Let me tell you my experience: There was one question I spent 5 minutes and there was one question I spent 0 minute (I left it a blank). For the former, I earned zero, got penalty-deduction for being wrong, and lost time to solve a few questions. Ouch. You see, it is like a triple damage. So you need to change your mindset: don’t be a perfectionist!
- Get used to (even rejoice) leaving blank answers. (Blank is your friend!)
- On each blank, spend less than 10 seconds. (Decide to leave blank fast.)
- Come back to them later only if you have time.
- If not, simply submit them blank.
SSAT math has quite a margin of forgiveness: you can get like 5 “wrongs” and still obtain 96 Quant. That means you can leave about 7 blanks and get a similar score. And 96 is all you need math-wise even for a tippy-top school.
Tip: Study very basic data science, such as statistics, probability etc. A number of questions on this would almost always show up, and it is an either-or proposition: if you have the slightest knowledge, they are virtual freebies; if you don’t, you simply lose the whole pack. A useful strategy is attacking freebies from advanced chapters, rather than the reverse. SSAT might give you either AMC questions out of grade 7 math, or freebies from grade 9 math (but rarely AMC questions from grade 9 math!). Forget the former and focus on picking up the latter, which are far easier if only you understand a few new concepts from our good old Khan Academy.