SAT in Danville, or any city across the United States, may cause a variety of reactions for almost every high school students. Some reactions will be positive excitement. Others will be moans and alarmed, frightened looks.

But fear not! You don’t have to feel super-smart when you take the SAT. With a few useful tips and tricks, and the right amount of confidence, they will help you do well on the SAT. You also don’t have to feel pressured because you are well prepared and can take your time.

1. One of the most usual strategies for answering the questions on the test is the use of process of elimination. Get rid as many wrong choices as you can before answering the question. For the Critical Reading portion, for example, look for extremes like “never,” “only,” and “always.” Look for opposites in Math such as -1 for 1. Wrong answers are often easy to spot. When you find the wrong answers, you will be able to answer correctly because you have eliminated the wrong choices.

2. Until the revised SAT, which will launch in March 2016, students are recommended to leave the question blank where you are not familiar with any of the answer choices. If you’re in doubt, it’s best to leave the question unanswered, which leaves no penalty. It is better that you get zero points for the blank question, than a quarter point reduction for incorrect guessing. This trick would apply for all portions of the test except for the math grid-ins.

The soon-to-be-revised SAT, however, will offer no penalty for wrong answer choices.

3. Make the test booklet your own. Use the test booklet to scratch out wrong choices (the process of elimination, again), jot down formulas and equations, solve math problems, mark up geometry diagrams, come up with a word or two to complete the sentence, etc. Use the test booklet to your advantage since no one else is going to read what you have written there.

4. Use every second available when you are taking the exam. If you are stuck too long with one question, skip it. Finish the rest of the test and if you have time remaining, use that time to revisit what you’ve skipped.

5. Know the order of difficulty in your SAT test. The test is split into three levels of difficulty: easy, medium and hard. The questions in the first third of each section are easy to answer, the questions in the second third are moderate, and the questions in the final third are hard.

Each of these questions is equal in worth, despite their level of difficulty. Make sure that you have tackled the easy and moderate questions first before delving into the difficult questions, when time permits. It’s better than being in a hurry to get to the hardest questions, and possibly miss them, which will drag your score down.

6. Relax and unwind, especially on the day before the exam day. Agitated students spend several days or weeks before the exam day locked up in their rooms, feverishly studying, and reviewing.

There’s nothing wrong in being sure you are prepared. You may be thinking of the exam too much and begin fearing that you will forget what you know. You also need to let go of the pressure. Lie down and listen to music, take a rest, get enough sleep, and keep your mind clear of the clutter. It’s important that you are physically ready, aside from being mentally ready, on the day of the exam. A well-rested student will have a better chance to score well compared with a sleepy student who comes to the exam nervous.

These are only the few of the tips we can give you on taking the SAT. And most of all, always keep in mind that the most important thing about the exam is that it’s not a measurement of your intelligence, nor is it an indicator of your future success in college. The SAT in Danville assesses one thing and one thing only: how good you are in taking the test.