Question Triage — Easy, Medium, Hard

SAT Math · Axiom Academy

Question Triage: Easy, Medium, Hard Identify difficulty levels quickly and maximize your score Question triage is the skill of quickly identifying a question's difficulty level within the first 10-15 seconds of reading it. This is crucial for your 3-pass strategy because you need to know whether to tackle a problem immediately or skip it for later. Speed: By quickly categorizing problems, you avoid wasting time on problems that don't fit your current phase (easy pass, medium pass, hard pass). Confidence: Knowing a problem is hard gives you confidence to skip it early. You're not second-guessing yourself. Optimal Ordering: You can choose the optimal order to solve problems, not the order the test presents them in. Every SAT Math question falls into one of three difficulty categories. Let's learn the characteristics of each. Easy (Pass 1): Solve immediately. These are your foundation points. Missing an easy question is costly. Medium (Pass 2): Approach carefully. These questions separate good scores (650-700) from great scores (700-750). Invest time here. Hard (Pass 3): Attempt strategically. You might not solve all of them, and that's okay. Solve the ones you understand, guess on the rest. How do you identify difficulty level in the first 10-15 seconds? Look for these signals. Easy: Short problem (1-2 sentences). Direct question: "What is 15% of 80?"

This is the written version of the interactive lesson above. See the full SAT Math course.