Sat math Essentials

a.
George Washington
b.
James Buchanan
c.
Millard Fillmore
d.
Franklin Pierce
e.
Abraham Lincoln
This question is much more difficult than the
previous question, isn’t it? Let’s examine what makes it
more complicated.
First, all the answer choices are actual presidents.
None of the answer choices is obviously wrong. Unless
you know exactly which president was the fourteenth,
the answer choices don’t give you any hints. As a result,
you may pick George Washington or Abraham Lincoln
because they are two of the best-known presidents.
This is exactly what the test writers would want you to
do! They included George Washington and Abraham
Lincoln because they want you to see a familiar name
and assume it’s the correct answer.
But what if you know that George Washington
was the first president and Abraham Lincoln was the
sixteenth president? The question gets even trickier
because the other two incorrect answer choices are
James Buchanan, the thirteenth president, and Mil-
lard Fillmore, the fifteenth president. In other words,
unless you happen to know that Franklin Pierce was the
fourteenth president, it would be very difficult to fig-
ure out he is the correct answer based solely on the
answer choices.
In fact, incorrect answer choices are often called
distracters
because they are designed to 
distract
you
from the correct answer choice.
This is why you should not assume that multiple-
choice questions are somehow easier than other types
of questions. They can be written to try to trip you up.
But don’t worry. There is an important technique
that you can use to help make answering multiple-
choice questions easier.
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T E C H N I Q U E S A N D S T R AT E G I E S