SAT Universal
An extraordinary digital SAT test prep option
Start with the best content
Khan Academy is a great free resource with official problems, but you wish it included more practice material. Costly premium options push their own unverified, made-up problems, but that won’t do as everyone knows. When it comes to practice problems, you want official or actual SAT exam questions—nothing less. And you want more of it.
SAT Universal helps you get what you want. There is an enormous repository of free official SAT problems and actual SAT exams that has built up over the years.
- New official digital SAT problems on Khan Academy, Blue Book, and paper tests
- Paper SAT official exams (mostly still relevant and useful)
- Actual SAT Exams (also largely relevant for the digital exam)
Combined, this repository includes many thousands of quality problems for practice. There is a reason this disparate content built up over the years. It is the best and you should not settle for less. There has traditionally been a problem too: the content has been fragmented and did not have a repository of answer explanations to match. SAT Universal seeks to overcome these shortcomings.
In its simplest form, SAT Universal is an electronic bubble in answer sheet that allows you to easily connect these quality resources to our powerful back-end analytics. We provide the analysis and insight on this vast repository that no one else does and combine it with individualized analysis tools (not another cookie-cutter, check the box complete LMS course) to help you drive improved performance in less time.
Try SAT Universal risk free for 10 days for about the cost of another SAT guidebook. $24.99 one-time fee.
Add insightful analysis
Answer explanations and useful insight into the entire repository of SAT problems
One of the shortcomings of the disparate official and actual SAT content built up over time has always been a lack of complete answer explanations: in many cases no explanations at all and in others less useful reviews. If there existed a universal repository of answer explanations for this excellent content, we believe there would be no need for any other platform. SAT Universal includes thorough answer explanations, including written and video answer explanations, for all the source material. In short, we provide an essential value-add service to the content you prefer. One platform. Unparalleled analysis.
Not all answer explanations are created equal!
We remember opening up the Erica Meltzer SAT reading and grammar series as well as the SAT Prep Black Book for the first time after reading considerable other SAT prep materials. The experience felt like putting on glasses with the correct prescription for the first time. Both guides helped to lay bare the test design and provided unparalleled insight not offered by other sources, not even the official ones. Our answer explanations and exam analysis are designed in the same spirit. We provide explanations and insights, including tips, that you will not get from the official sources or most any source.
Let’s take a look at a new reading question format on the digital SAT exam: an inference or logically completes the text question.
Mosses can struggle in harsh desert conditions because these plants require enough sunlight for photosynthesis but not so much that they risk drying out. Researchers Jenna Ekwealor and Kirsten M. Fisher found several species of Syntrichia caninervis, a type of desert moss, growing under quartz crystals in California’s Mojave Desert. To evaluate whether these semitransparent rocks benefited the moss, the researchers compared the shoot tissue, a measure of plant growth, of S. caninervis when growing on the soil surface versus when the moss was growing under the quartz rocks. They found that the shoot tissue was 62% longer for moss growing under the quartz as compared to moss on the soil surface, suggesting that______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
A. S. caninervis is one of the few types of moss that can survive under semitransparent rocks.
B. quartz crystals do not transmit the necessary sunlight for photosynthesis in S. caninervis.
C. S. caninervis growing under quartz crystals experience lower light intensity and are thus able to retain more moisture.
D. quartz crystals are capable of supporting S. caninervis growth if the crystals are not too thin
Official Answer Explanation
Correct Answer: C
Rationale
Choice C is the best answer because it most logically completes the text. The text explains that while desert moss species need sufficient sunlight for photosynthesis, exposure to sunlight can also affect the plants negatively by drying them out. Ekwealor and Fisher’s team found specimens of S. caninervis moss growing under quartz crystals that were semitransparent, allowing some but not all sunlight to pass through them, and the shoot tissue of these specimens was longer than that of S. caninervis specimens found growing on the surface that were unprotected by such crystals. Since, as the text explains, the length of shoot tissue is an indicator of plant growth, and since greater exposure to sunlight results in greater loss of moisture, it can be inferred that S. caninervis growing under quartz crystals experience lower light intensity and are thus able to retain more moisture.
Choice A is incorrect because the text doesn’t mention another moss species besides S. caninervis or discuss
whether other such species are able to grow under transparent crystals, as S. caninervis is. Choice B is incorrect because, as the text explains, specimens of S. caninervis were found growing under quartz crystals and exhibited more plant growth than specimens growing on the soil surface. This wouldn’t have been the case if the crystals transmitted insufficient light for the moss’s photosynthesis. Choice D is incorrect. The text contrasts the growth of S. caninervis specimens found beneath semitransparent quartz crystals with that of specimens found on the soil surface absent such crystals, but it doesn’t make a comparison among specimens growing beneath crystals of different degrees of thickness or consider how the relative thickness of the crystals affects the growth of the moss.
This typical answer explanation is long and bears no resemblance to your solution strategy. It can be tough to follow in many cases and perhaps as confusing and time consuming as the problem itself.
Try SAT Universal risk free for 10 days for about the cost of another SAT guidebook. $24.99 one-time fee.
Our Answer Explanation
First, we start by teaching you how to solve this type of problem. It requires deeper, proactive analysis than most problems, but it ultimately boils down to a simple, core logic we present as a quick first take.
Core Logic:
Paragraph Evidence/Hypothesis: Mosses (a type of plant) in the desert need some sunlight for photosynthesis but not too much or they dry out. Researchers tested the growth of moss under a certain rock and away from the rocks on the ground.
Last sentence(s) Premise: The growth of moss below the rock was greater, suggesting…
Conclusion: The moss under the rock doesn’t dry out and still has enough light for photosynthesis, thus growing more.
Students can quickly compare their own predictions to our logic. Did it match? If further analysis is required, they can watch us solve the problem in a video, complete with our analysis approach and review of wrong answers.
Which explanation do you prefer?
We hope you agree our approach is more effective. It is designed around the solution methods we teach you. It allows students to quickly assess mistakes, yet it provides a thorough problem analysis as needed. In short, our goal is to help you learn better and more quickly.
The platform that pulls it all together
SAT Universal is a tool, as individual as you make it. It is designed to help you track your own performance not only on exams but also for every type of question and difficulty you will encounter on the digital SAT. It places the detailed performance data in your hands to help you (and possibly your instructor) identify your weaknesses, learn how to correct them, and then prove you can execute on the real exam.
SAT Universal is driven by your performance at every step. It isn’t a cookie-cutter LMS program that shows 100% complete as if you need to study every topic. The goal is not to push a schedule or provide check boxes to complete although you could use it like that if you need to learn most all the material. We know many of you don’t and everybody’s starting level is different. Our platform is intuitive and simple. Take a test module. Review your performance details and dig deeper into mistakes. Learn to correct those mistakes and take focused short exercises with similar real problems. Drive your weakest topic scores upward. As you see you have filled your gaps, then take another module. Don’t waste time on topics you already know. You are the driver. We are simply providing a clear windshield to let you see the road ahead and take the best course for you. Most LMS platforms are the equivalent of a guy in the passenger seat telling you where and when to turn as you navigate everywhere in town. The guy might be your best friend and even customize his directions for you, but there is still a reason most people choose to prep by alternate means. That approach is just not efficient. SAT Universal puts you (and your instructor) in the driver seat.
Try SAT Universal risk free for 10 days for about the cost of another SAT guidebook. $24.99 one-time fee.
Take an exam module to benchmark your score
It’s simple. Start with an exam module.
We know most of you want to jump right into an exam. Great!
You can do one of two basic activities when you log into SAT Universal: take an exam module to benchmark your scores or improve your weak areas by practicing, learning about, and filtering your results for every question topic and category.
During the exam, you can flag questions for review and even rate the problems you find difficult as you go—extremely useful for post-exam review. Once you submit your exam, it is automatically graded, you receive a score report onscreen, a score report by email, and your result is recorded on the dashboard to compare to recent exams and drill down into the details at any future time. On the dashboard, simply click the exam name to see your detailed results color coded for ease of use along with additional critical details for each question. Drill down further into any answer explanation or link directly from a given question to related lessons (or use your instructor to help).
Additionally, your results are captured on the question topics page where you can quickly assess your strengths and weaknesses and begin to begin to drive score improvements.
Try SAT Universal risk free for 10 days for about the cost of another SAT guidebook. $24.99 one-time fee.
Improve your performance where necessary
It’s simple. Review your results for each topic, learn about that topic, and practice that topic to prove you can execute for the exam.
Some students like to begin on the category page because this is where your improvement happens. Others use it as a supplement to periodic exams. It’s your car. You drive. Your windshield is in front of you at the top. You will see your scores for each question topic sorted worst to best. Use it to focus your effort and drive your weak scores higher.
Below this chart, the exam section(s) is divided into question topics. There are three basic activities to perform on each topic: review all the questions you took for that topic, access lessons on that topic, and practice SAT problems for that topic. All the while, your goal is to drive the low bars higher. Simple enough?
