Great News! Guessing on the NEW SAT (2016) is not penalized.
Guessing
on the old SAT [historical information]
Information provided by www.kaptest.com
There is no such thing as a guessing
penalty on the SAT. There is, however, a wrong answer penalty. The
wrong answer penalty is designed so that students who guess randomly
won't earn extra points for the effort.
Here's how the wrong answer penalty
works:
* You get 1 point for every correct
answer
* You get a fraction of a point taken off for every incorrect
answer (excepting Grid-ins)
| Type of Answer |
Correct Answer |
Left Blank |
Wrong Answer
|
Wrong Answer on QC |
Wrong Answer on Grid-in |
| Raw points |
1 point |
0 points |
-1/4 point |
-1/3 point |
0 points |
As you can see, you get the same number
of points for any correct answer (1 point), however, the amount
subtracted from your score for a wrong answer varies according to
question type. You get a 1/4 point off for most question types.
So:
|
Strategy Tip:
You should never guess randomly on the SAT. However, if you
can rule out at least one answer choice on a question you
don't know, it is worth it to guess.
|
The more wrong answer choices you
eliminate, the more likely it is that you will beat the wrong answer
penalty and get a higher score. Also: since there is no wrong answer
choice penalty for Grid-ins, guess to your heart's content on that
question type.
|
