format — either as a multiple-choice question or as a student-produced grid-in question. Chapters 3to 15contain math skills that are essential to the SAT. And to give you that test-day experience, this book also includes two practice tests, with access to an additional online practice test. That’s hundreds and hundreds of questions designed to strengthen your “SAT muscle,” so to speak.

This book also has a few conventions to keep in mind:

New terms introduced in a chapter, as well as variables, are in italics.

Keywords in lists and numbered steps are in boldface.

Any websites appear in monofont.

For multiple-choice questions, that's a letter from (A) to (D). For grid-in questions, I write the answer as you’d fill it in on the test. So as a test answer, I give as 7/9 or .777 or .778, which are all acceptable ways to write it on your answer sheet.

This is an SAT prep book, so my first assumption is that you or someone you love (your son or daughter, mom or granddad, or perhaps your cat) is thinking about taking the SAT sometime in the future. If not, you’re still welcome to buy the book.