Students arriving from the Turkish curriculum usually find the topic list smaller than expected. Algebra, linear and quadratic relationships, a limited amount of geometry and trigonometry, ratios, percentages and basic statistics. Calculus is absent.
The topic set is narrow
Because the list is short, a student who has completed the equivalent school years already knows most of the mathematics. This produces a familiar situation: the topics are known and the score does not move.
The explanation is not the mathematics. It is where the question hides.
The real difficulty is in the text
A large share of questions are set as short scenarios. The mathematical step, once written down, is often two lines. Getting to those two lines is the exam.
The method that works is mechanical: read the question, write in one sentence what is being asked, name the unknown, then build the equation. Students who begin calculating before that sentence exists lose time and reach the wrong quantity.
The calculator is allowed throughout
There is no separate no calculator module in the Digital SAT. A calculator may be used across the whole section, and a Desmos graphing tool is built into the exam screen.
The tool rewards preparation. A student who has practised solving and intersecting graphically will use it to answer questions faster than algebra allows; a student meeting it for the first time on exam day will mostly lose time to it.
Student produced response questions
A portion of questions require the answer to be typed rather than selected. There are no options to eliminate and no partial credit.
These items reward checking. The most common loss here is not a wrong method but a correct method entered in the wrong form, so the accepted formats are worth practising deliberately.
How to study
Topic revision first where a gap actually exists, and no further. After that, volume on scenario questions with the one sentence step written out every time, until it stops being a step and becomes a habit.