Why “Tips and Tricks” Don’t Work

The First in a 5-Part Series on SAT Myths

Welcome to my 5-part series on busting common SAT myths. In each installment, I’ll tackle one test prep practice or belief that—deep down—most parents and students probably suspect isn’t quite right, but that’s tempting to embrace anyway, especially when test day is looming and time feels short.

We’re starting with a big one: the idea that a handful of clever tips and tricks can meaningfully boost your score in a short time.

Every week, I come across another article promising “10 SAT Hacks That Will Transform Your Score” or “Secret Tricks the Test-Makers Don’t Want You to Know.” After 13 years of full-time SAT tutoring, I can tell you: these posts are written by marketers, not qualified prep tutors.

Here’s why the tips-and-tricks approach fails students—and what actually works instead.

Vague familiarity isn’t the same as usable knowledge.

Students often believe that grasping the “general idea” of a strategy should be enough. But understanding something conceptually and being able to apply it under pressure are two very different things. When you’re staring at two answer choices that both look correct, a vague sense that you should “predict what would happen if the claim were true” won’t save you.

What actually increases scores is knowing the specific step-by-step procedure for evaluating those choices, the precise grammar rule that governs the question, or the exact markers that identify what subtype you’re dealing with. These details need to be memorized—not just encountered once and half-remembered.

Generic advice provides the “what” but misses the “how.”

You’ve probably heard heuristics like “focus on the big picture,” “avoid extreme language,” or “predict before you look at the choices.” This advice isn’t necessarily wrong—it’s just often not useful. It’s the kind of thing that sounds good in a listicle but falls apart the moment you try to apply it.

How do you identify a passage’s main idea or reliably predict the forms of the answer choices? How exactly can you tell when language is too strong and when it’s not? These questions require real instruction, not fortune-cookie wisdom that makes you feel warm and fuzzy but breaks down as soon as you attempt to apply it.

Knowledge isn’t skill.

Even when students do learn the right strategies, there’s a gap between knowing what to do and being able to do it quickly and accurately on test day. This is because improvement on SAT Reading & Writing isn’t primarily about acquiring knowledge—it’s about developing skill. And skills are built through practice, not passive consumption. The strategies have to be worked in until they become automatic. Here’s the hard truth: under pressure, we don’t rise to the occasion. We fall back to the level of our training.

This is exactly why I designed my 10-week SAT Reading & Writing Score Accelerator program the way I did. The course, now open for enrollment, leads up to the March 14th SAT with 20 live Zoom sessions and 95+ comprehensive units covering every question type. It’s built for skill development—not just information transfer.

If you’re interested, you can learn more here.

Until next week,

Dave

---

Quick Note:

My friend Dave Peterson—aka Dave the Scholarship Coach—is running a special promotion over Winter Break through his daily newsletter, Your Daily Scholarship.

Each day will feature exclusive 24-hour deals on Scholarship GPS services and offers from his trusted partners, including one from yours truly. (I can’t say exactly what yet—you’ll have to subscribe to Dave’s newsletter to find out.)

These are among the best deals Dave offers all year, and each one lasts only 24 hours. If you’re not already subscribed, now’s the time: click here to subscribe to Your Daily Scholarship.