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The SSAT Upper Level tests math up to an 11th grade level — which means 8th and 9th graders sitting the exam will encounter topics they simply haven’t studied yet. This isn’t a gap in your student’s preparation. It’s built into the test. The question is which topics are likely to show up, how much prep each one deserves, and where the smart shortcuts are.

The short answer: Several topics on the SSAT Upper Level — advanced algebra, the coordinate plane, functions, and quadratics — go beyond what most 8th graders have covered in school. The good news is that the book Hacking the SSAT Upper Level Math was built around this reality: each chapter is designed to teach only how that topic actually appears on the test, and the harder chapters build on skills from the earlier ones. Quadratics get their own chapter not because students need to master FOIL and factoring, but because there’s a shortcut — the Choose 1 method — that handles the most common quadratic question type without any of that algebra.

What’s Actually on the SSAT That Students Haven’t Seen

The advanced content on the SSAT Upper Level falls into four broad areas. They’re not equally time-intensive, and they don’t all deserve the same amount of prep.

Advanced Algebra

By the time a student works through the intro algebra in Chapter 7, they have most of what they need for the harder algebra in Chapter 12. The content — rearranging multi-variable formulas, solving inequalities, working with absolute value — builds directly on skills they’ve already developed. 

The chapter also covers some specific SSAT question types that look confusing on the surface but follow predictable patterns once you’ve seen them. The SSAT’s algebra questions are different from school algebra in ways that matter — and Chapter 12 of Hacking the SSAT Upper Level Math addresses those specifically.

The Coordinate Plane

This one deserves its own honest assessment: the coordinate plane is a big topic. A student who has done graphing in school already has the foundation. But the questions the SSAT asks are not usually the simple kind — “which coordinates describe point A?” They tend to be more involved. Something like: if a line is reflected across the y-axis, what is the area of the triangle formed by the two lines and the x-axis?

That type of question requires knowing several things at once. It’s also unlikely to show up more than once every few tests.

The practical implication: learning the basics of coordinate geometry is worth doing. Going deep on every variation is probably not a good use of limited prep time, unless your student has had exposure to it in school and wants to build on a foundation that’s already there.

Chapter 15 of Hacking the SSAT Upper Level Math presents the coordinate plane with no assumed previous knowledge, so even a student who’s never seen it before could learn how to get every question right that might come up on the SSAT.

Functions

Functions are more approachable than they look. A lot of students freeze when they see \( f(x) \) notation — but once they understand that \( f(x) \) is just another way of writing \( y \), the notation stops being an obstacle.

What makes functions more manageable on the SSAT is that many of the questions are more interpretive than algebraic. A question might give a population growth equation and ask what percent the population increases each year. The answer comes from reading the equation correctly — not from doing complicated math. Chapter 18 covers each predictable function question type with step-by-step approaches that don’t require going deep into the underlying theory.

Quadratics — And the Shortcut That Changes the Calculus

Quadratics are in a category of their own — but not for the reason most people expect.

The traditional approach to quadratics involves FOIL, factoring, the quadratic formula, and connecting all of it to the graph of a parabola. Each step builds on the last. Even strong math students — including some older students Kelly Campbell has worked with — find factoring genuinely difficult. It’s a topic that takes real time.

Here’s the thing: Chapter 17 of Hacking the SSAT Upper Level Math doesn’t teach most of that. It was a deliberate decision. Quadratics appear once or twice per test. Teaching the full algebraic approach would make it the longest chapter in the book — for content with the lowest frequency on the test. Instead, the chapter teaches the shortcuts that handle the actual question types that appear.

The most common of those is the polynomial equivalency question:

Which of the following is equivalent to \( x^2 – 13x + 42 \)?

The traditional approach: factor the expression. The Choose 1 approach: plug in \( x = 1 \) and match the result to an answer choice.

The Choose 1 Method: A Full Worked Example

Step 1: Plug \( x = 1 \) into the original expression. This is your magic number.

\( 1^2 – 13(1) + 42 = 1 – 13 + 42 = 30 \)

Magic number: 30.

Step 2: Plug \( x = 1 \) into each answer choice.

Step 3: Match the magic number. Only C gives 30.

The answer is (C). No factoring. No FOIL. Just arithmetic.

If two answer choices give the same result when \( x = 1 \), try \( x = 2 \) as a tiebreaker — plug it into the original and into the tied choices. The unique match is correct.

Students who are familiar with factoring might think, it would have been faster to find two numbers that add to -13 and multiply to 42. But the reason this is a shortcut is because that original equation could also have a leading coefficient, or a higher exponent. \(6x^2 + x – 2\) is significantly harder to factor – and the Choose 1 strategy works on this too. 

In fact, Choose 1 works on any polynomial equivalency question, not just quadratics — it applies to higher-exponent expressions too. The full method is in Chapter 17 of the book.

What About the Other Quadratic Question Types?

Equivalency questions are the most common, but a few other types appear:

“Is this point on the graph?” — Plug the coordinate pair into the equation and check if the statement is true. No factoring needed.

“Which graph matches this equation?” — Plug a clearly visible point from one graph into each equation and see which makes a true statement.

“Throwing a ball” questions — These give a quadratic height equation and ask things like “when does the ball hit the ground?” Height equals zero at ground level, so plug in \( h = 0 \) and use the plug-in-answers strategy from Chapter 1.

Each of these has a step-by-step approach that doesn’t require the full algebraic machinery of quadratics.

How to Prioritize Prep Time

The right order for most students: build the foundation first. The highest-frequency content on the SSAT — fractions, percents, geometry, basic algebra, sequences, probability — is covered in Chapters 1–11. The Foundations Bundle covers all of that, and it’s where the most points are available.

The advanced chapters — Chapters 12–18 in the Complete Course — are for students targeting the top percentiles, and they’re sequenced to build on each other. A student who has time for the whole course will be well-prepared for every topic on the test. A student with limited time can go straight to Chapter 17 for the Choose 1 method and pick up points on quadratic questions without the weeks of investment that traditional quadratics prep would require.

If you’d like help figuring out the right prep path for your student’s timeline and target score, book a free 60-minute trial session. That conversation tends to clarify exactly where to focus.

Frequently Asked Questions: SSAT Math Topics Not Learned in School

What math topics on the SSAT Upper Level do most 8th graders not know yet?

The SSAT Upper Level tests content up to an 11th grade level, so 8th graders commonly encounter topics they haven’t fully studied: advanced algebra (multi-variable formulas, inequalities, absolute value), coordinate plane geometry, function notation, and quadratic equations. These topics appear in the later chapters of Hacking the SSAT Upper Level Math, sequenced after the foundational content that covers the highest-frequency questions.

Do you need to know how to factor quadratics for the SSAT?

Not necessarily. The most common quadratic question type on the SSAT is a polynomial equivalency question, and these can be solved with the Choose 1 method — no factoring required. Plug \( x = 1 \) into the original expression to get a magic number, then plug \( x = 1 \) into each answer choice. The matching answer is correct. This shortcut applies to any polynomial equivalency question, including those with higher exponents.

How many quadratic questions are on the SSAT Upper Level?

The SSAT Upper Level typically includes one or two quadratic questions per administration. Geometry alone makes up roughly 20% of the test, so quadratics represent a small fraction of the total questions. Because they appear so rarely, spending weeks learning the full algebra of quadratics is usually not the best use of prep time. The Choose 1 method and the graph-reading shortcuts in Chapter 17 are designed to handle these questions efficiently.

Should an 8th grader try to learn advanced math before the SSAT?

It depends on timeline and target score. A student with several months and a top-percentile goal should work through the full 18-chapter course — the advanced content builds deliberately from earlier chapters and is completely learnable with the right sequence. A student with limited time is better served mastering the foundational topics first, then using the shortcuts in Chapter 17 for quadratics. That approach captures the most points available given the time invested.