The digital SAT® on screen
Preparing for the questions is most of the work and it is not all of it. The digital SAT is taken inside an application, with a calculator, a timer and four tools in it, and a reader who has practiced for a month can still lose time on test day to an interface they have never seen.
Bluebook is the application the digital SAT runs in. You install it on the device you will test on and open it again on test day, and the whole test happens inside it — the questions, the timer, the calculator and the tools above. It also holds the test maker’s own full-length practice tests, which are the closest practice there is to the real thing and worth sitting at least one of.
4
tools in both sections
3
Math only
1
Reading and Writing only
Every tool on screen, and what it is for
Ordered by how much time each one gives back, not by where it sits in the app. The first two are worth more than the rest together.
- 1
Answer eliminator
Both sectionsCrosses out a choice you have ruled out, so it stops competing for your attention on every re-read.
Turn it on and use it on every question you are not immediately sure of. The cost of leaving a dead choice on screen is that you reconsider it each time your eye passes, and on a question you come back to later you have to redo the reasoning that killed it. Crossing it out is how you keep the work you already did.
The Elimination game is this tool - 2
Mark for review
Both sectionsFlags a question so you can find it again, and shows it flagged in the question list.
Flag anything you cannot begin within about fifteen seconds and move on. The flag is what makes skipping safe — it is the difference between leaving a question and losing it — and almost everyone who runs out of time ran out on a question they were never going to get.
Where skipping fits in a module - 3
Module timer
Both sectionsCounts down the time left in the module you are in, and can be hidden.
Hide it if it rattles you, but look at it at planned moments rather than constantly. Three glances in a module is enough to catch a problem while it is still fixable; watching it costs more attention than it saves.
Three checkpoints per module - 5
Built-in graphing calculator (Desmos)
MathA full graphing calculator on screen for every Math question, alongside the option of bringing your own approved one.
Reach for it when it does something you cannot do faster in your head: graphing an intersection, checking a messy root, working a system you have already set up. Typing two-step arithmetic into it is slower than doing the arithmetic, and setting up a graph to solve something you could factor is slower still. The habit worth building before test day is knowing which of those you are looking at.
What the test supplies, and what it does not - 6
Reference sheet
MathA panel of formulas available on every Math question.
Knowing what is on it is worth more than memorizing what is on it. The time it costs to open the panel is small; the time it costs to memorize a formula you were going to be given is a study session you could have spent somewhere else. The formulas that are not on it are the ones worth your memory.
The given column and the memorize column - 7
Annotation
Reading and WritingHighlights a span of the passage and lets you attach a note to it.
Use it sparingly and for one thing: marking the phrase that decides the question. Highlighting as you read is a habit from paper tests with long passages, and these passages are short enough that it mostly costs time. One highlight on the sentence your answer rests on is worth more than six on things that looked interesting.
Naming the phrase that supports your choice - 8
Student-produced response box
MathA box you type the answer into, on roughly a quarter of Math questions, instead of choosing from four options. Students often call these grid-ins, the name they had on the paper test.
There is nothing to eliminate and nothing to guess between, so these are the questions where a method either produces an answer or it does not. They also accept more than one written form of the same number, which is worth knowing so you do not spend time converting a fraction you were allowed to leave alone.
Work the Math bank, which includes them
Questions people arrive with
- What is Bluebook?
- Bluebook is the application the digital SAT runs in. You install it on the device you will test on and open it again on test day, and the whole test happens inside it — the questions, the timer, the calculator and the tools above. It also holds the test maker’s own full-length practice tests, which are the closest practice there is to the real thing and worth sitting at least one of.
- Is there a calculator on the digital SAT?
- Yes, and it is available on every Math question rather than on part of the section. A graphing calculator is built into the testing app, and you may also bring your own approved one. Having it throughout changes what is worth practicing: the skill is no longer arithmetic under pressure, it is recognizing which questions the calculator actually makes faster.
- Can I go back to a question I skipped?
- Within the same module, yes — that is what mark for review and the question navigator are for, and it is why skipping a question you cannot start is a good move rather than a loss. Once a module’s time is called you cannot return to it, so anything left blank at that point stays blank.
- What are grid-ins on the digital SAT?
- They are the Math questions with no answer choices, where you type your answer into a box instead. The official name is student-produced response; grid-in is the name they carried on the paper test and the one most people still use. They are about a quarter of the Math section.
- Should I practice in the real testing app?
- Yes, at least once. Practice on any site — this one included — rehearses the questions; only the real application rehearses the application. Sit one of its full-length practice tests so that nothing about the interface is new on test day, and use everything else for the part that actually takes a month to build, which is the method.
What is not on this page, on purpose. Test dates, registration, admission tickets, device requirements and what you may bring all change between administrations, and a stale answer about them is worse than none. They are published by the test maker, and that is the only place worth reading them.
Rehearse the tools, not just the questions
The two that give the most time back are both habits, and both can be built here. Elimination reverses the usual interaction so that ruling choices out is the whole move; the pacing page is where flagging and the last three minutes of a module are worked out.