While the SAT math section does not use scientific notation that much, it is a good idea to know how to use it correctly. Scientific notation is used for really large or small numbers. To more easily display these large numbers, they are shown as the number times 10 to a certain power. For example, instead of writing 5,444,000,000,000 it would be 5.444 x 1012.  It should be noted however that scientific notation always consists of a number in the "ones" place and is followed by a decimal to cover the other places once it is multiplied out. The exponent that is used with the number ten will be determined by the number of spots the decimal place needed to be moved.  TIP: On of the trickiest questions for scientific notation on the SAT math section comes with trying to fix an answer.