The arithmetic
100 questions, 180 minutes. That is an average of 1 minute 48 seconds per question — generous compared with most admissions exams, and the reason pacing failures here are rarely about raw speed.
The exam does not divide that time for your child. There is no bell between ELA and mathematics. A student who spends two hours on ELA has one hour left for fifty mathematics questions, and nothing will stop them doing it.
A workable split
A reasonable target is roughly ninety minutes on each section, with a checkpoint rather than a rigid rule. What matters is that the student knows, at a glance, whether they are ahead or behind — and that they have practiced the feeling of being behind, which is when judgment collapses.
Why the mathematics section now needs its own plan
From fall 2026 the mathematics section is forward only. A student cannot skip a hard question and return to it. Every question has to be resolved when it appears, which means the decision is no longer “shall I come back to this?” but “how long is this one worth?”
A practical rule: if a question is not making progress after about ninety seconds, eliminate what can be eliminated, choose, and move. There is no penalty for a wrong answer, so a considered guess costs nothing and a blank costs a mark.
The mistake that costs the most
Not slowness. Rereading. Students who run out of time have usually read several passages twice, because the first reading was done without knowing what they were looking for. Reading the questions first, then the passage, is a habit that takes a few practice sittings to build and returns several minutes.
Practicing pacing rather than content
Pacing cannot be learned untimed. It also cannot be learned from a paper practice test, because paper lets a student flip back through the mathematics section and the real exam will not.
Our SHSAT practice exams run the real clock and the real navigation rules, and the report shows how long was spent where. If you want to see the question style first, ten free questions are free.
Practice the real thing
Our SHSAT exams are full length and written from scratch — every wrong answer carries its own explanation, so a child learns what they got wrong and why. Ten questions are free, with no account and no card. After that it is five credits an exam.