On the SAT's, does it actually BENEFIT to not fill in the questions you are unsure of?

Question

Obviously, the point of the test is to get as many points as possible, but if one if really unsure of, say 15 questions on the math section, would it benefit to simply leave them blank?

Answer 1

The SAT is set up so that for every question you answer correctly, you get 1 point, and for every question you answer incorrectly you get -.25 of a point. Theoreticaly, if you answered 15 questions at random, you would get 3 right (+3) and 12 wrong (-3 total), so complete random guessing THEORETICALLY will not earn you any points. They say that if you can eliminate one answer, it is worth guessing, because you will have an expected gain of +.25 of a point.

Hope that helps!!

Answer 2

they changed the SAT's since I took it, but when I took the SAT's (2002) it did not hurt you to not answer, but if you left too many blank, your score would never grow

Answer 3

No, because I think they can still give you points. But im not certain.