<p>I recently went through the exercise of reviewing the math section of the October 2012 SAT, and to see how much repetition do the tests have as far as the questions are concerned. I found that about 30% of the questions were very close to or similar to the questions that have been tested in past SATs. </p>
<p>Here is an example of a question from October 2012 SAT(Section 9, Q13):</p>
<p>“Company X packages cookies in boxes, targeting the weight of a box of cookies to be 500 grams. Any box of cookies that is within 15 grams of the target weight is acceptable. Which of the following represents all possible acceptable values of the weight, w, in grams, of a box of cookies?”</p>
<p>Answer: |w - 500| ≤ 15 </p>
<p>Here is a similar question from the Official SAT Study Guide 2nd Edition(TEST 5 SECTION 8 QUESTION 9): </p>
<p>“A regulation for riding a certain amusement park ride requires that a child be between 30 inches and 50 inches tall. Which of the following inequalities can be used to determine whether or not the child’s height H satisfies the regulation for this ride?”</p>
<p>Answer: |h - 40| < 10 </p>
<p>Collegeboard does adhere very closely to a set types of ideas that they keep on asking in slightly different forms. My point is that it is best to go through as many official SAT questions that one can in their preparation because they are likely going to be a lot more comfortable in the exam with at least a good chunk of the questions, and it gives one a massive advantage to have seen a similar question before. That is why anyone who takes SAT with little to no preparation will likely do significantly worse than if they did prepare for it, unless you are someone who does well on AMCs, in that case you can go in cold and ace the SAT math.</p>