How can I avoid running out of time on the SAT Math section?

Question

Time pressure is a real challenge. Here’s how I help students stay accurate and efficient during SAT Math.

Answer 1

Hello, thank you for taking the time to post your question!

One major tip you can use is to take a two-pass approach … what that means is to first go through quickly and answer the questions in the section that you feel confident about. Then when you have time left at the end you can come back and rework the ones that you found to be challenging or time-consuming on the first pass. That approach allows you to avoid getting stuck and wasting too much time on a single problem.

It also helps to do practice exams because it gives you a feel for what the timed conditions will be like on Exam Day and lets you get a feel for the pacing.

Hopefully that gets you moving in the right direction! Feel free to reach out if you have any questions beyond that :)

Answer 2

A good time management tip is doing the test in personal order of difficulty. The SAT puts easier questions and the beginning and getting continually more difficult throughout each module. However, whatever math you're in at the moment may be easier for you, since it's fresher in your mind. Also, you just may be better at some things that SAT deems difficult. So here what is recommended. You want to go through the module twice.

On the 1st run, you'll do one of these on every question:

1. Work and answer - this is for any question that you immediately know how to do and can do quickly
2. Mark and move - this is for any question that you don't know how to work at all. Mark an answer and move on. Do not spend time on these
3. Mark for review - this is for questions that you can answer, but will take more time. If you're going to need to plug in the answers on at a time, it falls in this category, along with problems that are more difficult that just take more than a minute to do.

On the 2nd run, you'll just do the questions you've marked for review.

If you notice you're down to your last minute, make sure you have answered every question!

Also, it may seem strange, but work on knowing how to type. Desmos is your best friend on the test, but not if you're slow on getting things entered on it.

Answer 3

Pacing is one of the top reasons students underperform on the SAT Math section—even when they know the content. I help students build both speed and accuracy by:

- Teaching question triage (solve-easy, skip-hard, return later)

- Practicing mental math strategies

- Working backward from answer choices

- Identifying patterns in question types and placement

We also do full-length timed sections to simulate real testing conditions. The goal is to help students feel in control of the clock—not panicked by it. With smart strategies and structured practice, finishing on time becomes much more manageable.